med question

[mikev]

Shari

Mike.
If you read the post it was not about skinny. It was about giving advice.

Nevermind.

I'll be glad to discuss/debate either skinny or "giving advice" with you at any time, but not on this thread.

And I don't feel that you were intruding -- you comments on the septic infections were totally proper and helpful.

[shari2]

I'll pass on the debate. But thank you.

[mousey]

Thread is not damaged! Just so much to learn about what can go wrong!
I saved a copy of the pdf file for future ref-- hoping that i don't need to refer to it again.
I apparently treated with the wrong thing if I used erythromycin. I have not heard of oxytetracycline-- just plain old tetracycline.
have read the references you gave - thanks.
some of my fish ate the medicated food very well, but others stayed hungry.
However I don't think a fast will hurt them too much as most of the time they are pigs.

How do you add garlic to the food. Get some powder , soak it and dip the food in it?

I must say that my lone female gourami from another tank was treated with flagyl and the antiparasitic food and she is now eating better and is less reserved. She does worry me tho as she prefers algea on my plants to all other foods.

Would someone like to address if I should now treat the whole tank with the jungle antiparasitc fizz tabs as a prophylactic since the one male gourami that died had long thin white poop.
Thanks all.

PS What is great about this forum is that you actually have strong enough feelings about issues to take umbrage with each other.
While it seems unpleasant at times i think that it is a good exchange and learning tool for us all. unfortunatley the art of fish keeping is not carved in stone and different venues appeal to different people. And Shari you are right , when Someone is in a lather because they see their pets dying, we don't think too smart-- we just want help fast so we can rectify the problem. we leave a lot of vital info out.

[sully]

i remember my wife and i when we started raising our first chile. whenever teh poor girl had a snifflem a scratch, or cut it was off to the races. mad dashes o the pharmacy for this remedy or that cure. Then our son came along. Suffered the same little things just did not get so many of the OTC solutions. then our daughtr Erica was borm. (5 years separates the three). Mom and Dad must have gotten tired (and a bit boke) from all the runs to docs and the stores. That girl got a sniffle and we said--she'll be over it in a gew days. She did not see many meds going into her mouth.

We wanted to do what was right. We wanted to make sure we did what was best. Hell, we just felt to do something for the child we were supposed to care for. Maybe we got a little smarter too. We learned to recognize symptoms. We learned to wait it out a bit. We learned that sometimes the kids would let us know when we "had" to do something to help the,.

Fish are not all that different. And, from the stuff that has been going on in your tanks they have had a tough road. Maybe they need a bit of a break. Sometimes constant and continual meds create more disease and death as a result of the stress they induce.

It sounded like you were basically under control. The fis were coming around---even have come around. Give them a week off if they keep feeding and being active. Let them settle back down and destress a bit.

Do the water changes. Get the water to a prostine quality level. And, watch the fish. get your enjoyment out of fishkeeping as well. A couple of times a day use your critical eye. Check if they are fatening up/ Check the look of the slime coat. Look for the red spots. loo to see if the belly is pinching in or they are emmaciated. see if there is redness around the anus or little red protrusions from the anus. See how they are breathing--does the gill action look too rapid or laboured. Are the fish eating well and exhibiting behavior and activity consistent with the species norm.

No one at this board can say with any certainty that your fish have internal parasites. Not a one of can with any certainty can say you need to treat for nematodes or any other parasitic form. Let your fish start to give you the answer. Might one of them die giving you an answer yes. Might one of them die with more meds--yes.

EM based meds can damage or destroy a bio filter. The Maracyn product won;t even though it is EM based if dosed properly. Will Maracyn 2 knock back the bio filter? it should not if dosed properly. Will most tetracychline based meds destroy your bio filter creating a whole new set of problems--absolutely. Tetracychline useage is hard on the fish and hard on the filter. Daily water changes approcimating 100% will most likely be required with Tetracychline based meds.

Garlic. Just get a clove. dice a section of it to a very fine size. Sprinkle it in the tank. I usually do not feed fish for a day prior to that. They will start to eat it.

Don't treat with any more meds for at least a few days. Phrophylactic measures are something i would not do in your shoes at this point. The Jungle Fizz tabs will be generally ineffective against internal parasites. Parasite Clear contains Metronidazole--just won't get it to internal (endo) parasites. It will work against external (ecto) parasites.

Skinny Disease is something you do need to research or at least learn about. Anytime people suggest treatments or no treatments you need to understand why. Ultimately they are your fish. Anecdotal information is often times excellent stuff. A bit of empirical data helps you put things in context.

I hope I did not misunderstand that your fish have seemingly done much better the past few days. About that algae eating thing--good sign of appetite. all the fish you have in your tank eat algae. some just more efficiently than others.

Treat current conditions--not past problems. especially when you really don't know what the past problems were.

[mikev]

I have not heard of oxytetracycline-- just plain old tetracycline.

They are different members of the same group (Cyclines), Oxy is one of the oldest members, it is also known as Terramycin and you may want to look under this name. Other important members of the Cycline group are minocycline and doxycycline.

All drugs in the group are similar and generally work with the same types of bacteria, they are wide-spectrum, biased toward gram-neg bacteria. Because of their similarity, it is hard to be certain which one is the best in any particular situation. The general principle, both for fish and humans, is that the newer drugs tend to be stronger (for instance, doxy even deals with anthrax) and the chances of hitting a resistant strand are smaller. The additional factor in the tank is the possible damage to the biofilter: any antibiotic may wipe out your filter bacteria. In this respect, minocycline seems to be relatively safe.

If you believe that you still have BHS going on (and nobody knows this for sure --- even the people who diagnozed it never saw your fish or photos of it) and still see the symptoms (specifically, redness), you should treat with one of the cycline drugs.

I would personally go with Minocycline (sold as Maracyn2), in part because of its relative safety to the biofilter. Tetracycline/Oxytetracycline are -- concurring with the previous poster here -- more dangerous to the biofilter. Since minocycline is wide-spectrum, even if you don't have BHS but another bacterial infection, it may work.

OTOH, if you see no symptoms right now, waiting a few days and watching is probably the best course of action. Besides other reasons, it will give your biofilter a chance to recover from erythromycin.

hth

good luck

[mousey]

thanks guys!
Everyone in the tank seems fine at this moment. They gave me a scare today as one of the SAE's went ripping around the tank. Then the skirt tetras started the spawning routine. The fish in the other gallon started dashing about the tank and flicking on the plants.
The weather has finally changed and has gotten quite muggy so I presume that is the cause of the erratic behaviour.
At least i am hoping so!

Yeah our first kid was raised by the book until i saw him licking his baby buggy wheels when he started to crawl. From then on I forgot about sterilizing baby bottles-- just mixed the powdered formula with boiled water .
By kid # 3 i got warm water out of the tapand mixed it with the formula.

[shari2]

GASP!!! no sterilizing? no boiling? how un-parent-like!

Ever see a parent pick up a pacifier off the ground/floor, pop it in their own mouth to clean it off, then stick it back in the kids?...Nah, I NEVER did stuff like that...

[sully]

pacifier--what's that? just let the little devils cry. they get over it. whatever it is. lol.

[shari2]

typical guy speak Bet u were the first one to say "can't you make that kid stop crying???!?" Nah. Bet you never did stuff like that either.

[sully]

no i never spent endless hours walking a baby that was sick. never spent the middle of the night up feeding the baby a bottle (there ought to be a law againt breast pumps--lol). and never got showered by, well you know, when changing diapers. I still don't understand the saying "looks like babies first summmer).

just told the lass to get up and do something--lol. At least i said that if i was certain i had hidden the shotgun well enough.

[shari2]

Well, now that we have thoroughly damaged this thread with totally unpertinent (or is that impertinent?) information...

How are the fish doing today mousey?

[Martin Thoene]

imp

Martin.

[mousey]

fish seem quite happy today and for the past couple of days Thanks.
i am wondering if the whole thing was brought on by stress from the aggrassive gourami and adding new fish at the same time and triggered a chain reaction. Obviousy will be monitoring closely!!

Oh, I am someones grandma now-- actually 5 someones grandma and it is nice to have the fun and none of the worries of child raising. We go mostly to visit them all so when we get tires of the highjinks, we just go home!

[shari2]

Still have a couple years before the grandkids start happening (I hope!). Though the oldest is getting preeeeety serious. Don't know what I'd do with grandkids and some of mine still in elementary school.......eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

hmmmm...I haven't feathered any falcons lately...no imping here.