Treating W/S With Myxazin

[mr-jimbo]

There are a few topics here already with regards to white spot,but i fear mine is different in a way and now im starting to have doubts,

I have had outbreaks before and they have sorted themselves out but i did lose a couple of fish in the long run,i have been using Myxazin for a five day treatment at half doses as stated on the bottle,problem is my powder blue and coral beauty still have it,allthough all fish are still eating,also stated on the bottle is to turn ozonizers of,which i have done i also turned of the skimmer(wasn't sure if i was supposed to but nothing commented on the bottle about skimmers),i also posted a question in help/advice regarding brittle stars losing their spines which i now suspect has been caused with the Myxazin,i also have two globe urchins and they to have become bald,Wombat jump in here m8 and throw your knowledge my way,i don't have room for a quarantine tank hence the reason for trying this med,im also not a fan of chucking chemicals in the tank and must admit this is my first experience in doing so,and it has more frustrated,

Calculations i made to start treatment were:

tank inc sump were rough because both are not full to their max,also you have to allow for displaced water,so it was a guessing game,
Display: 85 imp gal
sump: 28 imp gal
total 113 imp gal,i decided to allow for water displacement i would make my water volume 100 imp gal, so treatment would be 15ml,but for treatment of white spot it says to half the dose which would be 7ml every twelve hours stop treatment when symptons disapear,i have treated the tank this way for a period of five days but symptons still remain..

I would appreciate more guidance towards this folks on the next step i should take.

Jim

[Clarkii]

Hi mate.

Sorry to say it but the first mistake was to add any medication to the main tank .... a massive NO NO. what's in the medication ? I don't know but it is probably herbal of some kind but you don't know exactly what's in it or vague what's in it so why put it in the main tank with inverts and other sensitive critters. ??

Ok this has been done now so, add some carbon and get that crud cleaned out the system and do not add any more, most if not all treatments like this only disguise the problems and are certainly not the cure.

You must find out what is causing the white spot to come back. The fish must be stressed which will be thinning the slime coat and allowing the parasites to attach. I am only guessing here but I suspect the Powder blue isn't to happy in the 80G tank. What length is the tank and what sort of size is the tang ? Powder blue require a 5, 6 + foot tank imo.

Have you noticed any squabbling between the fish at all ? something is stressing them out, you need to remove the stress to help them recover from the WS and to keep it at bay. The fish are feeding which is a good sign and will obviously help in getting the fish back to health.

Stop adding the crud Myxazin and try to find the stressor in the tank.

Also look around the site for information, this topic has had some very in depth discussions and a quick search should find lots of information to help you find the problem and the steps needed to get the tank and the inhabitants back to health.

[muzzy]

i added myaxin after a particularly bad outbreak of w/s on my regal tang and powder brown.
i then added a UV and then Ozone, whitespot went soon after.
i stopped dosing the myaxin after a few days, i dont think it had any effect good or bad to be honest

[mr-jimbo]

Thanks for those comments Clarkii,i will try to answer a few,25+ years of keeping F/W fish i have never added anything to water apart from salt nothing else not even tap water conditioner,this is also my first experience with white spot and also my 2nd marine setup,in my 1st setup i lost one fish,only because it decided to see our world only other problem i had were high po4 levels, the only reason i added Myxazin was i had read many good things about it and also being safe with inverts,i have only had the PB a week she did get harrassed by my yellow tang but they all get along fine now apart from the ocasional flick,she also never ate anything for a few days but after adding the myxazin this seems to have helped because now she eats well ,this is not to say that myxazin is tops because in my opinion i really don't have anything to shout out about it because my fish still have W/S,
Info on the tank is,
5ftx2ftx20" sump 3ftx15"x12" im really not sure if i calculated my volume correctly as it does seem low,
My stock is,Tangs
Two Regals,Purple,Yellow,Powder Blue,
Coral Beauty,pair of percs,Jade Wrasse,Cleaner Wrasse,Strawberry Gramma.

Tonight i have put my ozonser and skimmer back on,the only thing i have noticed during the five days of dosing myxazin is my urchins and brittle star losing spines all other inverts look normal.

Thanks for the replies guys

[jimdon IOM]

Hi
don't know if this helps at all but i have used myxazin before to treat w/s in situ. If i remember correctly and don't take this as gospel as it is only from memory the active ingredients are methylene blue and rose anyline. it does not effect the spot on the fish, hence that is why they are still there but is is effective at killing the free swimming stage of the parasite. it also increases the fishes mucus production and helps with preventing reinfection as it thickens the mucus coat.
it is removed by biodegradation and oxidation, hence the instructions to stop ozone.
I would expect that echinoderms (starfish and urchins) would be very susceptable to the treatment as they have very delicate cardio vascular systems. Also clams don't react well to it either.
the treatment can be completely removed with carbon or polyfilter.
good luck I hope they recover

Jim

[mr-jimbo]

Thanks for that info Jim,at last something that makes sense,as i have said my skimmer and ozoniser went back on last night ,i havent returned the carbon to the sump as of yet but will do sunday night monday morning as the ozone will remove most of the myxazin for now,i have done a lot of searching trying to find out ingredients in myxazin to which there isn't a lot of info around,i also found a topic on reef park with devastating results from a couple members using myxazin.
Thanks again folks for the replies ,to finish up i did manage to find something that i wish i had seen prior to reading all the great things regarding myxazin instead of putting a death sentence on my urchin/starfish...

http://www.cthisspace.com/images/myxazin2.jpg





Jim

[mr-jimbo]

Vacumed the sand today,i will do this every two days to take care of the cysts that drop,hopefully by doing this i reckon by christmas/new year my tank should be rid of the damn pest.

[Wombat]

Hi,

in Italy (working at Viterbo University and some Holidaying too) at the moment so I have to be brief yes I suspect the myzaxin has done for the echinoderms. Some inverts, clams especially (& fish) just don't tolterate it well

[Wombat]

Vacumed the sand today,i will do this every two days to take care of the cysts that drop,hopefully by doing this i reckon by christmas/new year my tank should be rid of the damn pest.

I thery this should work well (there is a commercial machine vacliable for freshwater white spot in trout farms)

You need to make sure that the tomonts aren't re-entering the tank via the vaccum bag (it needs to be around 45 microns to catch the tomonts)

[mr-jimbo]

I thery this should work well (there is a commercial machine vacliable for freshwater white spot in trout farms)

You need to make sure that the tomonts aren't re-entering the tank via the vaccum bag (it needs to be around 45 microns to catch the tomonts)

Hi Wombat,

I use a standard gravel vac ,i put a lump of filter floss(wool) in a dry part of the sump and have the trailing end of the gravel vac hose sitting inside the wool,i just bin the wool when im done..

[poohpouri]

Hi I have used Myxazin In my old reef tank and have just started using in my my new tank as tang has w/s .I have not found any probelms from using Myxazin. But will let you know if i come across any

[mr-jimbo]

Thanks for the feedback,an update on my tank,from what i can see i have lost one of my brittles and one of the urchins,my powder blue is still covered in white spot,but is still eating im vacuming the sand every two days,as for myxazin i would maybe use it again as i now believe it has helped in some way,as the PB never ate anything prior to using myxazin,but that would be a big maybe as ive also found out with using myxazin you do lose pod life amongst other life within sand and rocks.

[Wombat]

Hi Wombat,

I use a standard gravel vac ,i put a lump of filter floss(wool) in a dry part of the sump and have the trailing end of the gravel vac hose sitting inside the wool,i just bin the wool when im done..

It may not be that effective then, you may want to look into some of the very fine filter meshes you can get on the web.

[mr-jimbo]

Time will tell m8,i really only started to vacum sand,never really bothered before, my powder blue was staying most of the time in the center of the tank where most of the strong flow meets,which started me thinking Amyloodinium,but she is swimming around a lot more now and behaving like a healthy fish,she is also nearly spot free,coral beauty looks clear.

Cheers