White spot? - help!

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lIghty

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Hi all. I'm new to the site so please advise any errors.
Got home tonight after 2 nights away and found my regal tang (dory) with 4 little white spots on his pectorial fins and 3 on his body, please can somebody help, what should I do?

My tank details, 180L FOWLR + 1 anemone. 2 clowns, 2 cromers, 1 hawkfish, 1 yellow tang, 1 blenny, 1 cleaner wrase.

thx in advance.
 
If I was you I would just ride it out for a while, keep the fish fed and happy, hopefully he will get over it. If not then you can consider other things like fresh water dips or put him in a quarantine tank.

According to some members, feeding garlic with your normal food also helps.

p.s. Welcome to the forum.
 
Yep, I would say ride it out, but add garlic to your food if you like (jury is still out on that) but make sure they eat, as long as they eating your still good.

If it gets worse there are more drastic options
 
real garlic cloves mashed try and get as many solid pieces out so you get the juices into the food, dont use the crushed garlic you by in shops as that has veg oil and presevatives in

Good to hear he is eating, keep him eating and hell beat the whitespot without doing drastic thing with your tank
 
lIghty said:
thx, when you say a while, how long we talking?
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Depending on the tank temperature, the spots should drop off within 48 hours or so. They can then spend anything from a few days to a few weeks on the tank bottom, and then re-infect the fish (and others...) IF it is indeed marine Ich (Cryptocarion irritans).

If you have any corals, shrimps. or other inverts (including your anemone...), you cannot treat the fish in your main tank. I wouls suggest that you set up a hospital tank in the meantime, and allow it to cycle. If this is done, you will be aqble to remove the fish to this second tank for treatment.

Hennie
 
If I try the garlic for next 48-60h with no results would it not be easier to remove the one cleaner shrimp and anemone and tube worms to separate tank and treat the main tank?
How big should the QT be, and should I not put one on my internal fiter from main tank in the help well ammonia and nitrite levels?
 
lIghty said:
If I try the garlic for next 48-60h with no results would it not be easier to remove the one cleaner shrimp and anemone and tube worms to separate tank and treat the main tank?
How big should the QT be, and should I not put one on my internal fiter from main tank in the help well ammonia and nitrite levels?
Click to expand...

No the problem is that the treatment has copper in it which is lethal to invertebrates, however it stays in your system, and leaches out over time again. So you will have to move the fish

tank can be a small 2 foot, run by a small mechanical filter, powerhead with canister type thing.

That is good advise from Hennie, if sitting it out doesnt do the thing, then you at least you have your backup plan in place
 
My regal gets some white spots from time to time, however i don't think it's the dreaded "whitespot" that WILL wipe your tank, i have read articles by more learned reefers that it would seem that tangs (especially regals) seem to be a very nervous fish and will succumb to a type of infection that manifests itself with white spots on the body and in most cases will cure itself fairly quickly. The main thing is to feed and keep away from the tank as much as possible, no hands in messing around etc.
The proper maire Ich/ white spot is a parasite and usually fatal i honestly don't think this is it in your case (ok without actually seeing your fish that is a bold statement but going by experience i reckon you will be ok in a week or two)
 
Hey lighty welcome to MASA, i would fully agree with Wee-Man, dont stress too much at this point in time, make sure the Regal carries on feeding. My Regal and Achillis both go through this from time to time.
 
Hi Guys, been feeding with the garlic and seems to be working, my regal tang has only 2 small spots on his "nose" now, my yellow tang had a spot on his fin last night but has now clear too.

I must thank all of you for your help, being a novice I was a bit scared.

Will keep you posted.
 
Hi guys,

Sorry it's taken so long for an update, been a bit mad.

the tang has eventually cleared up.

Thanks for all the help.
 
lIghty said:
Hi guys,

Sorry it's taken so long for an update, been a bit mad.

the tang has eventually cleared up.

Thanks for all the help.
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Cool, if it happens again - it is probably just stress, so keep your hands out and feed well.
 
Hey there. Not to blame anyone because this could have just been coincidence but my cream angel had a few little white spots. He was still feeding like a pig and he was still acting normal. So I took the garlic advice fed him his food after mixing in the garlic and then within a few hours (maybe 3) the fish was half dead floating on top of the water and shortly after very dead, along with my goby who had no sign of white spot.

Coincidence, maybe, maybe not but either way it sure as hell didn't work.
I would urge everyone to take this as a warning, don't try everything u read.

No hard feelings. A quick question now that the tank is cleared of fish how long before I can restock or use the live rock in my other tank.
 
Hi Steve.

White-spot is a nasty bugger. Sometimes fish overcomes it fine - sometimes not.

I too have lost some fish in the last month due to white-spot. The problem is that one never really knows if the fish is becoming better or not.

I have tried EVERYTHING before as well. BUT in the end I have just decided to leave the fish be. Trying to catch it stresses the fish out TOO much. The only things that I did indeed do, was to add FRESH garlic ground up to the food mix, increase the alkalinity to quite high, as well as the pH of the water (increase it to quite high), and decrease the salinity of the water to +-1.020 (I cannot go tooo low because of my corals and anemone's in the tank) for a week or so..... If the fish then die........

Garlic generally does not kill fish, from my experience. BUT, as I said - one never really knows what's going on with the fish on the inside...... and neither do we know when the fish is REALLY going to die. Sometimes fish look all ok and then die, sometimes they look like they are not feeding and are as thin as rakes - then then end up living for quite a few years......

I agree with you - not everything you read is guaranteed to work for everyone. And I have also learnt the hard way that one has to take the information and filter out and only use that pieces of information that could be applicable to you.....

BTW: I am really sorry to hear that your fish has died.
 
It's all good, like i said no hard feelings. But about using the live rock in another tank, how long should I wait?
 
The white spot flagelates (sp?) and dinoflagelates (sp?) stages can only live for a few short days without a host, then they die off. So, I would suggest wait about 4 days or so, and then you can use the live rock in another tank without having to worry that there might be spores of whitespot hiding inside them somewhere.
 
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