Tetras with White Spot Disease? Please help!

jeaninel

Yes, you want to remove the carbon from your filter so that the meds will be more effective . The other media can stay.

It's a good idea to have a few plants or rocks/cave in the QT tank to reduce stress on the fish. They'll feel more comfortable if they have hiding places.

As far as your stocking, I think you are near your limit given that your guppies will be increasing your population. Most fry will get eaten but some will survive. The cories and tetras are schooling fish and should be kept in groups of at least 6 but you would need a larger tank if you were to increase those groups.

Sorry Money, I don't agree that you can stuff 40 fish in a 16 gallon tank just because you have good filtration and do lots of water changes. Granted, these fish are all smaller and will stay around 2" but I think overcrowding them would cause more health problems.

Fishin Pole

+1 Jeaniinel............40 fish in a 16 gallon is overcrowded, no matter what the filtration ratio is.......

Nastenka

Hey :)

Actually, I think the LFS did pretty good once I came to them. They offered to take the fish back to treat but I thought that would be a bit pointless since I have to treat the whole tank now anyways. They also gave me the meds for free, a fish voucher and some food and definitely said they'd replace any fish if I had any deaths (that is not going to happen though, no no no!). The fact that they sold me sick fish isn't great, of course. But to be fair to them they were closed for a while and have just reopened a few weeks ago, so their tanks aren't as established as they would usually be etc. They had a two week period of quarantining (is that a word?!?!) the new fish and saw no signs of infection, until a few days after (when I noticed mine). So that just proves everyone should quarantine for longer! But on the whole I thought they dealt with it all very well :)

I think the parasites have fallen off my two tetras now, so this is the stage I'm getting a little worried at because I have to catch the moment that they burst. I did my first dose yesterday - how long does the medicine actually stay in the water for? I'm doing the second dose on Wednesday (*without* a water change - is that right?), but am a bit nervous that maybe not all the parasite cysts would have burst by then. That's why I'm curious to see how long the medication works for (does it just keep going around and around until you put the carbon filter back in?).

I'm so nervous!! Aaaah! :)

Nastenka

Thank you for your reply again! I also think 40 fisharoos in a 16 gallon tank sounds a bit extreme, but I appreaciate everyone's advice none the less :)

I'm glad that I'm not overstocked yet, and I'll keep it that way. I still really wish my LFS told me I didn't need to get female guppies! But I'd feel bad giving them up, they're my babies now :(

I started the treatment yesterday. I'm supposed to do it on the 1st and the 4th day, but not sure if that will get anything. I was told to not do any water changes in between those days until the 7th day. Could you please advise (for more details please see the reply to Money's post)?

Thank you all!

jeaninel

I'm not familiar with the brand of medicine you're using. I've only used Quick Cure (malachite green and formalin) before which is dosed every day during treatment. Yours may be a different type of med so just follow the instructions and you should be ok.

Nastenka

I think Interpet Anti White Spot 6 is essentially also malachite green and formalin (from what I know), but maybe in slightly different proportions to other meds, I'm not sure. The instructions only tell me to do it twice (on the 1st and 4th day), but that doesn't seem like enough to me... The spots have fallen off now, so they should be coming to the free swimming stage in 5 days max (my temperature is somewhere between 27 and 28 degrees) and I'm doing the next treatment on Wednesday. It seems like I should do more than just 2. But I think I should probably do water changes before adding the next lot of treatment, even for the 2nd one (though I was told not to)?

Thank you :)

1077

Always best to follow directions on the medications if one want's the best possible chance of fish recovering. I would disregard any information that was different than that stated in directions for medications. Just my two cents.