Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => The Emergency Room => Topic started by: Alex_N on January 12, 2016, 08:29:41 PM
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Just seen this white blemish on one of my otos.
Can anyone help with identifying the problem?
I believe it's fungal more than white spot, as it does appear to be cotton wool like in appearance.
Thanks in advance.
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The pictures not very clear. Are you refering to above the base of tail?
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Yeah, it's in between the base of it's tail and dorsal fin.
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Managed to get a better photo.
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I thought I'd replied last night - I typed out an reply but obviously forgot to click post :-[
It does look like fungus rather than whitespot, but don't be fooled by the word fungus - it is often caused by bacteria. I would try something like eSHa 200 which treats both bacterial and fungal infections.
And keep an eye on your water as both proper fungus and bacterial infections can be caused by water quality.
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Ha ha.
Thanks Sue, just started treatment.
Edit: Would it be wise to do a small water change every other day? I'm not running any carbon media, yet, so the loss of medication should be minimal. Just to keep the water quality better if that is the issue.
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It wouldn't hurt to do daily water changes. Add the med after the water change. If you don't dose on some days, add enough med afterwards to treat the amount of new water.
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Would 10% be sufficient? I do weekly 25%.
Thanks for reminding me to treat the water after the change :)
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That should be fine. When a fish gets an infection, clean water is a good way to help it recover.
Just to check - do you run carbon in the filter, and if you do have you removed it during treatment?
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No I don't run any carbon filters.
I will be doing soon after the treatment just to clear up any lingering medication.
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I found out what the cause of the outbreak was.
I've had a nitrate spike. From initial tests, one at p@h results were 60ish, and a 10% water change later results are now 30ish.
Anything I can do to help lower the levels any quicker?
I've cut back on feeding, just to once a day, and the 10% water changes.
I'm planning on getting another nitrate sponge to help another spike happening.
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There is a debate about nitrate on another forum. One person is quoting Neale Monks, one of the leading experts in our hobby, who says that nitrate should never exceed 40ppm and that for nitrate sensitive species it should never exceed 20ppm, as measured by our home testing kits. The other side of the debate is 'well I've got 50ppm coming out of my tap so I can't get it lower than that and my fish are fine'.
I know otos are sensitive fish, but I'm not sure if that extends to nitrate.
Water changes alone can only get your nitrate down to the level in your tapwater. Live plants, and lots of them, can reduce the level below the tap level. Some nitrate removing media don't work, eg the Juwel nitrate removing sponge is not thought of as doing anything (nitrate eating bacteria in tanks are anaerobic, that is they won't grow in an oxygen rich part of the tank like a filter). But there are chemical media such as nitrazorb which do work. The other option if tap nitrate is high is to use RO water.
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Wonderful, thank you once again.
I'll have a look at my tap readings tomorrow in natural light.
I'll look into nitrazorb and RO as well.
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With RO you'd need to either mix it with tapwater, the ratio determined by low much you need to reduce the nitrate level by, and also the hardness of your tapwater, or use all RO with added remineralisation salts. You can't use pure RO, you need some 'hardness' minerals in there.
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Something is happening and I don't know what's happening :-\
My tap No3 is 20ish.
Yesterday's readings were: Before w/c No3 60ish. After w/c 30ish
Today's readings are: Before w/c No3 40ish. After w/c 20ish.
So my No3 are back to normal, granted very early to say for definite, but my Penguin and Cardinal Tetras are appearing very docile and floaty. The cardinals seem to be particularly affected, some have been doing forward rolls :o I know that they are sensitive to No3.
The two things I can think of is it's the medication, I've been using Interpet antifungal and fin rot, or it's the cold water stunning them during w/c. The issue I've had in the past with heavy limescale out of my hot water tap makes me reluctant to use tap tepid water.
I've ran out of idea's what else could be wrong or how to rectify the issue.
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If you are using just cold water to refill that could well be affecting them. Tapwater is very cold at this time of year. And cardinals like water a bit warmer than most fish so they would be affected.
If you boil a kettle do you get the same problem as with hot tap water?
Or possibly fill a bucket (or buckets) they day before and use a spare tank heater to warm the water.
Or have the tank heater horizontal near the bottom of the tank so you can turn it back on before starting to refill and dribble the cold water in slowly, turning the filter back on as soon as the water level is high enough.
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They've been fine the past few weeks though, that's what I don't understand.
I'll try preheating the water before hand, hopefully that'll make a huge difference.
My kettle is riddled with limescale lol. We use a descaler on a regular basis so I don't really want to use cool boiled water.
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Just had a huge turn around in event's.
I've just done a 30% w/c with tap tepid water as the kribs had started to become affected and everything is pretty much back to normal as if nothing was wrong!
The cardinals are still recovering and as they're only young and have been more affected.
The Penguins are no scrapping as normal amongst themselves, Kribs are flirting and milling around.
The only casualty was the oto which caught the infection.
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I warm up water for a change with hot water from the kettle but I pour it through a net to catch any limescale. It usually settles to the bottom of the bucket anyways so I always leave dregs in the bottom just in case fine particles escape the netting.
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I changed the flow direction of the pump so the current wasn't affecting the fish to much. As a bi product, the particles are getting caught in the filter wool better so it isn't to much of an issue now :)