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Mouth Fungus, White spot disease
Casey Huang <yhplsing at singnet_com.sg> wrote: <<<<Subject: Mouth Fungus
(Flexibacter columnaris)>>>>
For F. columnaris the treatment recommended by Untergasser is
acriflavine, which may negatively affect plants (direct experience!). If
the other fishes are healthy and kept in good-quality water, they
should not develop this problem. Your best bet in my opinion is to
remove the sick guppies, and treat them separately with acriflavine in a
separate tank. This type of infection sometimes progresses very slowly,
and it may not respond to treatment. Sometimes simple kitchen salt (1
tablespoon/5 gal.) does the job; again, this concentration of salt may
not be OK for the plants.
cchee at pc_jaring.my (Charlie Chee) wrote: <<<<Subject: White spot
disease>>>>>
Methilene blue is not recommended for ick by the fish health books,
maybe the preparation you have contains something else. Anyway, you say
it works: in my opinion you need to use it, since Ick is a pathogen that
can cause a lot of damage. I have used a prolonged bath of
formalin+malachite green and proprietary "Ick" medications (without
acriflavine) in planted tanks several times, with no visible negative
effects. Toxicity is however concentration-dependent (at least for the
most part), and higher concentrations or different formulations that
those I used may have different effects.
In your case, maybe you can remove the most valuable plants you have,
and keep them in a separate container while you treat the tank. If you
see no negative effects on the plants exposed to the medication, you can
"treat" the valuable ones as well before you re-introduce them. If the
medication creates problems to the plants, you may disinfest the ones
you pulled out with, for example, a pink solution of potassium
permanganate for 30 minutes. The problem with Ick is that cysts may
remain inactive, but vital, for several weeks. So, quarantine only (at
least in terms of weeks) may not be adequate.
In alternative, you can do the opposite: take a sample of plants and
expose them to the medication in a separate container, to see if they
show any sign of damage, before of treating the whole tank.
To feed less and make more water changes is a general supportive measure
that helps, but it is unlikely to solve the problem.
Dionigi