ESHa EXIT For Treating White Spot

Interesting. I have just been to eSHA's website and found this in the advice section, water conditioners. My italics and underlining.

1. Introduction
Water conditioners are frequently used to remove chlorine, to bind heavy metals (such as Copper, Zinc and Lead), but especially to protect the skin layer of fish.

Under normal circumstances and dosages water conditioners cause no problems. However when used excessively, because of their strong binding capacities, water conditioners (de-chlorinators, heavy metal binders, etc.) can potentially decrease the effectiveness of products such as disease treatments, algae / snail treatments, etc. or even give rise to reactions.

This suggests that when used normally, they don't cause problems with meds, it using them excessively that does.
I wonder if they are objecting to the stuff that 'protects the fish's skin'?

2. What they do
They bind not only chlorine and heavy metals, but also the active components in products such as disease treatments and algae/snail treatments - and not just the left-over components, as is sometimes claimed. Unfortunately, a water conditioner cannot differentiate between 'useful' active components in an aquarium and the residue.

But using normal dosage is fine according to point #1

3. When you need them
You need a water conditioner if:
- You are setting up a new aquarium.
- You do not use tap water for your aquarium. Tap water which is suitable for drinking, does not contain heavy metals, therefor it is not necessary to remove and / or bind them.
- Your tap water contains chlorine. One can smell this very well when taking a shower. In this case it is sufficient to aerate your tap water well (using an air pump) or by using a shower head or watering can when changing water.

Maybe in the Netherlands tap water does not contain any metals, but it does have small amounts in the UK. Most fish are fine with metals but invertebrates (snails and shrimps) are not. Copper kills them.
Using a watering can won't get rid of chlorine as quick as they suggest. You need to run an airstone in a bucket of water for a few hours to make it safe.

4. How to remove them
Water conditioners can remain active for even over 1 year. The active components of water conditioners in aquariums can be removed only by changing water.

Solution: change 50% of aquarium water with tap water which is suitable for drinking without adding water conditioners*. If necessary repeat this for a second time.


* If your water contains chlorine, you can remove this easily, by aerating the water for 24 hours with an air pump, by using a shower head or watering can when changing water or by filtering the water once over fresh active carbon before adding it to the aquarium.

But what if you have chloramine? You can't get rid of it this way. More and more UK water companies are switching to chloramine.



I don't know of any other makes that say not to use a conditioner. I would be inclined to use one, but make sure you don't exceed the dose stated on the bottle.

So, apart from taking a crash course in chemistry – which my poor brain wouldn't survive – then the best thing is to carry on regardless and do the water changes as advised then? LOL

Hmmm! That's very true – should we politely suggest that do you think?

That is fine. It's the old way of preparing water for a water change, only they tended to leave the bucket standing for several days, adding an airstone just speeds it up as it churns the water.

However, inverts (snails, shrimps) are easily poisoned by copper. I don't know how much is enough to do this so I use a dechlorinator to detoxify any potential problems.

I should also add that the dechlorinator I use contains just the chlorine remover and the metal detoxifier. It does not contain anything to detoxify ammonia or to help 'stimulate the slime coat'. As my water has chlorine not chloramine, there is no ammonia resulting from chloramine so I don't need a detoxifier.

As long as the chlorine evaporates you won't harm your fish. And a trace of chlorine won't harm mature filters either, it's new bacteria colonies you have to be careful with. Once the bacteria are very thoroughly embedded in the biofilm they are protected from small amounts of chlorine. Running airstones in the buckets overnight should gas off all the chlorine.

The hardness doesn't matter. It's what the water company adds to disinfect it that does. So chlorine or chloramine are the things you need to get out. Chlorine gasses off, so what you are doing is fine. If you had chloramine, it wouldn't so you'd have to use a dechlorinator.

Dechlorinators should affect all whitespot treatments as copper is the main ingredient for the majority of them. eSHa is the only one that says not to use a dechlorinator. I use King British original formula WS3 at half dose for two of my tanks as they have cories or loaches. I've always dechlorinated and the whitespot has always gone.

Just checked up on a document I saved and ws3 contains malachite green. Although malachite is a copper ore, malachite green doesn't contain copper, it's just called that because the med is the same colour as the mineral.
Protozin by Waterlife contains malachite green. So does the Interpet whitespot med.
It doesn't mention eSHa Exit, just 2000.

Thanks for the clarification.
My document has the same ingredients (except that it gives copper ions rather than copper sulphate) and it also adds methyl orange to that list. I remember using that at school in the late 1960s as an indicator.

eSHa's website says 2000 treats over 18 symptoms and diseases including primary and secondary fungus infections, bacterial skin infections, skin/gill parasites, protozoan parasites, finrot etc

Copper sulphate kills external parasites
Ethacridine is an antispetic
Proflavin acts against gram positive bacteria.

If you are treating for fin and mouth rot, it's the other things that are the chemicals that work rather than copper sulphate. That is used for the skin/gill parasites and protozoan parasites that 2000 also treats. The anti-finrot chemicals shouldn't be affected by the dechlorinator ingredients.

Gawd  fin and mouth rot are my huge probs atm and apart from going back in time I've no idea what to do next

The guy in the shop said to me if you have eSHA 2000 and EXIT you have a pretty comprehensive fishy first aid kit.

Looking at my finny friends this morning I actually think the fin and tail rot are subsiding a bit.

Those are just about the only meds you should need.
Anything with copper in it is not safe for inverts. If you need to use a copper containing med, either treat the fish in a hospital tank or move the inverts to somewhere safe first.

The main reason I use King British orig formula WS3 is that I needed it in a hurry and that was all the nearest shop had in. I removed the snails but couldn't catch the amano shrimps. I used the med at half dose because of the loaches and to my surprise the amanos survived. They obviously weren't happy as they hid for the duration but I was quite surprised when they came out again once the med had been removed. I wouldn't have risked the snails though and I don't think I'd risk it with my cherry shrimp in the other tank.