11 replies to this topic

[Matt DeLaVega]

I have been thinking about this recently after reading a thread. I always took the easy way out and culled sick fish. I feel that dosing the water with a chemical that is often so toxic that it borders on killing the fish in order to kill the disease might be a bit crazy. Even worse when treating parasites. Also what do antibiotics do to a system? Well they kill bacteria don't they? Antibiotics are only vaguely specific. Do they truly not harm filtration? It is a bit different than treating terrestrial critters. Fish have to live breathe and drink their treatment. I think I have taken the easy way out by culling.

Gerald brought up some organizations that are really working hard to find ways to treat smaller "pet" type animals. Smaller than dogs and cats.

Can anyone offer up some good treatment protocols for various fish diseases that have really worked well? I am really interested in hearing them. I am not sure that the meds don't work, but maybe that we are too late. When that first bit of white starts on the caudal, you may miss it for a day next time you look the whole peduncle is white. How many fish have you brought back from this?

I would love to hear success stories, but I will be grateful for any treatment stories/histories. I think the forum can allow some non native experiences here, as we can surely apply it to native fish.

[littlen]

A good topic of discussion, Matt.

In most of my experiences--both professional and personal--once a fish has reached a certain point [as the Rainbow shiner pics that I believe prompted this topic] then I haven't had any success bringing small fish in that state back. This applies to shiners, darters, tetras, small cats, and various temperate and tropical 'oddballs'. As you mention, the onset is acute and there simply isn't enough time to treat the fish. In such instances, if I were to notice a fish that far along, euthanasia is usually the result. Or, a treatment is attempted and the shock/additional stress to the fish typically brings death along quickly.

On the subject of antibiotics--I do feel that they are helpful & effective tools to treat and fight disease and do not always result in killing your filter. Of course this is all being said under the context that dosing, usually under the supervision of a qualified veterinarian, is correct. Metronidazole is an antibiotic commonly used in solution to combat infections. I don't have any great success stories with this particular drug, however I will say I have not had bad experiences with it killing filters. Praziquantel is routinely used as a prophylactic treatment [in solution] to rid fish of internal parasites. This drug also seems to be benign to fish and filters alike. For larger fish that are in need of an antibiotic and can consume a pill/part of a pill or have an injectable amount of meds placed in a food item then Enrofloxacin ["Baytril"] is very commonly used and very successful in treating infection. The injectable form of this drug is also successful in giving IM injections directly to the fish, again, if they are large enough. Baytril can be a filter killer so care needs to be taken to ensure any uneaten food item dosed with the drug isn't left in the tank. A common application for this particular drug is when there is severe damage where the injury breaks through the skin and into muscle tissue. Also, I've seen a decent number of fish that needed to be spayed and Baytril was used to prevent secondary infection while the fish was healing.

I assure you I am not a med wiz. The names roll off my tongue only by using them repetitiously throughout my career. I personally use the wonder drug--SALT--at home for preventative purposes. I hope my last sentence does not create a spin-off topic and folks start arguing its effectiveness or lack thereof. I rarely use meds in my personal collection with the understanding that there is an acceptable risk of infectious disease in/on the fish in my tanks at any given time. I think that is where responsible fish-keeping comes in to play. As most of us know, stress is the real killer. (Ok, the increased number of pathogens present in/on an immuno-compromised fish is the real killer). But managing a healthy population based on stocking density, water quality, and other environmental factors can typically prevent an outbreak. Most of us here keep natives and I'm going out on a limb guessing that most do little more than have a couple week, observational quarantine for new fish before they are added to an existing population. It is safe to say that infectious agents are present. However, outbreaks can be rare or absent if the factors I just listed are taken into consideration. Most tropical species also harbor their own wonderful bouquet of 'bugs' that I doubt are treated for prophetically once a fish is purchased. I will occasionally buy a copper-based drug off the self at the LFS to treat an Ich infestation...in conjunction with salt. Formalin is also another great solution that can be used as a 'drug' to treat external parasites. It can kill filters, but rarely in my experience if used properly. It can also preserve your recently dead, sick fish.

I know you know most of this, just wanted to collect my thoughts in one quick blurb. Hope that was specific or vague enough for you.

[Kanus]

As far as prognosis, I feel like I'm on the same page as you, Matt. As soon as I see muscle/tissue necrosis on the body of the fish, it goes straight to the freezer to save it some misery and keep the other fish from picking at it once it dies. Anything else I will certainly attempt to treat.

As for medications, while I have a shelf full of them, sadly most of them I don't have any particular positive experience with. I currently am battling an outbreak of Ich in one of my tanks, brought on by a combination of a few relatively new fish, and the temperature dropping into the 50s for the winter period. I'm currently using what I've come to view as my standard disease outbreak protocol, which is a handful or two of salt a day (this is a 29 gallon) and the recommended dose of Seachem ParaGuard. It could be snake oil, but so far Paraguard is one of the only things I have used that seems to consistently do more good than harm when I treat the tank with it. I also switched foods and am now feeding Ken's Garlic and Metronidazole flake to these guys. I've yet to determine whether this has any effect, but I bought it last time I made and order and this seems to be a good time to try to use it. This seems to have reduced appeal to the fish, but they still eat some of it, and I anticipate as they get more hungry they'll learn to deal with it until the outbreak is over.

I've always thought about using formalin to treat. I know it has been proven pretty effective based on its widespread use in aquaculture (it seems like every time I spend a day at a trout hatchery, they're treating at least one raceway with the stuff) but I have always been nervous about using it myself because I know it is potent and I'm scared of screwing it up and nuking my tank. While I have access to it, it doesn't exactly have directions for use in personal aquaria.

Another one I use to some success is Melafix. I suspect Pimafix may be just as effective, and have used them in conjunction with each other. When I was working at Petco, I became horrified at how many Bettas would die each week from the cottony fungus/bacterial infections you've probably all seen on them at pet stores. I would guess we would have 8-10 dead a day on average for a few days after getting a shipment. As an experiment, I began putting a drop of two of Melafix in each bowl when we got a shipment, and quickly saw a DRAMATIC decrease in deaths, often with 0-2 dead per day (we're talking an inventory of 100 or more Bettas at any time, often 50-75 in a shipment). It was certainly enough to make me a believer. I also noticed though, that an EXTRA drop or two often had them at the top gasping, or quickly killing them outright.

Lately I have had a similar experience. I use it exactly as the bottle suggests, dosage-wise, and often have a school of fish at the top of the water gasping for air. I have sometimes had deaths as a result of this, and had to put an extra airstone in the tank last time I treated with Melafix. It seems to have some negative effect on the effectiveness of the gills. I will mention that this seems to be a problem more for Cyprinids than others. I've noticed darters maybe breathing a little faster after a dose, but it doesn't seem to bother them nearly as much. Anyway, I reserve my use of Melafix for serious issues and am VERY careful how I dose it. I have to wonder if they changed the formula somehow, because I have used the stuff for years and years and don't recall this problem before a year or two ago.

I know the debate has been had here before, possibly multiple times, but I am a believer in salt as well. It isn't a miracle cure, but I do see minor (though noticeable) positive response to it, and have never seen negative reactions.

As a side note, a while back I had a terrible terrible outbreak of Saprolegnia. Moving 3 hours away, in August, plus relatively newly collected swamp/lowland fish, plus overcrowding of all the fish in one cooler because of the moving...recipe for disaster. Anyway, that is nasty nasty stuff. It claimed many of my fish sadly, and whatever I threw at it seemed to have no effect. Then I found an old bottle I had of some fungus medication. I don't remember the brand, but it was a combination of formalin and malachite green. It again wasn't miraculous, but it seemed to definitely help. The only problem was that I quickly ran out and upon searching discovered that malachite green is difficult, if not impossible to obtain anymore. I was very disappointed to have found a medication that finally showed promise, only to run out and find that it was unable to be obtained. I'm sure it saved some fish, but upon losing my secret weapon, I just had to do A WHOLE LOT of culling sick fish until I contained the outbreak. It was rather devastating.

[littlen]

Derek, with Pimafix/Melafix there is likely the same situation going on as when someone uses formalin---a rapid decrease in dissolved oxygen, not necessarily a decrease in gill effectiveness. On the otherhand, a high dose of formalin (and quite possibly Pima/Melafix) could burn the gill tissue and create a situation of gill ineffectiveness (in addition to low D.O.) is occurring. I've tried both of those remedies before but didn't have the same experiences that you had with saving all the bettas. Are both of those 'herbal' types of meds? I have heard of other success stories but haven't really been back to visit them myself.

Formalin is very scary stuff. But also very effective when used appropriately. [PM me if you want to discuss using it for your ich outbreak].

[gerald]

Univ of Florida has LOADS of great fish health & disease Info here: http://tal.ifas.ufl....ublications.htm
Snake oil is good stuff -- I no longer have any problem with squeaky snakes.

Salt and Flubendazole are the meds i usually keep on hand. And sometimes metro, prazi, formalin. Columnaris / Flexibacter can be treatable if you catch it quick, but "quick" might mean in a pet shop parking lot halfway home from your collecting trip. Flexi spreads and kills incredibly fast. Much better to learn how to prevent it in the first place (aeration, salt, and don't take too many fish)!

[mikez]

I'm a merciless culler of sick fish. I have fueled some nasty ased fights in the mainline aquarium forums [years ago] by debunking pet shop snake oils. People don't want to hear it.

My experience in retail pet trade has taught me much. One of the fish shops was in a vet practice so we had a true medical point of view when we proved 95% of treated fish die anyway [ok 95% is a WAG].

Bottom line, the most knowledgeable pet shop owner I worked for, who had a biology backround but was a ruthless bass turd, admitted straight up he wanted all and every customer to leave the shop with some kind of medicine. He had no problem saying the shite won't work but it's a sale [the snake oil itself], it makes the customer feel good to try, and best of all, once they kill off their fish, they come back and buy more.

Interestingly, there is a direct correlation between people who buy lots of snake oil and people who have lots of disease outbreaks. These are the favorite customers of the local shop.

[gerald]

The weakest link I see with aquarium fish medicine is diagnosing the disease and whatever underlying problems caused it in the first place. Many (certainly not all) of those pet store meds could work IF: 1) we could correctly ID the primary disease, 2) fix the underlying causes (diet, temp, water chem, stress ...), and 3) get appropriate med dosing into the fish at the right time. Getting all three of those right doesn't happen too often. Retail fish meds are sold based on external visible symptoms (like "bloat" or "fungus"), and nearly all fish disease symptoms can have a wide variety of causes. That's the one thing I love about Ichthyophthirius - when you see it, you know what you're dealing with. Just about every other disease is guess work without a good microscope. And in recent years we've been seeing more and more untreatable diseases in farmed aquarium fish - Mycobacterium, gourami virus, etc.

[mikez]

I'm sure there are some medicines that would work if used correctly - including diagnosis as mentioned.

When I say I cull mercilessly, I should also clarify that it very, very rare for any fish to show up sick in my tanks. I haven't culled anything in recent memory and I have six tanks going.

I watch my fish very closely and usually notice any sign of stress early enough to fix the underlying problem before it gets to the medicine level. Check temps, filter function, look for aggression etc. 99 times out of 100 I tweak something husbandry-wise and low and behold, everybody is OK.
My beef is with the mind set that dumps the snake oil when the first signs show instead of finding the problem. Fish that would have got better, and the other fish in the tank that ain't even sick, end up croakin' when the bio-filter gets zapped by pet store snake oil.

Sorry Matt if this is derailing, I'll shut up for now. You may have noticed this is a topic I can't resist chiming in on.

[Sean Phillips]

My personal best treatment for ich and parasites is a solution of saltwater mixed with Metronidazole or any med consisting primarily of it. For some fish that have terrible ich it's often better just to cull them, I had a Blacknose dace that was covered head to tail with white spots from ich and I decided it was beyond the point of healing.

[az9]

My personal best treatment for ich and parasites is a solution of saltwater mixed with Metronidazole or any med consisting primarily of it. For some fish that have terrible ich it's often better just to cull them, I had a Blacknose dace that was covered head to tail with white spots from ich and I decided it was beyond the point of healing.

Have you ever tried the therapy that consists of raising the temperature?

[Betta132]

Have you ever tried the therapy that consists of raising the temperature?

Raising the temperature speeds up the life cycle of the ich. On its own, it will only remove the ich if the fish would have fought it off anyway- it simply happens faster because the ich parasites shift from their invulnerable to vulnerable stage faster. Heat treatment is best combined with a medication that kills the ich off, as the heat helps to kill the ich off faster than the meds alone would.

The heat isn't great for the ich, so temps of 84F or more can help to kill it off, but I don't think it's a good idea to raise the temps in a native tank by that much. 

 

I use Kordon Herbal products when problems surface, and they work well. They also have the benefit of not harming the fish- or anything, really. Safe for snails, shrimp, and even corals- though the corals often shrivel up and look very unhappy during treatment. I'm not entirely certain how they managed to make their ich medication dangerous only to ich, but it works.

[az9]

Makes sense. I've never had to deal with ich and hope I never do, so I have no experience treating it. Just repeated what I had read in a fish health text.

Cheers!