White Spot - Safe to Treat Whole Community Tank?

[Barracuda]

My new clown loaches seems to have developed white spot, just days after I recently treated my rummynoses in a seperate tank. I am thinking now that the disease must be in the community tank somewhere - so I think I should treat the whole tank. I have turned up the temperature in the tank to 28 degrees.

My only concern is that I have quite a lot of sensitive fish in there, including peppermint bns, sterbai corys, clown loaches, rummynoses, diamond tetras...(all juvies). I have Wardley Ickaway medication - anyone used it before? Is it safe to use in a community tank with my fish? Will a half dose be ok?

Will this medication kill my bacteria in the filter? I also have Chemi-Pure in the filter (sort of like purigen). Should I remove this? Will this "die" if left out of water?

Any other things you can recommend?

Thanks in advance, any input or opinions would be appreciated.

[lpiasente]

It does kill the bacteria in your filter. What you can do is add a sponge filter to your community tank and keep you existing filter running through a bucket of tretaed water to keep your bacteria alive ( I have done this). I do believe that on loaches and tetras it does have to be used at half the dosage rate. NOt sure about the chemi pure though as I don't know what it is. IME wardley is fantastic for clearing up white spot. Good luck.

[Barracuda]

Chemi-pure is sort of like carbon

[ILLUSN]

if you use ick away with peps you will kill them,
ick away uses malachite green.

NEVER PUT THIS CHEMICAL ANYWHERE NEAR SCALESS CATFISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

acriflavin isn't much better

raise temp to 32C, increase airation, add salt at 2 tablespoons/100L, add another 2 table spoons/100L 24hrs later.

the ick will clear within 72hrs of the second dose, keep temp high for 1 week then drop to 30 for a week then to 28C for a week.

chemi pure will remove meds from the water, it wont remove salt, if your just doing a salt treatment leave it in. also while treating its best to do a 25% change every 3 days when you do so replace the salt you've take out, (ie in a 400L tank remove 100L every 3 days, when you top up add another 4 tablespoons of salt).

[Greggy]

I have found formalin (formaldehyde) based fish medications to be very effective against Ich (white spot) and it is fairly mild on most fish. I didn't have any losses of fish and that included Khulie Loaches, BNs, Cory catfish and various tetras. When used in conjuction with Malachite Green it is even more effective but as ILLUSN said that chemical can be a little dangerous with certain fish.

I also didn't not notice any serious negative effects upon biological filtration during or after treatment as formaldehyde is not an antibiotic. Do not use a half dose as that will probbaly not kill off all the Ich 'swarmers'. Using formalin & high temp is a very good double-blow to Ich but make sure you keep your tank well airated (a few air stones running 24/7 should sort that out).

Whichever treatment(s) you use make sure you keep at it for two weeks to ensure you interrupt the life cycle of the Ich. Once you do this it will be wiped out completely as Ich is a relatively simple fish disease to control. Do not stop treatment(s) just because the fish show no signs of it after several days.

After two weeks perform some big water changes and lower the temp back to a more moderate level. Also, never introduce any water or fish from another tank. Always assume any fish you purchase are infected and perform the above Ich treatments on all new fish, just in case. Some people may be horrified by that statement however I've had too many cases where a new fish from a LFS has been added to my 6x2x2 Discus community tank and within days there is an outbreak of Ich (white spot).

Trust no one!

Regards,

Greggy

[Barracuda]

If I remove the chemipure, and leave it in a container, will it be able to be used again once the treatment is completed? Does it have to be dried, or is it ok to be left moist?

[ILLUSN]

You can dry it if you like, i would to stop anerobic bacteria breeding on it, you ick treatment will take 10 days to complete, this is a long time to leave any filter media sitting idle.

[lpiasente]

My bottle says to use half dose on tetras :?