Black tiger who went from 0 spots to being litered with spots all over in under three hours yesterday was first.

Albino tiger oscar this afternoon, now has two spots on him.

One loach has a couple of spots.

Yesterday when I first wrote to the discussion board on the subject was told as a precaution, bump the temperature up to 85. I turned the thermometer up, and its been climbing slowly. Temp is at 84.1 right now.

This afternoon, I went and bought some coppersafe. I have read on other sites/forums/advice boards that as little as 1/3 the copper/medicines is usually sufficient, because the label is usually a little high.

I did some calculations. The label stated 1 teaspoon per 4 gallons. I have a 120 gallon tank. If I follow the doses, 120/4 = 30 teaspoons. There are 2x teaspoons in one table spoon so, 30tsp / 2 = 15 tblsp. Then if I take a third of that suggested dose, that is 5 tablespoons.

I dosed the water with 5 tbsp, and I know that loaches can't take a lot of salt, so, I only used a little salt, and the temperature is climbing to ~85F.

Their activity level is still extremely high, and they are eating everything I put in the tank in < 2 minutes. The oscars are begging for more food (as they do) .

Is this good enough?

Water quality is very good/excellent now by the way.

I think the ich got in from some live brine shrimp I fed them. I won't be doing that again. Lesson learned.

Do you know, in all the years I have been keeping fish, I have never had a case of white spot so silly as it seems, I can't really give you the benefit of experience, which I suppose is good in one way, but not in another. Anyway, there was a really good article on the website that should give you all the answers you need.

www.oscarfishlover.com/treating-white-spot

Thanks for the direction. You have been lucky in your time. I hope after this outbreak, I won't have to go through it again.

hmmm. I just picked up some brineshrimp. I should worry about ich should I? Can the Ich come from frozen brineshrimp

I fed my babies live brine shrimp as a treat. I was concerned about the frozen food too, as they all (loaches included) seem to prefer it over flake/pellet food. The research I have done seems to point to Ich (and other bacteria parasites) cannot survive the freezing process.

Hope this makes ya feel better.

Have you introduced any other fish? Has your water got very cold recently? White spot can often be brought on by stress, this is often why new fish develop it, they have been traumatised.

based on the other thread, jcannonb had just move them from an smaller tank.
perhaps, the previous tank had a water issue die to tank size, then stressed
the fishes when moved to the new tank.... although the water in the new tank
seems to be perfect, the after effect of the previous scenario may have manifest
only now.

I can attest that following the instructions in the link that OFL pointed you to will work great. Understanding the life-cycle is key to getting the little buggers. Be careful with your loaches - scaleless fish are more sensitive to certain types of medications (heed the instructions on the bottle - they should say if they're safe for scaleless fish). I chose medication with minimal temp raise. My outbreak was likely from letting the water temp get too low - I didn't realize at the time that too low of water temp can be a cause.

good luck!

Update --- Black Tiger (Ash) has significantly less white spots today than the had Sunday or yesterday. Everyone in the tank is being very active, energetic and hungry. I am far less stressed about this condition today.

Thanks for your help.

Diary --- Full Day Three of treatment:

Temperature according to the digital read out is 85.9.
Clown Loaches have lost all the white spots they had... They appear to be ichless...
Snow has no signs of Ich any longer
Ash (patient0) has no Ich on his body, and only a few spots left on his fins.

So, for the 120 Gallon Tank, I ended up doing the following:
Temperature to >= 83,84,85,85.9
I used 6 tablespoons of Copper Safe. The original directions suggested 15 tablespoons... Based on what I read, I used 1/3 of the suggested dose, but I added 1 extra tablespoon (just in case).
Because of the clown loaches I only added a *fraction* of salt compared to the suggestion for treating a disease in the tank. I used approx 6 tablespoons of salt total.

I guess it's working?

jcannonb wrote:


Keep an eye on it. It could be they have just left the host and are swimming around as tomonts and they are still in the tank - this is when they are treatable by chemicals. For safe measure when I battled ick, I did multiple medical treatments (I did minimal temp raise and did NOT use salt). If you do another chemical treatment; be SURE to a water change first. And you are good to be careful with the loaches - because they are scaleless, they are more sensitive to medications (diluting it like you've done seems prudent). I've never done salt+medicine - perhaps someone else can chime in if there are additional concerns around that.