- The first step
in treating a disease in your quarantine,
or even display,
is actually identifying what disease you're dealing with.
And, there's a lot of different white spots.
Today, we're gonna talk about three of the major white spots
and how to identify 'em.
It's actually easier than you think.
And, we have Elliot for Marine Collectors here
to tell us all about what they are and what you look for.
- Yeah, so the major three are gonna be ich, velvet,
lymphocystis, or lympho for short.
We're gonna kind of just run through
what the symptoms look like, how they appear,
what the differences are between the three.
That way you can better identify what they are
and treat the fish accordingly.
- Alright, the first one is lympho
and it's important to correctly identify this one,
because if this is what you have,
you have nothing to worry about
and you shouldn't treat for it.
So, what does it look like?
- Alright, so lympho or lymphocystis,
it's actually just lymphatic tissue.
A lot of times you'll see it sometimes on butterflies,
angel fish,
a lot of times it'll pop up
especially in copper and quarantine.
Basically, they're a little white pustules.
Sometimes, it's called cauliflower disease,
'cause as the pustules grow,
it actually looks like little tufts of cauliflower,
but that also can present in very small pustules as well,
even mimicking the size of ich.
Sometimes it's only on the fins
and sometimes it's actually the same size as ich,
so it can often be confused.
The biggest notable difference is that it doesn't fall off
like ich will.
Those spots that you see on ich,
a lot of times they'll disappear
within the first 24 to 48 hours.
If you actually look at the individual spots,
this, it'll be there for weeks
until it actually either gets picked off by, let's say,
a cleaner shrimp or the fish actually sheds it itself.
- A couple of things that I've noticed about it
is typically it will be the largest of the white spots
that are in the tank.
Often, you said called it cauliflower disease,
meaning that you can actually see the lumpy texture on it.
And, part of the reason you can see it so well
is a lot of times like most of the time
it will show up on the fins, and the tail,
and like clear spots of the fish
where it's really easy to see this big white lump
that's kind of lumpy,
like cauliflower.
If that's what you're seeing, don't worry about it.
It's just gonna go away on its own and it isn't ich.
It isn't velvet and you don't need to treat for it.
- Alright, so if it is lymph,
first thing to note is that it's a virus.
There's actually no known treatment for it.
The second thing is that the best course of action
is to not medicate,
medications like copper will actually exacerbate the problem
and actually make the condition worse.
Best course of action,
just clean water, good diet, low stress.
- Next is the identification of ich versus velvet,
both tiny little white spots,
but people often over complicate
the identification of these two.
What should be looking for with velvet?
- So, with velvet, it's actually really simple.
If you think of like the dust that'll collect on your desk
or on the shelf,
very, very small thin powdery little particles.
You can think of powdered sugar.
They don't really protrude off the body too much.
They more lay flat.
If you actually look down laterally of the body of the fish,
you can actually see it a lot better as well.
- Now, this isn't always true,
but it is a reasonably good rule of thumb,
which is if you can count the amount of particles
it's probably not velvet.
You could have caught it really early,
but the intermediary and end stages of velvet,
there's no way you're gonna be able to count it.
Another thing that you should be looking for with velvet,
sadly, is that a lot of stuff is dying really fast.
Velvet just moves really, really quickly.
So, if you're losing things really quickly,
probably velvet.
Alright, ich,
how would I identify the difference between that and velvet?
Because, it does look different.
- Okay, so first off the actual particle size of the spot,
it is bigger.
If you think of velvet as powdered sugar,
ich is gonna be a lot more like the size of, let's say,
grain of salt.
If you actually dump out salt on your desk,
you can actually see the size, shape,
the fact that it actually protrudes up off the surface.
Very similarly, it will look just like that on the fish.
- And, in terms of how many there are,
it's often said that if you can count 'em,
it's probably ich,
and that's true actually,
in the early stages,
and maybe even intermediate stages,
but end stages of ich,
it'll look like you dump the whole salt shaker on it,
and it'll be covered, and you won't be able to count 'em,
but that's really, really late in the game.
Alright, so what if I still can't tell what it is?
There are actually some other cues here.
Like one, if the spot is gone in a day
and the fish didn't die, probably ich.
Why would that be?
- Yeah, so I mean, a lot of people don't know,
but when the spot actually shows up on the fish,
that's usually within 24 to 48 hours,
that that actual parasite's gonna fall off the fish.
If it's velvet, and it's been more than a couple days,
and the fish is still alive,
you are very, very lucky.
Normally, that fish would've died by now.
Honestly, you probably would've lost
a lot of fish in the tank.
Also, if you happen to be losing fish,
and they never showed symptoms,
it's also more likely velvet.
Ich, if it starts showing up,
you have a lot of time,
because the actual replication stages of ich
are a lot slower
and it takes a lot longer for those parasites
to actually spread
and overtake an entire system.
- So, one of the things here
is the velvet will fall off too, right?
But, there's so many stages of the velvet on the fish
and so many little ones all over,
it'd be really hard to tell if one of them fell off, right?
But, if I have a few spots of ich on the fish,
I can look at it, and know where they are,
and see 'em tomorrow, when they fell off,
more likely ich than velvet at this point,
especially if the fish looks healthy.
Another good tell is if you haven't added any livestock
to the tank in a really long time
and all of a sudden you start to see white spots,
it is probably ich, but why?
- Alright, so to be perfectly honest,
if you have velvet in your system,
it's so virulent that it'll probably take over.
It's not the type of thing
that's usually masked by a healthy fish.
It's just, it's so quick
in terms of overtaking a system.
Ich, not so much, symptoms can definitely be subdued,
especially with a really healthy fish,
especially with a fish
that has a really strong immune system.
And, a lot of times,
if you have a system where you have a lot of fish in there
they haven't been at, or sorry,
you haven't added new fish in a long time,
all that'll happen is like,
you might have a stress event of some kind,
you'll see a few spots pop up,
but you won't see like this massive outbreak.
It'll just be like a couple flareups here and there.
- Yeah, so I think that brings up the point
that there is such a thing
as the ich management like method, right?
You can just accept that ich is gonna be in the tank
and manage to that fact.
I've never actually seen the velvet management method,
because I don't think it exists.
So, like for that reason,
if you have seen or haven't put any livestock in the tank,
and you haven't seen any disease for a long time,
then you see a couple of white spots,
much, much much more likely that it was ich.
A little bit more finite than that
is that if your outbreak is actually within a week
of adding a new fish
and it spreads to another fish visibly in the tank,
way more likely to be velvet than ich.
Why is that?
- Alright, so if you actually look at the life cycle,
ich, it just takes too long.
Let's just say hypothetically, right?
You got a fish that had ich,
parasites dropped off that particular fish,
within 18 hours or so
it'll actually create the tomont on the substrate,
three days to 76 days
depending on the temperature of the water, right?
Or, maybe the particular strain.
It'll hatch, it'll reattach to the fish,
and then, at absolute soonest, three days,
of the feeding stage,
it's actually on the fish,
you'll see that spot actually show up
on different fish, right?
And, that's already been a week's time.
If it's velvet, it'll spread to those fish
much, much faster.
- Yeah, so ich will take over a week
to go from your brand new fish you put in the tank
to show up on another tank or another fish rather.
So, if you see it right away,
and it's spreading from one fish to another one,
specifically from the one you just added,
most likely velvet.
Another one is actually symptom free fish
just start dying.
Almost certainly not ich, but it could be velvet.
- Yeah, so unfortunately, in velvet,
it's incredibly incredibly virulent,
and it also populates a lot faster
and with a lot higher numbers.
So, a lot of times what you could have is,
let's say you have a population of fish in your tank,
you just have these mysterious deaths, right?
And, the fish were totally fine today, tomorrow,
they're dead on the sand or something.
A lot of times you actually
won't even see this physical symptoms of velvet
until it's just the last few stragglers
that we're fighting it off to the best that they could.
Ich, it's not as virulent.
And, you will definitely see the actual physical symptoms
on the body first before the fish start dying.
Velvet's just one of those things,
it's just so, so predatory
and it just takes over so quickly.
- So, if you're not seeing white spots,
it could be a lot of different things,
but velvet should make the mix of things you're considering,
but not ich.
Alright, so there's also a couple other types
of white spot in your tank.
And, one of 'em is debris and sand actually.
- Yeah, so you know it does happen.
Fish do bump into things.
They do get sand or sometimes the tri dust stuck on them.
Personally, me, I always like to fixate
on like oh, my God, there's spots on the fish.
I'm freaking out.
I gotta make sure that my tank is fully eradicated
and I get overly paranoid,
but a lot of times you just need to take a step back,
and take a look at the fish, and be like, okay,
it's actually not anything I need to worry about.
- A couple things to look for is if that sand stays there
for multiple days,
it's probably sand.
Another one to look for is if it falls off
like right in front of your eyes,
it's probably tank debris.
And, the other one is just decide, does it look like sand?
Alright, so let's pretend
that we still can't identify what it is
and we're gonna have to guess.
Well, it's just a gamble or educated gamble at this point,
but there are different risks with each side of the gamble.
So, go into it eyes open,
starting with guessing that it's ich
is actually a bigger gamble in some ways.
Why would that be?
- Yeah, so ich, you always have time.
Velvet, it kills within days.
Ich, it'll take at least weeks,
especially if it's a relatively new outbreak.
Thing is that if you've got velvet
and you wait to observe,
chances are by the time that you pull the fish out,
most of your fish are probably gonna be dead already.
- Yeah, so if you guess ich and guess wrong,
probably everything's going to die.
Alright, there's also a downside
to guessing wrong that it's velvet.
What is that?
- Alright, so unfortunately
it means that you have to act really fast.
It's gonna be very, very labor intensive.
If you think that you have velvet in your display tank,
you're probably gonna be taking part your aquascape,
maybe draining the tank down, catching all the fish,
putting them into a medicated quarantine.
Unfortunately, just, you don't have the luxury to wait
to see if the symptoms progress.
You have to act really, really fast
and get on it as soon as possible.
With ich, you have a little bit of time,
but velvet really it's just like act now,
or it might be too late.
- Yeah, so if you guessed wrong on velvet,
the problem is is you just put your tank
through a major unnecessary stress event,
tearing all the aquascape apart, capturing all the fish,
medicating them,
all kind of unnecessary if it isn't velvet.
However, if it is end stage,
meaning that the fish are actually either covered
in white spots being ich or velvet,
and it's trending bad,
meaning progressively getting worse.
Well, the good news is the treatment
is almost the same,
and you know what?
We have it right here.