Advice needed. Son set his tank up a couple of weeks ago. waited a week before putting fish in and all was fine. he then added a couple more, one of which died straight away. the shop tested his water and said it was perfect and replaced fish. Now he has white spot and one by one fish are all infected and some dying. He has bought some treatment but they all look rough this morning. Do you reckon he is likely to lose them all. Also, if he does should he just empty tank and start over  or assume water will be ok after treatment. Thnx

What fish has he got ??? It does take a VERY long time to get a tank going without any problems - a week is a very short time. We used to add something called Stress Coat to the water which helped, also salt. Certainly, I'd be prepared to lose a lot of fish initially, so don't buy anything expensive. I assume that he has got a good filter etc

Daisy

He did everything the shop told him before putting in fish. He has 4 neons left from 6, 2 platys, a siamese, a small catfish and a small silver shark. He lost a plecostomus which they replaced with another and both those died before showing signs of white spot. He has got a good filter but was told to remove carbon filter before treating with white spot stuff. The only fish not showing any sign is catfish. The tank holds 60l.

Treat for white stop might take a while, just follow the directions on the leaflet/bottle.

White spot has either come from two places, the pet shop or his tank.

Unfortunately fish easily get diseased when stressed, or there's a lot of change in light.  Where is the tank situated in the house?  Which filter has he got?

Neon's, being small fish tend to die quite quickly unless looked after very well. 

I'm also concerned about the amount of fish put up in the set up of the tank.  Personally I would only let 3-4 fish go into a newly set up tank and wouldn't let the fighter go in after just a week.

I know these are stupid questions but is the temperature correct and stable? What else is in the tank (apart from the fish) and did they all get washed though and rinsed with a declorinator? (as was a declorinator put in the water?)

hope he hasnt done what my mother did once......libeally sprayed the summer blue-bottles with fly spray & then watched the goldfish roll over & die within an hour

The best thing to do is to keep using the white spot stuff. Dont add any more fish until the white spots are gone. He may well lose all the fish he has already.

The best fish to set up a new tank are 'Livebearers ' , like guppies or mollys ( they are also cheap fish). I would say also he put to many fish to start with. As it's a new tank I would have said 4 fish max to start with. Then add 1 or 2 every few weeks (slowly build the tank up).

Ẁe kept fish for years so feel free th PM me with any other questions.

Temp is fine. He put safe water in and basically did everything he was told. He got it all from a specialist aquatic store and they were very helpful and informative. He only has some plastic plants and bogwood, all washed etc It looks like it came from the plec as this came from adifferent shop. Not many of the fish left now.....

I think maybe it would be worth re-setting up the tank if the fish don't make it and don't allow more then 4 fish in the initial set up of the tank.

Although live-bearers are easy fish to keep that are also hardy they do tend to breed very quickly and easily and you may soon have an overfull tank of mollies and guppies, unless of course they get eaten :(

I think maybe it's just one of those things.  Not sure how you are sure the plec was what brought in the white spot though when you mentioned earlier both plecs died without white spot symptoms?

Also some real plants might be worth having in the tank.  They tend to keep it healthier for the fish.

Might be worth another water test aswell just to make sure.

Fabulous site for newby fish keepers here

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/
they really help you understand all the problems new fishkeepers encounter (most from bad fish shop advice :rolleyes: )

I've found the best cure for white spot was salt, you can find info on this here
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=335
it's also a really good fishkeeping resource ;)

joining both is FREE :D

another forum is fishgeeks.com , they are great with newbies too - helped me no end when I made all the mistakes your son made but on a grander scale (think smaller tank, more fish!).

I'd also get yourself down to Pets at Home or a good fish store and buy some Stress Zyme - it's a bacterial supplement, helps the biological filter get going.  It's helped me through some scrapes in the past after powercuts or similar disasters, wonderful stuff.

Turning up the temp by a degree or two can also get rid of white spot - used to do this myself when keeping tropical fish and continued to keep them at the top end of the temperature scale and never had problems after this.

My hubby has always kept fish, we got a new tank and set up a few months ago :) we set it all up and left it a few weeks then we added the fish, i got some sunset platys and tetra's and they've all been fine, we have been quiet lucky, because we haven't lost one yet :)

The whitespot hasnt 'come' from anywhere, its a parasite that all fish carry. Like mange in dogs, it shows itself when fish are stressed.

An uncycled tank, which this is, will stress teh fish (as the ammonia and nitrites will burn the fishes gills).

A tank should take around 4 -6 weeks to cycle, sometimes longer. Not a WEEK!

What has to happen is the ammonia builds up in the tank. The filter develops 'friendly bacteria' which turn the ammonia into nitrites and then nitrites into nitrates.

Ammonia and nitrites are very poisonous to fish, you should have next to NO nitrites and absolutely NO ammonia in the tank before you put fish in.

NitrAtes are not nearly so poisonous, they still are though, but we remove those by doing regular partial water changes (partial mind you, not the entire tank contents!)

Occasionally you will need to change the sponges and floss from the filter, or clean it. To clean it you rinse it in OLD tank water, never ever tap water (chemicals in this will kill the bacteria) to remove large lumps of crud. To change it you take out HALF the old stuff and replace. Taking it all out will cause the tank to cycle again, probably damaging or killing your fish in the process.

Adding too many fish will also cause ammonia levels and thus nitrite and nitrAte levels to shoot up. BIG fish like plecs (and a great many are far too big to go in the average tank) create HUGE amounts of waste and can really naf up a tank if you arent aware of it. It is something of a myth that these guys will clean up the tank, they NEED feeding and they will produce loads of poo.

I would personally treat the remaining fish for the whitespot - turning up the temperature a couple of degrees will speed up the parasites life cycle meaning they hatch faster and meet the chemical treatment in the water quicker.

When they are clear for a week or more and the water is free (due to partial water changes) from the treatment, start monitoring the water quality with test kits - i use TetraTest 5 in 1 strips and a seperate ammonia tester - you may well see the tank cycle with the fish in it, you are looking for the ammonia levels to spike and then drop down to nothing.

WHEN the tank ammonia levels reach nothing, and the nitrite levels are almost 0, then add 2 or 3 small fish (depending on tehs ize of your tank that is, my 260litre tank i can add 10 small tetras in one go without any problems, in a 2ft tank this would be bad news).

When they have been in there around a month with no problems, then you can add a similar amount.

What you are suffering at the moment is called 'New Tank Syndrome' and its unbelievably common because shop owners do  NOT tell people the truth!

The only way you can get away without setting up a tanka dn leaving it without fish for 6 weeks is by seeding it frmo someone elses tank (and is what i do when i set up a new tank), by using their old filter media and some of their old water.

Hth

Em

He only has the catfish left now but he has also found that there are quite a few small redworms appearing. He finds them in the fillter and around the bogwood which is the only non artificial thing in there. Any thoughts what they are and where they could have come from? thanks

Em, the white spot although comes about when the fish are stressed is of course VERY contagious in a tank.  If in a pet shop tank (where fish are easily stressed) it comes from there and ten spreads into the new owners tank.

Star also mentioned a water test was done that was fine.  I'm sure any water test does included Nitrates, Nitrites, ammonia and PH.

But also some very good points.  It does take a tank along time to cycle everything and to do it proberly can take a very long time to build up a fish community.

Ah didnt catch the test results there - most water test kits ive come across are either nitrate/nitrite, ph gh etc OR ammonia, not found one that does them all.

Yes, fish already showing signs of white spot can pass it on but then if the fish existing are not stressed they are unlikely to get it.

I had an example of this recently - due to a hatch of angelfish i couldnt use my quarantine tank for a batch of tetras id bought (stupid of me but there you go).... Unnoticedby me one of the tetras had whitespot, as a result they ALL got it, but only teh new fish, existing fish were fine (thank god! as i cant use whitespot treatment in my tank due to soft bodied eels).

Fortunately i swapped them to a tank i could use the treatment on and everyones fine.

I have to pay very careful attention to water quality here as now all my community tanks contain fish/inverts that prohibit the use of most treatments, it makes me very paranoid about water changes and stuff, especially as the fish who would be killed by the treatments are either rare or expensive.

Em

Can't remember off hand if one on the off the shelf tests does them all from PAH.  but you can also buy the individual ones.  Will have alook tomorrow when Im next in.

I just know that we somewhere have them all.

The stress zyme I mentioned also helps speed up the first cycle as well.  Very useful stuff.