Bugga! White Spot

The tank is matured but, no one is that lucky to survive that without problems.

The red phantoms have white spot and one of the swordtails too. Reading up everywhere especially The Krib White Spot or Ich to many is a parazite that grows on the body and fins of fish. In severe cases it can grow on the gills and thereby kill the fish by suffocation.

The red phantom had one first but i thought it was natural and left it alone, then the next day all of the phantoms had it!!! ooh they had girl germs!

So to cure it before they all go spotty and Eva goes dotty! thank god its pay week! i can go shopping for the medication.

Everything i read recommends "Quick cure" or "RidIch" which is a malachite Green/Formaldehyde mixture... but its rather toxic and kills the bio filter and plants plus stains everything. Which is a bit of a worry.

or i could do it naturally thanks to Shelli Wittig, who wrote an artcile on the Cichlid-forum about combatting ich. It seems if you boost the temperature up for a few days the parasite cant breed and therefore kill the cycle. looks like my tank will go to the tropics! literally!
I could do one of the following

1. Medicate the whole tank
   ADV: only one purchase the medication DISADV: Will affect biofilter and plants
2. Raise the temperature of the tank
   ADV: natural method of combatting the diease DISADV: fish are put under stress, but no chemicals. Might affect biofilter and plants
3. Hospital Tank - Treat the fish in the hospital tank and raise the temperature in the normal tank
   ADV: Fish will not be stressed DISADV: cost gotta buy a tank, thermostat, filter, medication, airstone and tubing.

I think I'll do a mixture of the 2nd and 3rd option. Ill buy an extra air stone and run that off the current filter block that i use for the gold fish and raise the temperature. But then steph might panic with that so maybe this weekend i get to go and buy another little tank :)