White Spot Treatment Ideas

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The lack of concise advice on this (other than prevention is better than a cure) is astounding. For us layman the mass reading of multiple forums and threads becomes overwhelming when faced with the stress of the deaseas taking hold.

So lets live with it - we make mistakes, errors in judgment and whala we have a spot problem so now what.

1) Food mixed with crushed raw garlic. - I cant find conclusive evidence that supports its use.
2) The concerns around QT and the stress of catching and transferring affected fish in mass poses to huge a risk and in most cases causes havoc with well established aquascaping and corals.
3) Dosing medicine of all sorts and the argument that it is not rationally able to distinguish between parasites and useful critters in a reef.

So where does that leave us.. Somewhere in between i propose

- Raise temp to 28 deg to speed up parasite life cycle.
- Soak food in non copper based meds like Myxazin (supposed to be reef safe) and feed directly to fish.
- Prepare ice cubes made with RO water and Myxazin with pellets, flakes and Nori in soaked in it for convenience.

By not flooding the tank with the recommended dose of Myxazin (or other supposed to be reef safe meds) directly into the water it should reduce the coral and invert risk significantly

The only flaw I can find is that
1) I'm not sure that the various medicines need to be consumed by the parasite like "poison" or
2) If it needs to be consumed by the fish as a parasite suppressant or
3) If its consumed by the parasite which is feeding off the fish.

If its 2 and 3 above then the plan may work.

Excuse the repetition of this post and the one in my thread - I'm trying to get "air time"
 
[FONT=&quot]Cloudy Eyes and Mouth Fungus. MYXAZIN should be used daily until symptoms disappear (typically this would be between 3 and 5 applications). MYXAZIN can also be used to sterilise nets and live foods such as Daphnia and Tubifex. MYXAZIN is mild on fish, highly biodegradable and effective against a wide range of fish health problems. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Suitable for seawater (fish only systems), tropical freshwater and coldwater aquaria[/FONT]
Myxazin
 

Its the fish only comment on the medication that bothers me in a reef setup. THe bottle I have states that its invert and reef safe. THe web site says otherwise. My local LFS swears by it in hat he has used it in reefs. I'm so confused..
 
I treated my fish successfully with Myxazin - did not affect my coral or inverts at all. Wasn't so nice putting that stuff in the water though! Felt like the old FW days when adding blue chlorine remover to my tap water!
 

The article shows some success but does raise caution around urchins and clams. None of the reefers using it propose soaking food as opposed to dosing the total water volume.

- One thread suggest that it is only effective during the free swimming stage of the parasite which shoots a "big" hole in my plan.
- Then the same thread goes on to suggest that it prevent re-infection by thickening the mucus coat on the fish. So their my plan works agian since the parasite should die off if it cant find a host to attach to.

Interesting read though - Just one of the 100000's of essays i've read on this over the last few days.

Thanks Saun:yeahdude:
 
Here is very good info i was given recently;-

Hi Mike........in reply to your white spot mail (and apologies for the
late reply!) We use copper at levels of 0.15-0.23 mg/l as well as low
salinity treatments. In terms of the low salinity treatment this is
usually employed as a replacement treatment to copper when we are
treating small juveniles that may not be able to handle the copper
treatment. This treatment involves dropping the salinity by 5ppt per day
until 15ppt is reached at which point this salinity is maintained for a
period of 30 days, after which the salinity is increased at the same
rate as it was decreased. We also use white spot formula for those fish
(like puffers) that dont fair all that well on copper. The "white spot
formula" in question is a mixture of malachite green and formalin. A
predetermined amount (depending on tank volume) is added to a closed
system which is then flushed at the end of each day (approxiamtely an
eight hour treatment). Please let me know if I can send you more
information.

Apologies, Candice, i hope you don't mind me posting this.
 
lower salinity= less stress on fish body to replace lost fluids and more energy can therefore be used to fight the whitespot.

this definitely helps i keep my salinity a bit low and havent had whitespot for around three years now even with new additions (except when i added a regal angel and bi color at the same time HOWEVER NO OTHER FISH CAUGHT IT and it quickly disappeared using ekto marin by aquarium munster).

corals obviously would do better with a more ideal salinity and i have to compensate by dosing more calcuim to keep them happy and growing/glowing.
 
in the years i have been doing this, andthe fewtimes i've had the dreaded white spot / odinium the times i succeeded were with using myxazin, raising temp to 29 degrees, switching of all light except for 1 hour a day while feeding, and completely closing off all light to the tank by wrpping a blanket around the tank.
the dudes at ushaka told me about the blanket and light as the parasite can live of light aswell.
 
Amalick, I used Myxazin by soaking frozen food and pellets which works but more in the early stages of white spot.
I used garlic to the food which also worked also in very early stages.
I also added Myxazin to a reef setup but with half the dosage every 12 hours which also worked.
 
Here is very good info i was given recently;-

Hi Mike........in reply to your white spot mail (and apologies for the
late reply!) We use copper at levels of 0.15-0.23 mg/l as well as low
salinity treatments. In terms of the low salinity treatment this is
usually employed as a replacement treatment to copper when we are
treating small juveniles that may not be able to handle the copper
treatment. This treatment involves dropping the salinity by 5ppt per day
until 15ppt is reached at which point this salinity is maintained for a
period of 30 days, after which the salinity is increased at the same
rate as it was decreased. We also use white spot formula for those fish
(like puffers) that dont fair all that well on copper. The "white spot
formula" in question is a mixture of malachite green and formalin. A
predetermined amount (depending on tank volume) is added to a closed
system which is then flushed at the end of each day (approxiamtely an
eight hour treatment). Please let me know if I can send you more
information.

Apologies, Candice, i hope you don't mind me posting this.

I too read an article recently while trying to find a solution to the white spot delema that spoke of hyposalinity. Dropping the salinity daily until it was 1.010 i think it was. But this had to be done in a QT as it would kill of your inverts, and they were to be kept there for 30 days and then slowly raise the salinity again over a week. It was reported to be the best and most stress free method. But a refractometer was crucial to do this as being slightly out in salinty could have negative effects on your fish if too low or not kill the parasite if too high.
 
I too read an article recently while trying to find a solution to the white spot delema that spoke of hyposalinity. Dropping the salinity daily until it was 1.010 i think it was. But this had to be done in a QT as it would kill of your inverts, and they were to be kept there for 30 days and then slowly raise the salinity again over a week. It was reported to be the best and most stress free method. But a refractometer was crucial to do this as being slightly out in salinty could have negative effects on your fish if too low or not kill the parasite if too high.

Yep all treatments are best carried out in a QT tank, not the display.
 
Amalick, i cant find that ekto marine
 
ok to go back to what you said mike, we lower the salinity in the main tank or is this in the hospital/qt? wouldn't that have an effect on corals? or anythin else? my mimic surgeon got white spot and passed it onto my rock beauty and they died within one day of each other:( so i'm seriously pd about that. whats the agreed thing to do in a dt.
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i was once told to give my tang a FW bath., make sure the temp was the same, then place him in the FW for 2-3min then add him back...
the drop in ambient pressure cause the ick to rupture and die.

my tang did survive the ordeal and seemed to work
 
Let me put me two cents in as well :)

I've been successfull with Cal-C-Vita on my tank. I introduced a Powder blue that I felt sorry for ot the LFS... Bad idea I know.
All other fish got WS.

Cal-C-Vita sorted them out within a week.

Method behind the madness is that Vitamin C is a Co-Factor for many enzymes. The addition and availibility of it imporves immune response.
This gives your fish a chance to fight it off.

In your case perhpas something to consider as an addition while treating..
 
here it is

i work at a fish store and freshwater dip marine fish all the time. it typically works pretty well. what you need is purified or dechlorinated water with some pH buffer (i recommend marine buffer by seachem, or you can add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per gallon of water). dip the fish for 5-10 minutes, watching it carefully. if it shows any signs of extreme stress put it back in the aquarium immediately. repeat daily until the ich is gone.

another, slightly less stressful method that works excellently is a 1 hour bath in formalin3. draw 1 gallon of tank water, add 2 teaspoons of formalin3, and leave the fish in for 1 hour. then place the fish back in the tank and discard the bath. repeat daily until the ich is gone.

if you can't catch the fish, get some metronidazol powder and garlic guard and soak frozen krill, mysis, or plankton in it for 20 minutes. feed with this two times a day for 7 days. the ich should dissapear after about 3 days, but continue dosing for 7. make sure the shrimp doesn't eat it directly, though a piece or two won't hurt. also, don't dump the garlic extract/medication mixture in the tank, use tweezers/tongs to remove the food and hand feed the fish.
 
here it is

Yip this works Dallas, but most ppl would advise against it as it is very stressful to the fish and could cause more harm than good. I wish i could remember where the article was in reefkeeping magazine that was on velvet and ich treatment. They covered this in there, but he was very anti it.
 
Let me put me two cents in as well :)

I've been successfull with Cal-C-Vita on my tank. I introduced a Powder blue that I felt sorry for ot the LFS... Bad idea I know.
All other fish got WS.

Cal-C-Vita sorted them out within a week.

Method behind the madness is that Vitamin C is a Co-Factor for many enzymes. The addition and availibility of it imporves immune response.
This gives your fish a chance to fight it off.

In your case perhpas something to consider as an addition while treating..

Cal C vita? Like the stuff in the stores?
 
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