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We have been treating the tank with King British WS3 white spot terminator for a week but it does not seem to be clearing and we have today lost our first fishes – 1 cherry barb & 3 penguin fish. We have been using half doses due to having several lightly scaled fish in the tank, but they are still reacting so badly to the treatment that they are now damaging themselves by flicking. One loach is quite big and is probably stressing the other fish more with his flicking, as it is particularly violent.

The tank is 128 litres and filtered using a Fluval 304 with spray bar.

Our tank currently consists of:

3 Scissortail Rasbora
3 Agassi Corys
1 Barbatus Cory
1 Clown Barb
5 Checker Barbs
1 Red-tailed Black Shark
2 Algae Loach


We tested the water today and the nitrates were a little high but everything else was fine, however we have since done a 30% water change to be safe.

We have read on the forums that it is best to increase the water temp to around 28 degrees, but our biggest concern is that the corys and scissortails should be kept in temps up to 24 – 25. These fish are not showing signs of white spot so we are worried that we’ll kill them anyway if we raise the temp too high. The fish that definitely have white spot are the Clown Barb and Checker Barbs.

The only differences in the tank of late have been the addition of two Checker Barbs and the addition of coral to slightly raise the Ph level, which has gone from 6.0ph on the 15/12/05 to 7.0ph today the 31/12/05.

Any advice gratefully received.

As you probably know ICK (white spot) can't be beat until it falls off the fish. The higher temp. will speed up this process. I would gradually raise the temp to 28c over the coarse of the day. This should cause the spots to fall off and the medicine will kill them in the water.
Those fish should be fine at those temps for a while. Once the white spot is gone, gradually decrease temp to your normal range.

I have beaten ICH several times with Coppersafe and raising temp to 28c. I'm not familiar with the meds you are using.

I keep corys at 80f all the time without a problem.

My Scapes

You can raise the temperature to 30 deg. cel. without any problems, but you must add 2/3 airstones for more water movement.


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Update
No more losses but the Clown Barb looking very sorry for himself. Temp has been risen to 28c and light turned off. Also going to stop feeding for awhile in case of a crash. Going to continue to medicate at 1/2 dose has the algae loach reacts when the WS3 goes in by flicking for awhile
Coppersafe - will look for some but Bank holiday weekend etc means none of the normal LFS open

Forgot to mention that slightly worried about the oxygen levels as it is a planted tank and the lights are now off but have slightly reduced the water level and the spray bar with the fluval 304 is getting the water moving.

Take your plants out of there. They will/might die because of the meds you are adding. You will solve your O2 problem and at the same time, give light to your plants in another pot/tank.

Sponge

Woke up to today to find the smallest scissortail dead. Removed the plants and added an airstone. Temps at 29 ish and the fish seem swimming around more than before.