To understand the symptoms and prevention of white spot disease in ornamental fish

First of all, what is white spot disease? The pathogen of white spot disease is caused by the protozoan small melon worm invading the skin or gill of the fish body, so it is also called small melon worm disease, is very common and common fish body disease, its reproduction and transmission ability is very strong, but only parasitic on living fish body. In fact, white spot disease is not an incurable disease. As long as it is detected early and treated properly, the mortality rate is close to zero. As the saying goes, if you know your enemy and yourself, you will not be in danger of a hundred battles. If you want to effectively prevent and deal with white-spot disease, you must first have a little in-depth understanding of what this parasite is all about. As a whole, there are two things that are deadly to the fish themselves: Will protection secretion by the serious damage on the body skin mucous membrane, causing the fish body is damaged, then make it lose the ability to oppose If born in gills, can seriously affect the respiratory function of fish, oxygen supply, again and make it becomes suffocating When disease, usually from fins and gill began to grow the white dots, and has been spread to other parts of the body. At the beginning of the disease, the fish will have symptoms such as loss of appetite, rubbing against the tank, and lethargy. When it is serious, there will be difficulty breathing, body decay, and even blood spots. If left unchecked, the mortality rate is 100%. It is important to note that not all "white spots" can be clearly observed with the naked eye. If, in the early stages of the disease, the white spots start growing in the gills, they tend to escape the naked eye easily; By the time the white spots have spread TO other parts of the fish's body, they may have entered the second or third cycle of the disease. So if you find that the fish in the tank has the initial symptoms described above, but you can't see any white spots on the fish, you must not be careless, and you had better pay more attention and observe.

At the beginning of the life cycle, the spores of the melon worm burrow under the scales of the fish and reside on the skin of the fish. They then absorb nutrients from the blood and epidermal cells of the stranger and grow into adults. It takes about 2 to 40 days to grow from spore to adult, depending on the temperature. The higher the temperature, the faster the growth. In the process, the worms create white pustules (about 0.5 mm to 1mm in diameter) on the fish, which are known as "white spots". When the pustules are mature enough to reproduce, they burst, and the adults are released into the water, where they secrete a thick layer of cysts for protection, settle on the bottom bed of the tank, and begin a rapid process of cell division. In general, each adult worm can divide itself into hundreds to thousands of tiny melon spores. When this is done, the spores are dispersed into the water in an attempt to find a new host. The maximum life span of a melon spore is 96 hours, or 4 days, depending on the temperature; The higher the temperature, the shorter the lifetime. Spores that do not find their host after the time limit die off one by one; And those spores that do find a homecoming find their way back under the scales to the fish's skin, where they begin their next life cycle.

Is white spot contagious? This is for sure, and very fast! How fast? That depends on the density of fish in the tank. To know that every fish in the tank can be a medium for the growth and reproduction of small melon worms; The more media, the more adults can be produced, which will directly accelerate the growth rate of the spores of the small melon worm, and the spread of the white-spot disease will naturally accelerate accordingly. In addition, a high-density tank with more fish but limited space will increase the chance of the fish being exposed to the spores of the parasite, and the rate of disease will naturally be higher than a low-density tank. So, if possible, it's best not to superfoster. In the event of an outbreak of white-spot disease (or any other general infectious fish disease), a high-density tank will be more difficult to control than a low-density tank, resulting in a higher mortality rate and a longer time to control the disease. The situation is similar to the outbreak of influenza virus in our world. In densely populated areas, the virus will spread faster, and the disease and illness will be more severe.

There are many fish friends have been under the illusion that poor water quality in the tank, sudden changes in water temperature and other factors, is the natural cause of fish born white spot disease. In fact, all of the above are just "inducement", the real cause of white spot disease "main cause", is from external infection. The reason is very simple, white spot disease is to want to have the existence ability of small melon insect to cause, if its adult insect or spore does not exist in the cylinder, or did not have white spot disease in the past two months, so no matter water quality has how bad, or water temperature suddenly becomes how severe, did not have the possibility of white spot disease at all. The only possibility is to bring it in from outside; And the source of the most common is from new to buy the fish and the grass or any from the aquarium shop display in the cylinder of wood or stone, wild fish, such as, small melon worm may have attached of adult or spores, if in the case of without any quarantine on into the cylinder, they will be together naturally into the cylinder, directly to the outbreak of white spot open prelusive.

If the PROLOgue is really unfortunately opened, the outbreak of white spot disease will depend further on the health of the whole tank of fish at that time. A healthy fish does not resist a stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff stiff. If you do get infected, you won't get it out of hand all at once, you'll need less time to treat it, and you'll have a higher chance of a full recovery. On the contrary, if the fish itself is in poor health and its resistance is weakened, it will naturally be attacked by the spores of the melon worm at will, and the disease will often become quite serious at once, and the chance of full recovery is low.

The reasons why fish resist weaker resistance are the "causes" mentioned above. There are three main things: poor aquarium management → poor water quality and chronic damage to fish health (like: forcing you to live in dirty air every day makes your health worse every day...) Water temperature sudden change → will increase the pressure under the fish, immediately affect its endocrine, lead to the fish body protective mucosal secretion imbalance, so that its resistance to the instant drop (just like: hot day, suddenly from the very hot street into the very cold shopping mall, a hot and cold, very easy to catch a cold......) The density of fish is too high → "superculture", so that the activity space of the fish shrinks, the amount of exercise decreases, which will naturally damage the health of the fish chronically (just like: doctors say that the right amount of exercise can help blood circulation, promote metabolism, enhance resistance and other effects, the disease will naturally be less...)