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White spot and temperature for corys

G

Goldie Prawn

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Joined
22 Aug 2024
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61
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Devon
Hi, please help me as I am getting so much conflicting information when searching for how to help my fish. Yesterday I saw that my green neons had white spot - pretty much lagged in it. I look in my tank a lot and yesterday was the first day I noticed it. Just now I had one dead neon 😞 however my treatment has just arrived - I’m using NT labs anti white spot and fungus. I’ve dosed and slowly increased the temperature up to around 26-27 degrees. I know 30 degrees is the best for speeding up the life cycle of ich and thus treating it quicker, but my question is, will my Pygmy corydoras and otocinclus be able to tolerate 30 degrees? Please help me, as I want to do the right thing and don’t want to lose any more fish (I can’t see white spots on the corys or otos, but I do see a small amount now on my diamond head tetras).

Thanks in advance.
 
Hello,

Sorry to hear this. It is stressful. There are a couple of things here.
  • The view of increasing temperature to treat Ich is not a science-backed fact. I would lower your temperature back to normal levels. (As water temperature increases, the solubility of gases, including oxygen, decreases - which is not what you want when medicating fish).
  • Can you please send some pictures of the fish so we can also see what you are looking at? Just so we can see what you see.
  • Can you post information on your aquarium, your filter and anything else.
Thanks,
Brad
 
Bradders said:
Hello,

Sorry to hear this. It is stressful. There are a couple of things here.
  • The view of increasing temperature to treat Ich is not a science-backed fact. I would lower your temperature back to normal levels. (As water temperature increases, the solubility of gases, including oxygen, decreases - which is not what you want when medicating fish).
  • Can you please send some pictures of the fish so we can also see what you are looking at? Just so we can see what you see.
  • Can you post information on your aquarium, your filter and anything else.
Thanks,
Brad
Click to expand...
 
Hi Brad, thanks so much for getting back to me. I have another dead green neon now and the rest look so distressed it’s awful. I’ve checked parameters and they are all ok. It’s hard to get a photo so please see what I managed to get below. It’s a 55 litre tank. The filter is one recommended by swell (it’s a swell own brand) but I actually found it so rubbish I just added another air pump filter which I’ve removed this evening as it said that the type of filtration it has can remove the treatment. I hate seeing my fish like this and I’m so sad another one has died. I will turn the heat back down to 24 degrees, thanks for the advice on that.
 
As I said, hard to see and photo as they are so stressed. I hate it 😭
 

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By the way I have two air stones to help circulate and aerate, that may be the white bits you can see in the water but I have really struggled to get the water clear hence the extra filter.
 
The idea of higher temperatures is not the cure, the ich parasite leaves the host and goes freeswimming, then waterchanges help remove and unable to find a host fish it dies off . My go to is esha exit if possible esha2000 as well. Whitestone is fairly easy to treat if you catch it early
 
Unfortunately I haven’t caught it quickly enough, I’ve now lost 6 green neons and more are looking like they are about to die. What a horrible parasite. I knew that just heat wouldn’t treat ich, I just thought it would help speed up the process of them leaving the body, but I guess that’s not right. I’ve got the tank at around 25 degrees now and I just hope that this medicine prevents it from wiping out my whole tank 😭
 
Really sorry to hear this.

The fact that this came so rapidly and killed so quickly means it might not be ich. We are seeing a lot of deaths in 24 hours, which I would not expect ich to be so aggressive. Maybe bacterial with this secondary infection.

The best you can do now is see how the treatment, which is a mixture of Malachite Green and Formaldehyde, reacts. I would knock the temp down to 24 (all my cardinals, phantoms and livebearers do fine at 23.5) and not do any thorough cleaning of the bio-media as you need all the BB to help.

Keep us posted.
 
Unfortunately the fish in those photographs look extremely poorly to me, not what you want to hear and I hope I'm wrong but I think they will be lucky to pull through, they look infested and it's unfortunate they weren't diagnosed and treated a bit earlier. Keep up with the treatment to try and save some of them and to also prevent the disease spreading. Are they a new addition to your aquarium?
Sorry!
 
Aside from Bazz's question, and looking forward, we probably need to assess your aquarium and filtration to ensure it is up to the job. The forum would be happy to help I am sure. I know that might sound a bit premature at this sad point, but it is a step forward.

Despite what the internet and shops tell you, neons require very clean and healthy water and can be more sensitive (i.e., succumb to illness) than other fish species. Due to their native habitat, they do not have a great immune system.
 
Hi everyone, thanks for getting back to me. The green neons are fairly new - a couple of weeks in the tank. I look in my tank a lot and only saw the spots on Sunday and immediately ordered the treatment. It does seem to be rapid, it’s awful watching them suffer. I’ve been looking closely at my otos and Pygmy corys and diamond head tetras and they all seem fine - I hope that it stays that way but it really has affected the green neons. I’m so worried it’s going to get to the others too. I did a fairly large water change on Friday (50%) and vacuumed the substrate/cleaned the filter (squeezed the sponge in the removed water) as the water was so murky with bits of algae gunk so I added another filter on Saturday and the water was looking a lot clearer. Then I spotted this on the tetras 😭 I’m really hoping that this treatment works. I’ll get the temp down to 24 as you say. Thanks for the advice and please let me know if there’s anything else I can do other than wait. I’ve got another tank with a very mature filter but I don’t want to move it over because I think there may be shrimplets in the sponge - but I could take the sponge off and add an additional filter if you think that would help? Thanks for taking the time to give advice. I just wish I’d noticed it sooner.
 
Goldie Prawn said:
I’ve got another tank with a very mature filter but I don’t want to move it over because I think there may be shrimplets in the sponge - but I could take the sponge off and add an additional filter if you think that would help?
Click to expand...
If you can add mature biomedia into the tank then it can only help with addressing the pathogens. The more mature biomedia you have, the better your chances. And do NOT clean any current media to avoid removing any of the good stuff. I am not sure how you will do that (or if you have a local friend who can give you some mature and healthy biomedia) but it would be helpful. (Of course, I cannot guarantee that it will be effective at this stage, but every little helps).

The only other thing is to ensure your aquarium is heavily aerated during this period. This not only helps increase the growth of beneficial bacteria but also helps the fish recover—especially when using medications. This goes hand in hand with not having the temperature too high.
 
Ok I think I’ll move my other filter over and some of the decor that’s been in the mature tank for ages and I won’t clean anything. Thanks for that. I have managed to get a few clearer pictures - I think the bumps look raised but I am under the understanding ich is flush to the skin? Temp lowered - should I add some safestart bacteria to hopefully get some good bacteria spreading about or will that affect the medicine? Thank you again for your help it’s much appreciated. I’ve just ordered some clove oil as I can’t stand to see the ones struggling as they are. They clearly aren’t going to make it. I’ve got about 8 who are swimming and eating but don’t look good.
 

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The Miniaturist said:
I'm no expert on fish diseases but isn't there one called epistylis?
It has very similar symptoms to ich with white spots. I think you lower the temperature for treatment but I don't know if there are any specific medications to use.
Click to expand...
Agreed, looking at them in the new picture would show they are raised and could indeed be epistylis.

That is a much tougher disease to fix, but it explains the rapid deaths in comparison to something like ich. Still worth treating with the NT labs at current - as antibiotics are not available.
 
@Goldie Prawn - here is a great resource on epistylis. I think this could indeed be the smoking gun.

10.2.4. Epistylis in tropical fish

Epistylis is a very common and very unrecognized fish disease. It is commonly confused with ich.
aquariumscience.org aquariumscience.org
 
@Bradders that is it, I’m sure of it. It explains the rapid development of it and the deaths. I am hoping so much that it doesn’t spread to the others. Doing some research on what to do now, but I’ve got two filters in there now, two air stones and bubbles blasting in to the water and the surface. Temp down to 22. There were some shrimplets in my filter sponge but I think it’s just going to have to be a risk I take to use that good bacteria on the sponge. I’ll keep treating with the ich treatment and see if my husband can pick up some sort of antifungal stuff from pets at home if I do some more research 😖 thanks again so much for this. I wish it WAS white spot now!
 
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