Whitespot nightmare...

[kulashaker]

Ok, long story in the shortest way I can tell it.
I little over 6 weeks ago I had a massive Ich wipeout of my 165 litre tank, the only surviver was my yellow tail Emporer Tang. I setup a Rekord 70 tank for copper treament (Cuprazin) which he was in until 3 days ago. This was to allow a 6 week fallow period in my display tank which has a couple of starfish, corals and shrimps etc. I left the display tank with no fish in to obviously try to completely clear the tank of any trace of Ich, I read that 6 weeks is usually a good time to leave things but have also now read that the record for Ich surviving in an invert tank without a fish host is 72 days?????

My tang had lost a little colour but otherwise looked fine when we put him back in to the display tank on Monday exactly 6 weeks since he came out. His colour has returned and he is happily eating copods from the glass but I have just noticed he has whitespot again???
Now that either means my display tank still has traces of Ich after 6 weeks or that the copper treatment in the QT tank didn't work, but if the copper didn't work I would've expected him the get the spots in the QT tank with all the stress and all?
I guess now I have to remove him again in to QT and allow my display tank to stand empty for 10 weeks this time to clear my tank of this bloody parasite. Oh the joys of a marine system.

Deano.

[neilharris]

That tank is way too small for an emperor tang. It is only recommended for at least a 100 gallon tank. What other stock did you have in there at the first wipeout?

[simon garratt]

Moved to relevant forum

regards

Si.

[kulashaker]

The Emporer is about 2 and a half inch in size so no he's not too big, I had 2 chalk gobies, 2 percs, 2 black and white clowns, green gobyand a yellow goby before my great disaster. The tank has been running exactly a year and my water tests are always fine, never any nitrites, pH 8.0/8.2 and only trace nitrates and ammonia? I just can't believe Ich can lay dormant for so long.

[neilharris]

I think you will find it will always be in your tank and all tanks. The fish in the system generally develop an immunity to the particular parasite. When there is a change in conditions it may make the fishes immune system a bit weaker and this is when they "get in."

What corals do you have in the main tank? It may be of use for you to run a UV for a few weeks to help kill the buggers. Just keep an eye on the corals as the UV will kill good and bad.

Keep an eye on the fish, you may find (if the infestation is not to bad) that after a few weeks it will get over the infection and be fine. I have also panicked before with my Powder Blue, but he is perfect now. Just keep the params as stable as possible.

HTH,
Neil

[kulashaker]

I have always ran a UV on the tank, from my readings I don't agree with the theory that whitespot is always present in a system. The parasite HAS to be be introduced into the system by some means but if fish are QT'd and copper treated or by means of hyposalinity before being added to a tank then this eliminates any spores being introduced? And by leaving a display tank empty of fish the spores cannot feed meaning they die leaving the tank free of infection.
Deano.

[Wombat]

Marine white spot doesn't have a encysted dormant stage that allows its long term survival in a fish less tank (which is where a lot of confusion between freshwater and marine white spot occurs as they are caused by two different and not very closely related parasites). If you read the research papers on the maximum reported time the parasite can survive without a host for each stage of the life cycle add the maximum times together and factor in an appropriate safety factor then the time required for the last Tomonts to die in a fish less tank is indeed 72 days.

Given your treatment regime I would be surprised if you hadn't eradicated the parasite (I assume you checked the copper levels in your QT tank with a copper test kit to make sure you were maintaining therapeutic levels?).

So this leaves a question I have to ask: are you 100% sure it is marine white spot this time as well? As there are many fish diseases that can give white spots as symptoms

[kulashaker]

Well I can only be as sure as the fact he has around 7 or so small raised whitespots on one side of his body and one on his tail that look like small grains of sand? These spots were the same as the last time and they last a couple of days before disappearing and other spots appears days later.
As for copper testing, the treament I used was Cuprazin which I'm sure many know that you run the course for 10 days or so? Maybe I need to use a test kit this time round?

Deano.

[Wombat]

You'd be better off keeping the copper levels around 0.15ppm and maintaining that dose rate continually during your treatment regime. Many shops and wholesalers adopt this technique for keeping their fish stock free of white spot and many other parasites.

A lot of copper based medications that have a treat on days x,y & z strategy rely on the copper loading to quite a high level initially then declining as it binds to biologicals and carbonates in the tank, only to be boosted by the next dose. So it is possible that tomites can hatch when the dose in a trough period find a host and enter the skin (where then are safe from the next dose of treatment) The reverse can happen when the parasite exits the fish and enters the tomont stage. This model is supposed to be more prevalent when there is a very heavy infection of the parasite, as there are more parasite present in the tank, and they will be shed at different rates. So the chance of them being shed when the copper dose is below therapeutic levels is quite high

[kulashaker]

So i guess that better get me a copper test kit now then? The only thing is that I've started my Cupazin treatment already so how do I know how much more Cuprazin to add to maintain a level of 0.15ppm over I'm guessing a 2 week period?

Deano.

[Wombat]

Ah time to invest in a bucket too.

I'd do it by adding a known volume of water to a bucket say 10l adding a know amount of cuprazin and measuring the copper level after mixing.

So if you add say 10 drops to 10 litres of water in your bucket and this gives you 0.05 ppm copper (this is arbitrary and just for a worked example, I'm not sure what it would give you in reality) they you know that 1 drop/l raised the copper level by this amount. So if you measure the copper in your tank and it's, say, 0.125 (for easy of the maths) and you want to bring it back up to 0.15ppm then you need to add 1 drop to every 2l (0.025ppm/l)to bring it back to 0.15ppm.

[kulashaker]

I've been looking at some advice on the net and it looks like if I can keep the copper level at 0.25 or 0.3 for 10 to 14 days then that should be enough to kill off any Crypto's in the QT tank?
I'm on the 3rd day of Cuprazin and it looks like the copper in the water at present seems to be at 0.25 this raises the question that I'm not meant to treat the tank with Cuprazin on days 5, 7 and 9. This I'm assuming would allow the copper level to drop which from what I've read is not ideal? Kinda confusing?

Deano.

[kulashaker]

...Also I have just bought the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals copper test kits which I now think isn't good enough, the first stage is 0.25 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 4.0 which I don't think is sensitive enough?
Gonna go get the Red Sea one tomorrow I think.

Deano.

[kulashaker]

I've just picked up the Seachem copper test kit from my LFS but looking at the colour chart it looks like it tells me the amount of copper in my QT by the use of a scale of blue gradients. This is puzzling me as when I'm adding Cuprazin to my QT tank it turns the water blue anyway so how am I to know what is blue dye and what is the amount of copper in the water?

Deano.

[Wombat]

Difficult one that, different test kit or copper treatment may be the easiest solution

[kulashaker]

Any hints on what would be a good copper test kit to to swap to?

[JonW]

I used the Salifert copper test kit which isn't bad. Does still use shades of blue but once you put 2ml of aquarium water in the test vial you can't see the blue from the copper treatment anyway.

JonW