Gerald Bassleer (a practicing "flying fish doctor") presents Fish Disease Case No. 35: a platy (Xiphophorus maculatus, gold/leopard strain) infected with white spot disease (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis). He describes clinical signs—abnormal swimming, fin clamping, and hard-to-see white spots on patterned platys—then confirms diagnosis via skin scraping and microscopy (50–200×) showing the ciliates and trophonts. He outlines a multi-part treatment approach: partial water changes, raising temperature to accelerate the parasite life cycle (examples given up to ~32–33°C; also references 26–28°C as helpful), repeated anti-ich medication (mentions Farnamore), use of medicated/repellent food (Dr. Basleer Bivouf food with matrine/oxymatrine for ~20 days), frequent siphoning to remove free-swimming stages, and using fine filtration and UV sterilization. He emphasizes early detection and treatment and points to a brochure on Basleer.com for details.
Chapters
Dear fish keeper, we have today our fish kids, fish diseases number 35. Well, we have regular cases I encounter in my work as a flying fish doctor. And it helps me to collect some data and details for you that might help you to learn to identify fish diseases. Because that's part of my purpose. If the work I provide here on the phage disease cases that you try that, try you to understand how to diagnose fish diseases and what is the best way you should develop a treatment and how to start a treatment. So I'll share my screen in this case it's about, well, a platy. The platy said ich or white spot disease. Gold and leopard was the strain and the thing what was reported to me. Hey, look at the platys. They are swimming very strange. They're hanging some on the bottom of the surface and some are clapping the fins. And particularly I show you here, on the next one here you will see here one coming and clamping the finch. And that clamping of the finch is something which is typical here. You see this one here and this one there. That means the fish is suffering from something on the skin which is bothering them, Something that is. Well, the fish is not itchy yet. It's not scraping, see. Maybe some will do it if you watch it closely. But the fish are acting very funny. Look, that's particularly this one here on the top. Let's go back here. Here, like this one here. That's a typical sign of something that is troubling. And if you would have watched very closely with a light bulb or a flash lamp, you might have seen some white spots on the fins and on the skin. But this fish, this kind of coloration type of platy is very difficult to show you the white spots. So the thing you can do is I take just the skin scraping, just that skin scraping here at. And at a magnification of 50 or 100 already you can see this big parasites moving around here. It's a 200 magnification and you see clearly the white spots. Ichthy of Therius. You see the whiting inside is nuclei. We see the small ciliates which are outside to the white spot, the way by which it can move into the water. You can see it here at the edges here of this parasite and this parasite. That's how it's moving around. So it's a parasite of the skin in the mucus, eating on the mucus and on the food. You can get there and making a risk of damage. This was just the Beginning of this stage. So that's why the fish were not that badly acting. It started with very few. But like I say in many of my videos, try to make a treatment as soon as possible. And I will try to explain this with my Dr. Basler anti egg methods. The first thing you must think about do partial water changes. Because that also removes a big part of the parasites which are floating around in the water and causing a risk of infecting more varieties of fish. Erase the temperature because it will speed up the cycle of the parasite. If you fish can accept the temperature of 32, 33 degrees so high, that even controls the reproduction of egg. So it will slow down or even kill the white spot parasites, Ichthyophtherias multifidis. So that can be an help, but not always a good solution. When the fish are damaged, bacterial infections can increase. So the fish have to accept these high temperatures. But if you do already a few degrees, that certainly helps in the treatment. Add an anti egg treatment. There are many available. I can recommend Farnamore from a Corey Muenster. Follow the directions because it's important that the instructions tell you that you have to retreat on a regular basis. So you have enough medication to kill during the cycle of that parasitic infection. Use our Dr. Basler Bivouf food matrine. Don't use any other food and use it during 20 days. So the fish has accumulated enough mactrine and oxymatrine inside the mucus, in the gills, on the skin so it can repel. It's like a repellent, repels the parasites or the parasites cannot reinfect. So this is a help next to medication or bifish food is no medication. It's a help for the fish to protect themselves. If you have a chance, siphon off the bottom two times a day in the morning and in the evening to remove the parasites. So these things all help you to control. And we developed therefore our Dr. Basleer anti egg method which explained here on the diagram. See the parasites are on the skin and they reproduce within seven days depending on the temperature. The higher the temperature, the faster it falls off and it accumulates. Let's go back. And then it really affects the fish medications kill this baby egg with Farnamor for freshwater marine protomor for invertebrate aquaria marine invertebrates. So this kills this parasite, but still it does not kill any of these big parasite. They can be removed the big ones by siphoning the water by using a filtration with like a diatom filter with a filter pore smaller than 300 mu. A UV lamp kills the parasites. So particularly if you have a central filter, the central filtration must have a UV when you have connection with different fish tanks. So it kills the parasites. Going through the UV lamp, raising the temperatures to 28, 26 degrees, speeds up the cycle and siphon of the water. Like explain you this helps to remove the parasites, things like that. So this, this brochure is available on our website Basler.com you have here the link and that might help you to to do this treatment. So this was a fish case all about the white spot disease on, on a platy. And and I have certainly more cases about other parasites, bacteria and and diseases because I counter that every month during my work as a flying fish doctor. So stay tuned and become a good fish doctor by using a microscope and making sure you detect the problems in the beginning stage of the disease. Thank you.
