Antibiotic/Chemical Treatment Options....

[linuxguru]

Hello everyone,
I currently have a 20gal quarantine tank that I make use of for every new fish I purchase. I always treat the tank with Formalin per directions, Malachite Green per dir's, and either ethromycin, nitrafurazone or minocycline. I ALWAYS treat the tank this way for a total of five days whether I believe the fish to be totally healthy or not. By using this method, I am trying to cover the whole ballpark of infections a fish could have. The LFS here are very bad, it seems as if they dont care or they dont know what to do as their fish always have some sort of sickness. I have thought abt adding Hypo to the list but thought it would be of little use for ich since I use formalin/malachite, and the fact that it only treats ich.
Anyway, so far it seems to have worked really well on the few fish that have undergone this method. I currently have a baby hippo tang in the q-tank as I type this, I purchased him today at one of the bad LFS stores which they had this guy in his own seperate tank, a tank to his right with occelaris clowns full and extremely noticeable of what seemed to be brooklynella, and to his left a tank of yellow tangs full of Ich..........ALL Sharing the same sump! I know, I know, but the hippo looked so healthy , active and his color was very prominent, I thought I would do this little guy a favor,treat him and give him a healthy home.
But I am still wondering if my treatment method is a good one? Should I be doing this? Am I using the correct Antibiotics/Chem's or are their more effective one's?
Please offer feedback as I want to treat my fish the most effective way possible.

 

[beth]

Its great you are QTing your fish, but it is not good to be prophylactically medicating your aqaurium. For one thing, there could be chemical reactions that are not benefical by mixing medications. Also, you are subjecting your fish to medications that may be useless and pointless. Many pathegens develop immunities to medications once they are exposed to them, which means that the med will not be as effective when and if you really need it.
Use the QT to quarantine, and then, if you see a particular disease, then go ahead a threat the specific disease.
You can do hyposalinity, however, prophlactically, since there is no potential harm to animals for doing the procedure.

 

[linuxguru]

Thanks a lot Beth, that makes perfect sense. From now on I will observe closely and only medicate if the need arises. Off the topic, I want to ask you a question abt Ich. I have 3 tanks, one of my tanks was set up before I knew anything abt quarantinig and when I first got into the hobby. In that tank I have 50 Lbs live rock, numerous (A LOT) of invertebrates and some corals. I have 2 clowns, 1 hawkfish, 2 firefish and a Lawnmower. These fish are constantly getting ich on and off. Since I have so many inverts it would almost be impossible for me to do hypo, is this the ONLY way I could get rid of the ich in thew tank, how about a UV sterilizer?
Now lets say I did find a way to do hypo (I wish

) would that guarantee me 100% that it would rid the ich? Also if I quarantined every fish correctly and after put them in the tank, would I NEVER get ich again? Is that possible, to NEVER get ich in one's tank?
Thank you Beth.

 

[linuxguru]

I almost forgot, if I did do hypo, what abt all of my live rock. I might have some inverts living in there, and all my coepods, isopods, all my little bugs and worms. Would it kill them all? I think I'm screwed

.

 

[beth]

You can not hypo in a reef tank, and LR will not survive hypo. All you can do in tank is try to get cleaner shrimp to work on the paraistes, and/or, heavy feedings with garlic soaked food.