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White spot

White spot is a protozoan parasite that lives on the host until mature. It then falls off producing young that have to find a host fish within 48 hours. UV will kill parasites that pass through and to the end is very useful in the control of the parasite.

Malachite green or similar 'dye' type products are often used to control the parasite and may be used at reduced strength alongside a UV in my experience.

I would look carefully at what caused the outbreak.. The most obvious cause would be a 'rogue' fish introduced whilst carrying the disease. This would quickly infest a whole tank.
The other cause is usually stress as a result of poor water quality often caused by introducing fish to a tank not matured.It is said all fish carry white spot in a dormant form to be triggered by less than favourable conditions.

The essential thing is it must be treated pronto. It is a very contagious disease that will quickly wipe out your fish.
Raising the temperature to around 30c will help as this speeds up the maturity and as a result makes the parasite free swimming sooner and thus exposed to the UV/ treatment more quickly.
Harry.
 
The efficacy of UV is questionable. It may help to reduce the likelihood of an outbreak in the first place, but IME it's ineffectual once the disease has taken hold. Use eSHa white spot treatment, it's very effective and I seem to recall it's also shrimp safe. In the meantime give some thought to the suggestions as to what might have caused it.
 
Whitespot tends to appear when the fish's immune system is weakened, most frequently due to water quality issues. Daily 50% water changes will help reduce the number of nasties in the water and allow the fish to recover as quickly as possible.
 
Hi thanks for the replys it came with a newley tntroduced fish that must of been all ready infected
water quality is spot on will do some large water changes and put a uv on and hope that works
as i realy do not want to start other treatments and end up killing all my shrimps.
 
Sorry about your plight. My reply was for a fish only set up as your original post did not mention shrimp. I would go the way you have decided as you can't just use any old WS treatment and raising the temp to high levels would harm your shrimp too.

Personally I would use a weakened solution of either Esha or WS3. Large water change will help too. I believe the Esha and King British WS3 are among the treatments more tolerable to shrimp but do read the instructions carefully.
Harry.
 
A UV won't do the job. For example, a 9W UV needs a max flow of 50 lph to kill parasites. So the way we set them up, they are useless against parasites and such. Best solutions for white spot is, salt, heat or malachite green. I don't think you want to use salt unless you've a quarantine tank. Exit is shrimp safe according the manufacturer and I never heard anyone with problems with RCS CRS and Amano shrimps. What type of shrimps do you have? Another option might be to raise the temperature to 30 degrees. But the UV won't do it unless you set it up with very low flow.
 
Hi i have about 25 Amano shrimps the UV i will be useing is the new Eheim reflex 500 witch is rated at 800lm
this will be going in line on my eheim filter witch is running my Co2 reactor so will be able to controll the flow rate
so hopefuly it will work and the other filter on the tank is more than enough to keep the water right.
 
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