Archived message board.
Questions About Medications
Badmans Tropical Fish Message Center:
General message area: Questions About Medications
|
Sierra
|
Monday,
February 04, 2002 - 02:43 am
One of my tanks has ich (white spot). I am treating
the fish and I think they will be OK. But I have a few questions
about treatment. I know that you must take the carbon out
of your filter when you are treating a tank otherwise the
carbon will absorb the treament and render it useless. But
what about zeolite (ammonia absorber) - disease
treatments can damage the biological filter and so it might
not be able to cope with the waste that the fish produce;
so I figured it would be good to put some zeolite in the
filter so that the fish don't get ammonia poisoning.
But will the zeolite absorb the treament as well?
On the medication bottle it says to treat the tank and them
repeat the treatment after three days - is this enough?
It doesn't say what to do next. Should I just treat
the tank every three days until I am sure the disease is
gone?
On another note - I think I have figured out how the ich
got into my tank. I went to the petshop where I got my blue
gourami from last week and I looked in the tank were the
gourami came from and most of the fish looked a bit 'down'
and several of the fish had small white spots on them. One
of the other gouramis looked like someone had rolled in
in salt! And there were clown loaches in the tank - they
will catch it for sure. I am really mad at them for being
such a bad petshop. I know I should have known better than
to buy fish from them (and I didn't quarantine the
gourami either). I don't think the shop idiots even
realised the fish were sick and I will tell them tomorrow
if they havn't done something about it. Sometimes I
wonder if they actually look at their fish or if they just
chuck some food in every know and then.
Anyway . . . I'll get off my soapbox now. Thanx in advance
for the replies.
|
|
joycedonley
|
Monday,
February 04, 2002 - 07:42 am
Usually best if you can take the temperature up to around
80 degrees so the cycts hatch faster. I never use chemicals
in my filter and can't guarantee your ammonia treatment
won't absorb it. Best bet if you are worried is actually
to run an airstone off a pump to increase oxygen levels.
Sometimes the meds will actually deplete the oxygen and
higher temps may also cause the problem. I treated for 5
days with my ich med and had a reoccurence and had to treat
again. I think you should follow instructions on the med
and make sure it's gone before you add any new fish.
New fish will be more susceptible. PS I don't think
it will be gone in three days usually takes pretty close
to a week.
|
|
Pandora
|
Tuesday,
February 05, 2002 - 12:24 am
Hi Sierra... I have an article I wrote in badman's submitted
articles section, have you seen it? It has some info on
ich's life cycle, which might be more useful to help
you understand what's going on with your tank, and some
treatment suggestions. In particular, I and a few others
do not believe that QuickCure should only be used for 3
days, although it is an effective medication in general.
This is because medication can only attack the free-swimming
forms of ich, not the cyst forms that stay in the gravel
(that's why joyce advised for you to raise temperature,
in order to speed up this cycle). 3 days only will not
ensure that this disease won't recurr and reinfect your
fish a second time.
I am with you on that bad LFS... I wouldn't shop there
anymore. If those are the fish that survived, just think
of how many they must go through that aren't so "lucky".
|
|
Sierra
|
Tuesday,
February 05, 2002 - 08:51 pm
I haven't seen your article yet Pandora, but I did know
about the ich lifecycle. That's why I didn't think
that three days would be long enough to get rid of it. I'll
treat every three days for about 10 days and hopefully that
will take care of it. I'm not really sure about raising
the temp. anymore though. I read that at temps. between
70 and 75 the lifecycle is only 3 days as it is. My tank
is at 77* and so the cycle would be about two days and
thus give the meds more of a chance to attack the parasite
in the free swimming stage. I don't intend to try and
kill the parasite with high temps. Plus I have had problems
with aggression in that tank and the higher temps. might
make the fish even more aggressive than they already are.
I have added airstones to the tank. I've also added
salt to the water.
|
|
Pandora
|
Saturday,
February 09, 2002 - 05:12 pm
That sounds fine so far, Sierra. Actually, high temperatures
in a range that fish will tolerate won't kill off the
parasite anyway... by the time you raise them to high enough
temp's where the parasite dies off, your fish would
be dropping like flies =) Good luck to you, and hope
that there's no relapse...
|
|
|
