White spot or anchor worm?
Chris
flukes/worms?
Chris
Sanderson Sanderson
I have a 20 gallon hexagon tank, and lost a butterfly to white spot before I
new what was wrong, I have kept fish for years but am new to marine fish,
after I lost the butterfly I replaced it with a Copper Band Butterfly, my
dancing shrimp got to daring with my Atlantic anemonae and was stunned, to
death. (news group said it would be if it did not leave anemonae alone). I
replaced it with a cleanor shrimp, probably the best thing I ever saw, white
with red strip down his back, my new butterfly got white spot on shit tail
fin and also near his nose and on side fins. I thought I would lose him
too. The cleanor shrimp keeps jumping on the butterfly and although he does
not like this behaviour he let the shrimp clean him for a few seconds each
time. The cleanor ate the white spots and my butterfly is now clear, but he
still goes to be cleaned. White spot is a kind of fungus, starts with small
white spot and then grows bigger looks like cotton wool.
The cleanor shrimp I have had for 5 months he was 1" long and now is about
3" long with long feelers, he changes his skin about 2 weeks and when he
does this it looks as if there is another shrimp in the tank feelers and
all. You can also buy a chemical cure but I would rather not do that.
Good luck
Sande...@btinternet.com
From North of England.
Chris <dia...@back44.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:80keei$jg3$1...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk...
DefLizard
The family of Butterflyfish are one of THE most difficult of SW fish to
keep in captivity, PERIOD.
Keeping FW fish in NO way prepares you for keeping Marine fish. Without
some basic and fundamental knowledge about marine animals, you and your
animals are DOOMED to failure and they subjected to horrible tortures
and death.
Something you will never if ever get, is proper advice from ANY LFS!
Marine aquarium systems is an SCIENCE which requires preparation and
study to be successful. It is NOT simply a conglomeration of devices
and equipment.
If you REALLY want to start enjoying this fascinating hobby, you must
make an effort to understand what you are doing, the lifestyle and
characteristics and needs of your animals, as well as disease prevention
and control, plus compatibility and the individual requirements for
their successful propagation.
Just because you 'see' a fish in your LFS, and say to yourself, "well,
its in an aquarium, and you have water, water movement, light, and rocks
and substrate (if any) there's nothing to it"
Right? WRONG. Look closely at all the tanks. Are they hooked up to some
'system' where water is going thru one tank after another? That means
that several hundred gallons of water in circulation. Ask your LFS to
show you how it accomplishes biological filtration, for starters.
A good LFS will ask you questions about your set up, what you are
keeping, and then advise you on what you should or should not get. Most
will simply bag the animal, take your money, and simply say: "Ta Ta. see
you SUCKER!"
NO conscientious or knowledgeable LFS would have encouraged your
purchase choices without some counseling, even at the expense of losing
a sale!
Get those reading materials, that give you some basic understanding,
especially about disease control and prevention, compatibility and needs
of various species, the dangers of mixing certain invertebrates with
others, their characteristics and needs, just for starters.
Here is a list of books to get you going:
The New Marine Aquarium - Paletta
The Conscientious Marine Aquarist - Fenner
The Natural Reef Aquarium - Tullock
Any Book from Martin A. Moe
and if you want to handle some more difficult text, then there's:
Delbeek and Sprung's
The Reef Aquarium, Vol 1 and 2
The Natural Reef Aquarium - Nilssen/Fossa Vols 1 and 2
Just for starters: As I had previously stated, Butterflyfish are NOT
suitable for small aquariums. They are specialized feeders and require
the most pristine (pristine means zero ammonia, zero nitrites, and close
to zero nitrates, salinity and pH as occurs in the ocean, along with the
trace elements, alkalinity, and chemical composition of sea water.) of
water conditions, a large (over 100 gal) tank, and in many cases live
foods, supplemented by meaty substitutes, if and when they are accepted.
Most if not all Butterflyfish are coral reef grazers and nibble on the
LIVING animals on the reef.
White spot or Cryptocaryon irritans is an protozoan (protozoans are
single cell animals and require a high magnification microscope to see)
obligate parasite that requires a fish host to complete its life cycle.
It has 4 stages, the feeding stage, where the fish BURROWS into the
flesh of its victim, which causes great irritation of the fish's body
(hence the name irritans) this causes the fish to secrete mucuous in
response to this feeding, in the form of white spots. The 'white spots'
is NOT the disease organism. Following approximately 12 to 24 hours of
feeding, depending on water temperature, the feeding organism,
encapsulates, its SECOND stage, falls off the fish, and then starts
dividing.(its THIRD stage) One individual cyst can release up to 200 new
feeding parasites! (its FOURTH stage, which are highly motile, and have
cellia for movement) Its only in its host looking stage that chemical
treatments are effective, without killing the fish).
Most fish succumb to the ravages of this parasite due to the fact that
most will be inhaled by the fish's respiration, and lodging in the
gills, destroying the fish's ability to breathe! It in no way
resembles a fungus, as you may have only lymphocystis, a benign virual
infection. You indeed may have also had Ick, but in a mild form and the
fish's immune system may have warded off the parasite. Different species
have different susceptabilities to varing parasites and diseases. In
order to be sure that your tank is parasite free, following an outbreak,
the tank has to left fish free for a period of six weeks, as those
cycsts have been known to survive up to 4 weeks or more! To be MORE
assured, ALL fish need to be quarantined and placed under close
observation, BEFORE being placed in an aquarium, especially when it is
virtually impossible to treat the fish without doing irreparable damage
to your main tank!
Keeping ANY anemone in the confines of a small aquaria is courting
disaster, as they use stinging cells in their tentacles to capture food.
Atlantic anemones are particularily venemous as they exist primarily by
consuming living organisms in the water. Unless one has a very large
aquarium, and KNOWS about the requirements, needs, feeding habits, and
water conditions of anemones, one is better off in staying AWAY from
them, unless one is content in only keeping sessile animals. That means
anmals that do not move around or swim!
If you have not been aware of, or read the news, or frequent NG's or
read FAQ''s, you will find out that the supply of marine animals is
dwindling, and there are movements in many countries underfoot to limit
or ban completely, the importation of marine animals, as a misguided
effort to conserve dwindling marine resources, due primarily to the
cavalier and wasteful manner by which this hobby treats these animals.
In closing, I wish to express the thought that the living creatures on
this Earth, are not merely toys for us to amuse ourselves with, and then
discard, when we tire of them or no longer want or need them! Its the
sum total of ALL the hobbyist's destruction of these valuable resources,
which will bring about the demise and extinction, of these creatures, as
seen in the eyes of conservationistic forces! Lets not give these
powerful people the ammunition to use to shoot ourselves!
DefLizard
Group: rec.aquaria.marine.misc Date: Sun, Nov 21, 1999, 12:11am (PST+8)
From: Sande...@btinternet.com (Sanderson Sanderson) Re: White spot
or anchor worm?