YouTube video by Gerald Bassleer (Fish disease case #41) examining an advanced white spot (Ich) infection in platy variatus. The speaker presents naked-eye and detailed microscope skin-scrape observations (including many mobile ciliates, U-shaped nucleus, and parasites in gills), estimates the parasite cycle at ~7–14 days, and concludes the infection was noticed late. He gives practical treatment and prevention advice: use a microscope for early detection, check water quality and heater, raise temperature with adequate oxygen, siphon substrate, use anti-ich medications (treat >7 days to target free-swimming stages), consider UV, keep lights on 24h to disrupt reproduction, use fine mechanical filtration (e.g., diatom filter <300 µm), and support fish mucus with specific medicated food supplements.
Questions this video answers
Fish case number 41.
July 19, 2022.
Platy variatus (platy).
About 40 parasites.
Approximately 7–14 days (cycle of 7 to 14 days).
Chapters
Dear fish keeper, today our fish case number 41, it's going to be again about white spot Z or ich. But I have here some nice videos that give you a good idea what is ich doing? How does it look like in a microscope? And I will tell you the stories behind it, what it has to do with your actions as treatment. Of course, our naked eye observation is always a problem. When you observe a fish like the platy here, in this case the platy variatus with the egg infection. If we see looking in the fish tank, well, look, they are dark, this kind of variety of platy Variatus Hawaii. But they show distressed behavior. And some look very skinny, some are clamped fins. But with the naked eye, looking at the fish tank with this light, we don't see anything very detailed. Maybe if you are freezing the screen, you might see a few white spots on some of them. And if I would have used a flashlight, I might have seen the white spots, particularly on the black parts of the body or on the fins. But anyway, I didn't notice it until I cut a fish and I put it with a skin scraping underneath my microscope. And if you look here, the black colored scales with the black pigments and see all those black dark moving parasites. Well, a white spot looks like a dark spot in the microscope. And you can see here the big spots and also some small spots moving around in the mucus of the fish. Here we see it from another part of the scraping, the white spots or the egg. Here it looks like a black spot, like I said. And you see the many juveniles also moving around in the water. See the small ones here, here on top, small ones underneath the nucleus. Here you see nice nucleus, the U shaped nucleus inside. And here we see at a larger magnification. So you can observe how this parasite is one cellular with all little hairs and cilia, it's called cilia, where the way he moves around through the water and on the fish. Here we have another detailed observation of this parasite. You see the nucleus, you see the moving around, how the parasite is not sitting still. He's moving around to look for his food or to drop off the fish and to multiply because he multiplies not on the fish, but on the bottom of the aquarium or substrate. And we also found them in the gills because this was a very bad infection. We saw already juveniles. We saw the white spots moving around in massive quantities. On the scales we saw a lot of babies. That means the cycle is already really in progress for maybe 10 days, 14 days. So it's been noticed too late. And here we see also the parasites in the gills. That means it's already advanced because usually it starts with a few. But you see here we count maybe 40 parasites here on this microscopic slide. And what's interesting here, I can show you that these white spots are very nice sitting underneath the mucus layer here. It's moving around freely. But a lot of white spots like to sit underneath the mucus layer here. Well protected. And that's why no medication can reach to kill it. Or you have to destroy. For the marine fish you can give fresh water baths and then with the osmotic pressure they explode. But for the freshwater fish, salt might help, but not particularly. To control this kind of say parasite, you have to use medications to kill the baby parasite. And explain that in my Dr. Bessie B. Biofish food application of a food and of a treatment method. So you can see well protected, no chance that the medication reaches here. And it's sitting there and waiting to grow to become adult. Feeding me well and eventually dropping off and then spreading little babies. Well, what we can do for this platy? Well, as I said, you know, we couldn't see it with the naked eye. So you have to use microscope. I will tell you, please use more often than microscope. You want to identify fish diseases. And here we saw a very progressed case of white spot infection. Ich on the skin and the gills. Check always water quality in the heater. Make sure your water quality is perfect. Make sure the heater is working. In a lot of cases it's due to temperature changes. Water changes with too cold water, spring and fall, usually with the changes of temperature in the house, can have an impact on white spot infections. I explained that in my books and in my YouTube videos on white spot disease. You can raise your temperature few degrees, but if you do that, make sure you have enough air or oxygen supply. Siphon off the bottom of the aquarium that removes parasite. You can do that. Your physical help. You can add an anti egg treatment if it's necessary, like Farnamore. And you have to respect that. You have to do more than seven days treatment. Follow the directions because you have to kill the baby parasites which are always reproduced. And we have a very good food to help the fish to fight off, to repel the parasites and to repair. It's our tractor boss. Layer bifish root matrine and the intake method. Like I explained in previous videos and in my books and in my brochures on fish disease, the perdicyte has a cycle of 7 days to 14 days. They drop off and multiply. You can only treat this baby here, which reinfects the fish with treatments like phonomore for the fish. And when you have an invertebrate tank with protomor. So these medications kill the parasite and the fish food helps to protect the mucus. The bifish wood matrine helps the mucus to be protected against the parasitic infections. Temperature control as explained. Siphoning, as explained. You can leave the lights on for 24 hours. Because the parasite reproduces when the light is off at night, at dark. So when the light is on, it's not reproducing. Use a UV lamp that can control kill the parasites. Use a filter system, like a diatom filter, smaller than 300 mu. That removes parasites physically also from the water. So many methods you can use to control your white spot. Effective. But the most important one is that you try to treat the beginning. Like I explained. In many cases, you know, you try to stay tuned for my case, because I try always explain. Make sure you see the first signs of disease, the first signs of poor behavior of the fish. Because he tells you, hey, I'm not feeling well, help me out and maybe use your microscope. Thank you. Bye bye.
