Plz help! dont know anything about activated carbon. need to treat white spot!

[W_Dreamer]

hello everyone!

i am new to this website!!! Please help, any advice you can give me will be appreciated!

i am new to using activated carbon as i just bought a hexagon 21.5 L fish tank and have been using this tank for 1 week with 1 siamese fighter fish in the tank.

my siamese fighter has one white spot in the middle of each eye (appeared first) and one on his body, chin, and under an eye (these appeared a week or so after)... these white dots have been on him for around 2 weeks or more but he appears to be acting/eating normal.

the filter box contains... bio rings;seperator;carbon wrapped in filter sponge;seperator; bio balls.


i am going to start using a liquid medicine i picked up at my local pet store called multi cure (cures white spot, velvet disease and fungal disease; contains malachite green, methylene blue and acriflavine)

i know i have to take out the activated carbon from the filter and do i just leave the filter sponge in?

i am not sure what i should do with the carbon after it is removed. ??

Also do i keep the bio balls and bio rings in their filter compartments while i do the treatment?

could this be a different disease rather then white spot?

THANKS <3

[Lupin]

If I were you, please use table salt. Treatment is very simple. All you need is increase the temperature to 86 degrees and slowly add table salt. Use a teaspoon per gallon dosage. Iodine being dangerous is nothing but gibberish, story short.

Activated carbon can remove the medicine so this needs removing from the tank if you are using a medicine however with salt, there is no need to remove it as salt is not removed by carbon at all.

For future reference, siamese fighters (Betta splendens) are tropical species, not coldwater hence the thread has been moved.:)

[noodles62]

Has the tank been cycled?

[W_Dreamer]

hi,

i am really new to postin threads and couldnt figure it out. thx for moving it!


It was set up (with the heater at 24 degress celcius) and running for approx 1 week before i put him in it... before this hex tank he was in a 1.8 Litre tank, didnt have a filter or heater. Used a lamp.


so, I have used rock salt and water conditioner when doing water changes in the 1.8L tank and used the same conditioner plus rock salt for the hex tank (just recalculated dosage to suit 21.5Litres) ... as it was reommended on this website http://www.bettatalk.com/water.htm and i did some research and found that it prevents disease.

so when i found these white dots on him and i moved him to the hex tank so i can use a heater to control temp. over a couple days i slowly got the temp up to 30 degrees celcius and added the extra 1 tablespoon of salt which was said to cure it...

but i havent seen any improvement and it been about 3 days or so and i dont want it to continue developing if it is white spot/ich/ick.

thats why i went and bought the liquid medication today.

But i am unsure of wat to do with the activated carbon, when i remove it. should it be thrown out, kept in water to reuse or what? :s and do i keep the bio rings, filter sponge and bio balls in the filter box when i use the medication??

thx for ur help!

[Lupin]

3 days is very short. Ich will be at its worst in the middle of treatment. Continue treatment for 14 days. You are to use only salt so no need to remove carbon.

[W_Dreamer]

OK i will not use the liquid medication for the nxt 2 weeks,

Should i do water changes? frequently?

[Lupin]

OK i will not use the liquid medication for the nxt 2 weeks,

Should i do water changes? frequently?
You can do daily by 10%. Dose salt the amount of water you replaced.

[blazingazn]

does anyone know how ich treatment with salt will affect the biological filter? i would assume there'd be some kind of die off since u'r adding more solutes to the water, and hence increasing the osmolar gradient across the cell membranes...

[Rbishop]

Doesn't affect it at all, IME.

[Lupin]

I don't think I've ever encountered that problem as well.

[Lady G]

Wow, I think we may need to make this article a sticky...I have given it out about 4-5 times in the last couple days..:perv:

Anyway if it is ich (white spot)...here is a very informative article, and one I would follow if I was to treat it myself. Personally, I would use the salt method as apposed to the meds.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88601

[CHRISTINE BAIRD]

While I treated my tank for ich I replaced my carbon filter with a sponge scourer, they make great filters.