Chalk Goby

White Spot update

Its been a few weeks now since I posted my last update.  Treatment is going well and I have only lost a few fish. This was mainly down to not picking up on the signs of White Spot quickly enough.

I have put some artificial rock into the tank for the Blenny to hide in as he was looking a little stressed.  I have also had to move one of the Blue/Green Chromis's out as he was starting to get a but of a bully

My display tank is currently having some extra holes drilling into the base.  It only had one down pipe which meant that it was a little noisy and if it was ever to get blocked then I would be in trouble. I will also be adding an extra section to my sump as its only got 2 chambers.  This is the design I will be going for.

White Spot Treatment - Day 2

This is day 2 of the treatment using Cuprazin.

I was expecting to come down to a tank of dead fish this morning, but happy to report they are all still alive.

Here is a list of fish I have in the quarantine tank

2 Clown's
1 Bangi Cardinal
1 Starry Blenny
1 Fire Fish
3 Blue/Green Chromis
3 Yellow Damsils

My Fire fish did not look too good this morning.  It was resting on the bottom of my tank and having problems keeping upright.  I was not expecting to see it alive when I got home this afternoon, but was pleased to see it was swimming about a little more.  It does look to be the worst affected so will have to see what tomorrow brings

Will see how things go and fingers crossed I don't lose any more fish

White Spot/Marine Ich

It was bound to happen at some point and 2 days ago I noticed that some of my fish looked like they had White Spot/Marine Ich.

I started to get suspicious when my Starry Blenny was acting a little odd.  He started to rub himself on the sand.  After posting on one of the marine forums to which I got a few different responses, but it was suggested that this could be the beginning of white spot. 

Each morning I do a quick head count of all my fish and the only one I could not see what my Red Stripe Angel.  Being pressed for time I had to leave the search till I got home.  That evening it took about 15 minutes before I spotted the Angel and sure enough it had lots of little white spots on its fins.  I also notice the same on 3 of my Yellow Damsels.

I knew that I had to start acting fast on this so I started to setup a quarantine tank which is a 50 liter tank and move all the fish into this so that I could treat them.

By the following morning my red stripe angel had died and I noticed that my firefish was also covered in white spot.  As with most things work was calling and this had to wait till later which was not ideal and a little frustrating.

I managed to finish work early and after getting some advice from the forums I had a plan of action which I was about to put into play.

1. Get some copper based treatment
2. Move fish into quarantine tank (not as easy as I thought)
3. Let fish settle down a little
4. Start treatment.
5. and wait.......

Local marine shop was very helpful and also gave some advice.  I have started day 1 of the treatment and have about 11 days to go.  When the signs of white spot are gone I will move the fish to a larger tank 110 liter tank for a further 3-4 weeks before moving them back into my display tank.  This will allow the white spot parasite (Cryptocaryon irritans) do die off as it wont be able to find a new host to live on.

Above is the quarantine tank.  Not idea, but will have to do for the treatment phase.

Going forward I will be introducing bio security.  This basically means that any new fish are quarantined for 3-4 weeks before they enter my display tank.  This will allow me to then keep an eye on them and if they do have any parasite to be treated before it gets into my display tank.  The other thing I will be looking into is a UV Sterilizer unit for my tank..

Bardills Marine & Fish Shop - Shame on you

Went to one of my local fish shops today as I am looking to get a new fish for my 4x2x2 tank which I recently setup.  Bardills Garden Center has a cold water fish section and also marine & tropical fish.  I will be totally honest I have never been overly happy with the conditions you can find some of the fish tanks in and today was especially troubling.  Each time I go in I just hope that things have got better, but sadly I am always disappointed even though I know I should be.

What I saw today did bother so I decided to take a little video.  In this tank are 2 Clowns what I think is a box puffer and 2 other fish I am not sure of.  There is also an anemone that is dying and as most marine keepers will know is that when one of these start to die they can wipe a tank out quite quickly.

All the fish seemed to be coated in a white'ish slim, and all looked very unhealthy and in poor condition.

Anyway here is the video.

Thanks for watching