spots

[Maria]

Help!

There are small white spots on my black mollie! A friend of mine said it is because I don't put salt in the tank. Is that true? Will the white spots go away if I add salt? I thought black mollie was a fresh water fish. If I should add salt, how much salt per litre do you recommend? Ordinary salt from the grocery store, or any kind of special salt?

Please help me!
/Maria

[ladyjai]

do they look like grains of salt? if yes, then you are looking at ick. Ick is a parasite that you will need to treat for. Is the molly the only kind of fish in that tank?

You will want to turn the temperature up to 82 for the duration of treatment. Every 1-3 days, you need to thoroughly vacuum the gravel/sand and do a 50% water change. increase this if the fish do not show improvement.

If you only have mollies (and other livebearers in the tank) then add salt, you will want marine salt, not aquarium salt, at 1tablespoon per 5 gallons and work your way up to 1-2tablespoons per gallon. (over the course of several days).

Mollies are actually brackish fish, and need to be kept at a low salinity water. 1-2tbsp per gallon should do just fine. ick also dies at this level.

If you have other fish in the tank, then you are looking at problems, as many freshwater fish do not appreciate salt in that high of a dose. an alternative is using a reliable ick medicine such as rid-ick+.
Don't forget to do your water changes and adjust the temperature.

[Maria]

Thank you ladyjai!

I'll try salt. I only have mollies right now (the other died a few weeks ago), so I don't have to worrie about fresh water fishes not liking the salt.

[quote="ladyjai"] you will want marine salt, not aquarium salt

What's the difference?

/Maria

[ladyjai]

aquarium salt is just salt, nacl. if you have brackish fish, you want them to have something more accurate to brackish water.

here is the rundown of marine salt and (ocean salt):
Element ppm
Chloride, Cl 19,500
Sodium, Na 10,770
Magnesium, Mg 1,290
Sulphur, S 905
Calcium, Ca 412
Potassium, K 380
Bromine, Br 67
Carbon, C 28
Nitrogen, N 11.5
Strontium, Sr 8
Oxygen, O 6
Boron, B 4.4
Silicon, Si 2
Fluorine, F 1.3
Argon, Ar 0.43
Lithium, Li 0.18
Rubidium, Rb 0.12
Phosphorus, P 0.06
Iodine, I 0.06
Barium, Ba 0.02
Molybdenium, Mo 0.01
Arsenic, As 0.0037
Uranium, U 0.0032
Vanadium, V 0.0025
Titanium, Ti 0.001
Zinc, Zn 0.0005
Nickel, Ni 0.00048
Aluminium, Al 0.0004
Cesium, Cs 0.0004
Chromium, Cr 0.0003
Antimony, Sb 0.00024
Krypton, Kr 0.0002
Selenium, Se 0.0002
Neon, Ne 0.00012
Manganese, Mn 0.0001
Cadmium, Cd 0.0001
Copper, Cu 0.0001
Tungsten, W 0.0001
Iron, Fe 0.000055
Xenon, Xe 0.00005
Zirconium, Zr 0.00003
Bismuth, Bi 0.00002
Niobium, Nb 0.00001
Thallium, Tl 0.00001
Thorium, Th 0.00001
Hafnium, Hf 7 x 10-6
Helium, He 6.8 x 10-6
Beryllium, Be 5.6 x 10-6
Germanium, Ge 5 x 10-6
Gold, Au 4 x 10-6
Rhenium, Re 4 x 10-6
Cobalt, Co 3 x 10-6
Lanthanum, La 3 x 10-6
Neodymium, Nd 3 x 10-6
Lead, Pb 2 x 10-6
Silver, Ag 2 x 10-6
Tantalum, Ta 2 x 10-6
Gallium, Ga 2 x 10-6
Yttrium, Y 1.3 x 10-6
Mercury, Hg 1 x 10-6
Cerium, Ce 1 x 10-6
Dysprosium, Dy 9 x 10-7
Erbium, Er 8 x 10-7
Ytterbium, Yb 8 x 10-7
Gadolinium, Gd 7 x 10-7
Praseodymium, Pr 6 x 10-7
Scandium, Sc 6 x 10-7
Tin, Sn 6 x 10-7
Holmium, Ho 2 x 10-7
Lutetium, Lu 2 x 10-7
Thulium, Tm 2 x 10-7
Indium, In 1 x 10-7
Trebium, Tb 1 x 10-7
Palladium, Pd 5 x 10-8
Samarium, Sm 5 x 10-8
Tellurium, Te 1 x 10-8
Europium, Eu 1 x 10-8
Radium, Ra 7 x 10-11
Protactinium, Pa 5 x 10-11
Radon, Rn 6 x 10-16

[Maria]

Wow! That's a good part of the periodic table.
I'm glad I don't have to mix it my self.

[Komar]

I've had ick in my tanks a few times, unfortunately, but I don't recall any direct caualties. I think the treatment may have been harder on the fish than the ick itself. (My goldfish - R.I.P. - didn't take well to the temperature increase.)

Ick, in my experience, is easier to cure and less harmful to the fish than various types of fish fungus. I used a dose of regular aquarium salt and a dose of store-bought ick cure. I had to fiddle with the recommended dosages depending on the fish, but within a week, everything was under control each time. I treated the tanks a few days longer than recommended, based on some web research I did, and everything was fine.

Of course, Ladyjai knows more about Mollies than I do, so her info on salt is more accurate.

Here's a link with some info on ick:

http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/whitespot.htm

Here are two good snippets from the link:

"It is only the free-swimming stage of the parasite that is susceptible to treatment; neither the trophonts under the epithelium or the tomont cysts can be killed. So any treatment plan has to be carried out over a period of time in order to kill the emerging parasites."

"It is also believed that fish that survive an attack of Ich have an increased immunity against future attacks"

[Maria]

First of all, I want to thank you for your help. My fish are still alive, and seem to do much better now.

How long do you think a should keep on treating them after the white spots are gone? I'm refering to the extra heat and the water changes, 'casue the salinity should stay at this level forever, am I right?

Since the life cycle (according to the article) will take 7 days in 25 C, would it be okay to stop the treatment 10 days after the spots are gone?

[Komar]

10 days from the start of the treatment should be sufficient.

I'm not too knowledgeable about Molly-specific treatment, or what their regular water temperature requirements are, unfortunately. I'd say that with the permanently increased salinity, you could put the temperature back to normal for the comfort of your fish.

I'm pretty sure the increased water temperature just gets the parasites to, well, pop out of your fish sooner. That's when they hit the salty or treated water and hopefully die.

Definitely do one or two more water changes this week, and do water changes routinely every week to prevent another outbreak. I let my cleaning slide one week because the LFS tested my water. The quality was fine, but I think missing the cleaning that week led to an outbreak of ick. Clean water is the way to go.

I suspect you shouldn't worry too much at this point, whatever you decide to do.

[Maria]

Why was the LFS testing your water?

[Komar]

Ironically, I had my water tested because I brought in a dead fish.

My LFS (Petland) has a one month guarantee on fish, so if they don't acclimatise and die, you can get a replacement. They test the water to make sure it's okay before handing over another fish. (I also get it checked once in awhile because it's a free service.)

I actually went through five Pearl Gouramis in this manner before finally giving up (I have a post about these darned fish elsewhere). All of my other fish have been doing well over the last several months. Well, I lost a couple of Neon Tetras and a few Otos (which seem to get injured somehow), but otherwise, no floaters.