Recently, I have heard that many aquarists have white spot disease, which is also the high incidence season of white spot disease, which has been cured, but also returned to the lake. I also got a slight white spot in one of the tanks
。 Speaking of white spot disease, everyone is not unfamiliar, many people have experienced, heating up, adding salt, drugging, the disease is cured, but sometimes it will be accompanied by secondary infections, clean fish die, nitrification system to create damage to the water, recurrence after a few days, fish return to the lake and so on. I think it's mainly because I don't know enough about white point disease. Let me dissect them one by one
First of all, let's look at the symptoms of white spot disease (figure 1): fish rubbing tank, fin shrinking, shortness of breath, severe time will be out of group, body black, lack of energy, fish body white spots (if you see obvious white spots, it means that you have been seriously infected with parasites, no longer timely treatment, soon return to the lake), may also be complicated by bacterial infections, water mold and other diseases
Figure 1 (Peacock with white spots)
White spot disease has obvious seasonality, especially in the change of season temperature difference and water temperature of about 20 degrees, easy to induce white spot disease, water quality deterioration caused by the fish resistance is reduced, is also one of the main causes of white spot disease. White spot disease is a highly contagious disease, and if not treated in time, the mortality rate is quite high
Next, look at the pathology of white spot disease, which is caused by the outbreak of small melon worms on the surface of the body, which has to understand the characteristics of small melon worms
Small melon worm (Figure 2, Figure 3), is a single-celled protospora ectoparasite, the adult worm is spherical, the whole body is covered with cilia, about 0.8mm in diameter, black-brown insect body, the naked eye sees white, because the fish body secretes white protective liquid wrapped fruit, so the name "white spot"
Figure 2 (150X melon worm adult) Figure 3 (small melon worm adult impression)
Figure 4
The life history of the small melon worm (Figure 4) can be divided into three stages, namely the parasitic period, the sac stage and the larval stage
The parasitic period, the period from the time the small melon worm enters the fish body to the time when it matures and leaves the fish body. In the water swimming slowly and freely and slowly, the larvae of the melon worm invade the gills of the fish (Figure 5), each fin (Figure 6), the skin, and the scales (Figure 7) and other parts, and feed on the mucus and cell tissues of the fish body (epithelial cells, red blood cells, lymphocytes), etc. The fish body is stimulated to secrete mucus of the protective layer cells to protect the body, and this just wraps each small melon worm inside, which greatly protects the small melon worm from external harm, including general drugs
Figure 5 (White dot insect under the gills of 120X fish)
Figure 6 (Sub-white spot worm on 120X caudal fin)
Figure 7 (White dot insect under 120X fish scales)
In the cell sac stage, the small melon worm under the protection of mucus, in the suitable environment, about 4 days after the development of maturity puncture the protective layer away from the fish body fell into the water and attached to the solid, in a short period of time secreted a layer of sac to protect the adult worm, the adult worm in the sac can split out about 1000 larvae, the larvae are ready to break out of the shell at any time
In the larval stage, after the white-spotted insects have differentiated and matured, the larvae have a sharp cone (Figure 8), which will puncture the sac and burst out of the sac, slowly spread into the fish tank and begin to look for a new host, but the larvae must find a host to parasitize within about 24 hours (about 26 degrees) (the lower the temperature, the longer it survives in the water) to survive and start a new round of small melon worm life history
Figure 8 (White dot insect in split)
Since both the adult stage and the cystic stage have protective mediators (fish cortex and worm body cyst) that can resist general drugs, we should start to treat white spot disease at the larval stage, that is, the period when the larvae swim in the water to be effective
However, in a fish tank with a temperature of about 28 degrees, the entire life history of the white spot worm takes 3-7 days to complete, compared with the low temperature tank (below 20 degrees), its life history takes more than 3 times to complete. Therefore, we fish only have white spot disease directly heated up, in order to speed up the completion of the life history of white spots, so that the free larvae can be killed more effectively. How much is the temperature rising? The temperature rises to more than 28 degrees, most of the white spots are not tolerant to high temperatures, the white spot larvae develop and gradually die, the adults grow faster and fall off, add moderate salt to change the osmotic pressure can accelerate the shedding, about 5 days of white spots significantly improved, continue to heat up a cycle of treatment. If the condition is not contained, it is recommended to warm up to more than 30 degrees, and treatment of white spots requires patience. At this point, I first of all do not recommend to cooperate with drug treatment, one is to destroy the nitrification system, and the other is that there are many drugs that are not well mastered and the liver burden of the fish is heavy
It is very important to maintain good water quality during treatment, often many times there is no timely treatment of white spot disease, the condition deteriorates, small melon worms quickly multiply and suck on the mucus, subcutaneous tissue and other nutrients on the fish, the wound wound of the fish body is too much, so that the fish's resistance plummets and cannot heal itself and soon returns to the lake, but the actual situation is more than this, the fish body has a wound, plus the adult worm "breaks out of the shell" from the fish surface, the wound is exposed to the water, if the water quality is slightly poor, there will often be secondary infection, along with the infection of other pathogens, For example, various bacterial infections, water mold, blindfolds and so on
At this point, everyone should be relatively clear about white point disease. To sum up
Prevention and treatment of white spot disease:
Where do the pathogens of the white spots (small melon worms) come from?
Pathogens are mainly brought into the tank through new fish, new fish bags through the water, old filter materials from other tanks, newly purchased aquatic weeds, fed live food, and new fish poop into the fish tank. Therefore, if you want to do prevention, the quarantine tank is necessary, the new fish do not get out of the tank immediately, and the water of the fish merchant is not put into the fish tank, the old filter material taken does not have "worm eggs", the newly bought aquatic grass should be disinfected, fed clean and live food, the new fish put in the quarantine tank for a week, stop eating, and drain the BB clean. The fish tank maintains a constant temperature of about 26 degrees, reasonable feeding, regular water change, a small amount of change, and the temperature difference between before and after does not exceed 2 degrees
In addition to the above factors, a long-term stable water quality, will not get white dots? Not necessarily, because although white-spotted insects will also parasitize under unsuitable conditions, but the probability of parasitic reproduction is very low, but there may be a very small number of pathogens living in water or parasitism, once it occurs urgently, the time is ripe, it is possible to erupt. Therefore, prevention is the mainstay, and water quality stability is the key
1, white spot infection in the early stage, stop eating, slowly heat up to more than 30 degrees, salt, resting observation for 5 days, some improvement and then continue treatment and observation for 5 days, during which to change water
2, if the white spot disease in the later stage is more serious or the salt under the heating has no obvious effect, you can cooperate with drug treatment (the original cylinder drug will destroy the nitrification system, the later stage will be very troublesome), it is recommended to fish the sick fish to the treatment tank isolation treatment, according to the instructions under the brand white dot special drug, aquarium tank is not recommended to use mercury nitrate (white spot net), malachite green, copper sulfate, Fuma, Gao Meng and other strong drugs (the amount is not easy to control, the fish liver is also damaged), and the main tank can be empty for a week, heating and salting, so that the pathogen can not find the host and die
3, usually has suffered from white spot disease fish will be exempt from white spot insects are not easy to re-infect, I have touched 4 times white spots 3 times is cured by method 1, 1 time is cured by medicine, as long as you are diligent in observation, the cure rate at the beginning of the disease is very high
I believe that everyone has been more confident about the white point disease, and I hope that everyone will correct it.