new fish medication protocol

As our NA native fish public aquarium program continues to grow, I am definitely seeing an increase in both wild and captive bred fish coming into the program. As they gain their bearing in their first stop along the way, our quarantine tanks, I am usually faced with some sort of treatment requirement. I wanted to get some other opinions on suggested regiments of treatments and/or quarantine tank cleanout procedures. I figured it would also be a good platform to get better acquainted with my fellow members and become a more active forum user. Hopefully it will also serve to help properly develop a protocol for new fish because as our program grows, I want the professionalism and standardized practice to grow as well.

A lot of my fish that are collected in the wild have a long, stressful day before they finally reach the lab, and some of them often have parasites to deal with as well. Shipped fish often have those same high stress issues and subsequent fin damage. Even aquarium-bought fish usually need to at least be treated for potential ick problems when they come in. All in all the main things I often have problems with are fin rot, ick, anchor worms, and "body slime" bacteria. Some secondary issues are fungus and potentially bacterial infections of the gills.

These are the medications I currently have at my disposal:

• Proform C
• Anchor worm treatment
• Melafix
• Pimafix
• Maracyn Oxy
• Maracyn Plus
• Hydrogen peroxide

I am hoping to get some feedback on order of treatments, treatments that should be done as preventative measures every time vs. treatments done as needed, hydrogen peroxide concentrations, any other suggested treatments, and quarantine tank cleanout methods. Thanks in advance for any and all feedback!

I would strongly suggest that you try to get some praziquantel at your disposal. It's invaluable for fluke infestations due to its quick action and very low toxicity to anything other than a platyhelminth. At least in a retail setting I find flukes to be the most common parasite encountered. I've had a lot of experience handling wild caught and farm raised fish at the retail level, and my standard treatment for incoming stock is a 24 hr praziquantel bath followed by feeding with a medicated food I make myself. I take 250 mg ea of metronidazole and either a furan or sulfa based antibiotic and dissolve them in about an ounce of garlic juice. I put the juice and about 4 oz of flake or pellet food in an air tight container and shake the bejeezus out of it for a few mins. I try to feed it exclusively for a week, but in a retail setting it doesn't always work out.

I am sure you have heard this 1000 times. I always kept my tanks heavily salted. Had few problems in tanks many would consider way overstocked.

My advice is to breed as many of your fish in-house as you can. I haven't had to deal with quarantine in .... I feel old just thinking about it, because everything but the founder generation of my fish are born in my tanks. When you're a breeder, quarantine is a problem you hear about other people having to deal with, but never really have to consider yourself.

Instead of only thinking about quarantine tanks, maybe you could also think about making some breeding tanks. If you start with the species you have that are more expensive, any superfluous fish you breed might command a high enough market price to pay back the initial investment of the breeding setup in a reasonable time. In industry, we consider any investment with an ROI of less than two years to be a good use of money.

I wish more zoos and aquariums had sustainable populations in-house.

Edited by EricaWieser, 05 December 2012 - 06:59 PM.

I would strongly suggest that you try to get some praziquantel at your disposal. It's invaluable for fluke infestations due to its quick action and very low toxicity to anything other than a platyhelminth. At least in a retail setting I find flukes to be the most common parasite encountered. I've had a lot of experience handling wild caught and farm raised fish at the retail level, and my standard treatment for incoming stock is a 24 hr praziquantel bath followed by feeding with a medicated food I make myself. I take 250 mg ea of metronidazole and either a furan or sulfa based antibiotic and dissolve them in about an ounce of garlic juice. I put the juice and about 4 oz of flake or pellet food in an air tight container and shake the bejeezus out of it for a few mins. I try to feed it exclusively for a week, but in a retail setting it doesn't always work out.

Thanks for the advice on the praziquantel. I've noticed that I usually have ample time to combat the parasites during secondary quarantine treatments, and the bacterial issues are the first thing (almost immediately) that I have to deal with. So far I've just been using malafix, as the Maracyn plus can react badly to some of my species. As far as medicated food goes, a lot of the fish I bring in aren't interested in eating right away, and I feel like my biggest issues are happening during the first 48 hours to 5 days.

I am sure you have heard this 1000 times. I always kept my tanks heavily salted. Had few problems in tanks many would consider way overstocked.

What kind of salinity/type of salt are you using?

My advice is to breed as many of your fish in-house as you can. I haven't had to deal with quarantine in .... I feel old just thinking about it, because everything but the founder generation of my fish are born in my tanks. When you're a breeder, quarantine is a problem you hear about other people having to deal with, but never really have to consider yourself.

Instead of only thinking about quarantine tanks, maybe you could also think about making some breeding tanks. If you start with the species you have that are more expensive, any superfluous fish you breed might command a high enough market price to pay back the initial investment of the breeding setup in a reasonable time. In industry, we consider any investment with an ROI of less than two years to be a good use of money.

I wish more zoos and aquariums had sustainable populations in-house.

Unfortunately the freshwater division of the program utilizes larger sized fish (see my gallery for examples) and hard to find fish. I also perform lake and stream surveys as part of my job. So it's actually a lot easier for me to collect fish rather than breed them. That's not to say I don't try and breed as much as possible. Some of our saltwater surfperches breed quite readily, and we are also working on a Sacramento perch aquaculture project to help boost down trending numbers in our parks. However space is too limited in our lab to have a large scale breeding program. Another problem is that most of the established fishes in the collection only really need no more than a few adults added to teh tank each year to replace the occasional loss. The real focus I'm working toward is expanding the number of different species found in the greater Bay area in our collection. Unfortunately this means that many of the fish I'm holding are new to me as far as husbandry goes.

BTW thanks for all the help and active conversation so quickly!

Usually Kosher salt. Non iodized, and with no anti caking agents. I usually kept 2 tablespoons per 5 gallons. I will forever swear by salting, the only downfall is if you are trying to keep freshwater plants, they do not seem to deal with the salt so well.

So far I've just been using malafix

I believe in that stuff. No problems with antibiotic resistance, etc.

Works well for incipient fin rot, etc., common to newly captured fishes. It's relatively cheap too.

Usually Kosher salt. Non iodized, and with no anti caking agents. I usually kept 2 tablespoons per 5 gallons. I will forever swear by salting, the only downfall is if you are trying to keep freshwater plants, they do not seem to deal with the salt so well.

We currently use "water softner" salt in our mobile fish exhibit when it's setup for a day program. Is this type of salt OK to use? Would aquarium salt work better? I also have access to a lot of that as well.

I will defintely try to salt the tanks more. It makes sense too because a lot of these new fish are coming from Suisun marsh, where there is regularly fluctuating salinities of 2 to 6 ppt. I gues it was just something I never got into the habit of doing. I will definitely make an effort to utilize it more.

I believe in that stuff. No problems with antibiotic resistance, etc.

Works well for incipient fin rot, etc., common to newly captured fishes. It's relatively cheap too.

I have definitely always used it on my program fish. After they return from a day in the mobile fish exhibit, I dose the system to help prevent infections and deal with any fin fraying that occurs during the netting process.

Does anyone have experience using Melafix and salt together? My thoughts so far from this conversation are to start consistantly using salt in all the quarantine tanks and treating most, if not all, new fish with melafix upon arrival into their quarantine tank. I think I'll also make an effort to salt the main holding system tanks as well. As far as secondary treatments go, I think I will only use maracyn plus in extreme cases or on very hearty fish. I have defintely had great success with it in curing very far gone fin rot on sunfish. I also think after the first week in quarantine (with most likely at least some melafix treatment), I will then begin parasite treatments (probably proform C and/or praziquantel depending on need). Zimmerman's Fish recommended using hydrogen peroxide to me. Does any have any experience or info regarding this? I've found some stuff on the web, but I wanted to try and involve the topic in this thread as well.

Thanks again to everyone who is helping out. My job requres that I know at least a little about A LOT of things. So I definitely find that networking has always been my best ally.

I am not familiar with water softener salt. If it is pure sodium chloride, then it is fine. I just always used Kosher salt because it was readily available at any grocery store. I kept all of my tanks salted all of the time. I added salt after water changes, and when I collected fish, I salted the bucket that they came home in. I have treated with both Melafix, and Pimafix with salt in the tank with no problems, as well as a couple harder drugs. Salt apparently helps with osmotic balance during stress, acts as an antifungal, and antibacterial, and also helps with brown blood disease(nitrate poisoning). Personally I believe it is as close to a magic bullet as anything.

Some of those "body slimes" that look like bacterial infection may actually be protozoan infections. Praziquantel is good as Subrosa mentioned, also metronidazole and flubendazole are useful against protozoa and worms. The really insidious disease to watch for is Mycobacterium, which neither quarantine nor medication can stop. Fortunately it's a slow killer so you have time to remove the fish showing symptoms before they die and get eaten by healthy fish.

BTW I agree with skipjack on salt as your first line of defense, and other meds for things that dont respond to salt (with or without melafix, which i have not tried myself).

Edited by gerald, 07 December 2012 - 05:13 PM.

I usually salt my tanks, also. I've used Melafix and Pimafix in the salted tanks with good results.

Sorry for the delay, but I have been out of town for a while. I have laid out a basic quarantine protocol, and so far it has worked very well. I finally got into salting my tanks, and it has worked wonders. Thanks for the advice and all the info from you guys to help me create this for our program. Here's the basic layout:

Week 1:

• Salted tanks (with replenished salt during each water change i.e. tanks remain salted indefinitely)
• 3 day Melafix or 7 day Melafix treatment depending on stress level/injuries of incoming fish
• End of the week: begin 3 week treatment for anchor worms, if present
• End of week: Light feeding training
• Alternate Treatment End of week: begin 5 day Maracyn Plus treatment, if the fish has a severe infection
• Alternate treatment Hydrogen peroxide treatment, if fish has a severe infection/open wound and is in a tank with a low bio-load

Week 2:

• Continue and finish any Maracyn Plus treatments
• After Melafix or Maracyn Plus treatments are completed, begin 3 day preventative Proform C treatment for ick, protozoans, fungus, and other parasites
• End of Week: continue 3 week treatment for anchor worms
• Light feeding training

Week 3:

• End of Week: finish 3 week treatment for anchor worms
• Increased feeding training

Weeks 4 & 5:

• Continue feeding training
• Monitor for problems

Obviously this is just a basic layout that will be altered on a case by case basis. I also have several medication forms made up, so that our student workers can continue treatments while I'm unavailable during weekends, holidays, or field days. They basically layout dosing, observations, etc for the students to record.

I would start offering food to new fish immediately; no need to wait until end of week. Most wild-caught fish are ready to eat on Day 1 unless they've been really stressed, and a good meal is better "medicine" for restoring minerals and energy lost during collecting and transport than anything else in your med cabinet. From watching new fish adapt to tank life I'm pretty sure it helps reduce their psychological stress too. "Hey, there's good food here; maybe this place is OK"

I would add to what Gerald mentioned, by saying that a few already feed trained fish in the quarantine tank will help get a good feeding response.

Yeah I do usually at least check to see if the fish are interested in food when I first get them. I do get a positive response from most sunfish or store bought fish. However a lot of the larger fish that are collected in the wild during electrofishing surveys usually refuse food for the first few days. So I find it's best to keep the water as clean as possible to make sure I can keep bacteria infections, fungus, etc. in check.

Thanks again to everyone for all the help organizing my protocol!