[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
White spot disease
Greetings from Malaysia!
I am having a case of ich or white spot (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis) in a
29 gallon medium planted low maintenance tank with some 60 - 80 black molly
babies. Normally to combat this disease, I would normally add a blue
medication (methylene blue?) which can be purchased cheaply and easily at
my local retailer.
I have read somewhere that plants might be damaged if I use the blue
medication (sorry, there's no info on what the medication is on the label.
It has some instructions on how to use it though, but it's effective).
As the disease is still in the early stages, I would like to combat it
without any medication as it might damage the plants. I also want to avoid
using a heater to raise the temperature to 32 to 33 degrees (that's another
suggestion put forward by many authors) as I had fried some diseased fish
in a treatment sometime ago when the thermometer malfunctioned.
References suggested malachite green, methylene blue or quinine
hydrochloride but all made no mention of plants inhabitants in the tank.
Naturally, I assumed that treatment is in a quarantine tank.
As I do not want to net allthe babies to another tank to be treated
(Imagine netting babies in a planted tank), there's still the problem of
the tank itself infested with the parasitic cysts lying in a dormant stage
and ready to attack once I introduce treated fish back again. The only
solution I can think of and at present doing is changing water every 2 days
and feeding less (I feed with 2 or 3 crushed TetraBits pellets 3 times a
day instead of 5 earlier). Am I doing the right thing?
Any comments from you experts out there greatly appreciated. TIA.
charlie
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia - Home of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC)