Ouch. Formalin can be extremely harsh, especially to debilitated/weak fish. I don't think I'd try it on these. Perhaps extreme heat with serious supplemental oxygenation and salt? L239, in my experience, seems to be hit with this parasite or bacterial infection really badly. I've never had any success treating them with conventional anti-parasite meds ... metronidazole might help somewhat and should be more effective at temps reaching into the low 90's, although I am not certain that such high temps would not stress them beyond the breaking point. Good luck ...
The fish are still alive, i make 30% daily waterchange. I have set the heater to 30 degrees celcius, but actual temp climbs slowly, and is now only at 28 C.
Panaques are still full of spots, but no other inhabitans seem affected... Yet.
I have added a mix of bromephenolgreen and CuSO4, called "Becks Benium Multi". Can these meds have any effect on the white spot disease?
CuSO4 = copper sulfate? My inorganic chemistry is not what it should be. I'll assume the phenol green is some form of victoria green/malachite green. Yes, this should have "some" effect on the white spot, if the spots are parasitic. I recall a thread on here quite some time ago concerning white spotting not always being a parasitic disease, but sometimes bacterial. Be careful with the dosing - at higher temps some meds will consume precious oxygen and stimulate further sliming on the fish, which can make the fish work much harder to get less and less available oxygen. Good luck with your fish - I certainly hope you have better success treating this species than I have!
Are they eating? This is often the best sign as to how well a fish is or isn't feeling. The daily water vaccumming will definitely help, and is always a safe course of action.
This is the disease I recently had in epidemic proportions starting with newly received plecos in this same advanced stage. Your photo shows the diesease perfectly. It is not common ich. The following fish were among the affected group:
L204 Flash-4
L333 Queen Tiger-4
L066 King tiger-4
L134 Leopard frog-6
I took skin scrapings and was able to identify the organism under the microscope asChilodonella. By the time it is this visible on the skin, the gills are really compromised. Any proprietary malachite green/formalin solution are effective and combine it with the metroniadazole/high temp.
Provide additional aeration. If caught very early it is very easy to treat but at this stage it is not.
This is at and advanced stage so expect an uphill battle to save them. I believe that it is actually Chilodonella and other parasites that I did not detect. Sudden death is not uncommon. I saved all the L204, which were emaciated and were large specimens. All the rest were young fish and very emaciated. I lost half the L333 and L066. I lost all the L134.
This can spread easly to other fish and it infected my female Halfmoon bettas that shared one of the infected tanks and I lost about one third of them before the medications began to work
Any proprietary malachite green/formalin solution are effective
Do You have any idea, on what a meaningfull dosation of formalin would be? - I do not have any formalin based meds, but I have access to 25% and 10% p.a. formalin - And could easily dillute this down to a correct solution, if I only knew what a correct dosis would be.
I have added extra aeration, and lowered the waterlevel to just under the outputnozzles from the cannister filter (This aerates a lot it seems, aquarium/filter turnover 12 times per hour).
Allen,
I would not recommend using only formalin but rather the malachite green plus formalin combination products. They have a synergistic effect and that allows for the benefits of at a less toxic dose formalin. This disease weakens the fish so much that a simple partial water change may kill the heavily infected fish immediately. They not only are run down by the infection but have had to have been miststreated by overcowding, underfeeding and por water quality prior to receiving them, most likely at the export/import level of the distribution network.
If you remain unpursuaded and feel you must use formalin then dose at 25ppm for no longer than 12 hours. Then replace with frsh water after 24 hours and repeat the treatment. It takes about 10-14 days to catch all the vulnerable stages of the disease this far advanced. It is also probaly infected with various internal parasitic worms which are best treated by feeding medicaed foods laced with vermicides. Metronidazole kills most of the other possible disease organisms common in newly imported plecos.
It sometimes makes me wonder how any of these fish ever survive to become "pets". The actual mortality from the time of capture to end purchaser may run as high as 50%in the best case scenario to 80% on a routine basis.
Raises a few ethical questions, especially since these high mortality rate could easily be reduced to 10% if the fish received proper care at all the stages.
I don't have acces to any formalin based meds around here. In Denmark, formalin is, as far as i know, forbidden by law to sell to/use by private persons.
Acyually CuSO4 and malachite green are as well, even trout farms have now to document, that they have no other means of treatment, before they are allowed to use these substances -Which is actually all good, I think.
We have a couple suppliers for gardening ponds (Serious Koi stores) breaking the rules on this, and selling formalin.
Therefor, the complete case is, that if I want to use a formalin mix, I would have to produce the mix myself.
From your post, that seems hazardous, and I will therefor abandon the formalin idea again.
And yes, You are absolutely right on your thoughts about the ethical question in the wild inport.
- I am amongst the people to blaim. The fish mentioned came to Denmark directly from a brazilian fish station thursday, and i picked em up from the importer friday.
- The two fish I have still clinging on, are the only two survivors from that box.
One looks a bit better now, but still with spots. The other looks worse, as if it will die within the hour.
Sorry to hear things are not turning out well. You should'nt blame yourself. They were sick when they were shipped and for now, this the only way we aquarists have to get most of the plecos. The ethical issues should be something importers and exporters should be addressing by giving the fish better care prior to sale. They are the ones killing so many fish albeit the fish live just long enough to die in our possession.
You are restricted from using the most effective weapons by law. The USA has many restricted drugs as well. I used to use chloramphenicol for treatment of many bacterial infections. I think it is available in Europe but here it is no longer offered in the water soluble capsule form but only injectable form ampuoles for $150. Even then, physcians won't prescribe it for amateurs' use. It was vastly more effective than anything else currently sold for treating bacterial fish diseases.
