I'm Looking for a Dip & Long Term Perventative

[Megumi05]

I have always kept a few medications on hand since starting my first freshwater tank as a child. Mostly it was more of I got a problem then had to buy a new medicine to fix it. Now that I'm older and been in the hobby a great number of years I know how some medications are better than others and prevention is most important. I have developed a pre-treatment in quarantine routine for my freshwater live stock that has played a big role in the success of my fish. However, now that I am adding a saltwater tank to my house I need some new treatment methods, most namely the dip I use is not considered saltwater safe. I float the bag of fish then add some dip then after a 5-10min soak in the dip start drip acclimation. I use a dip as first line broad spectrum preventative to remove any none visible spores, eggs, etc of various pest and to strip any none seen parasites down to lower, more cop-able levels. I have found 2 products I like for this purpose and wanted to hear members thoughts and suggestions.
**Seachem's Polyguard: Sulfathiazole (75%), malachite green (4%), nitrofurantoin (0.25%), 5-nitro-2-furaldehyde secmicarbazole (0.25%), Quinacrine dihydrochloride (0.5%).
**Hikari's Ich-X: Water, formaldehyde (<5%), methanol (<2%), malachite green chloride (<0.1%).
The second one is a combination that was suggestion on another group but methanol was not included.

I also am looking at some broad spectrum preventative products that are all natural. These products are mainly therapeutic and are for boosting the immune system so that the fish can fight off any straggling pathogens. I was looking at Herbtana and Artemiss by Micro Lift, which has been suggested to me multiple times. Then there's Probiotic Marine Formula by Perscions Aquariums.

 

[Humblefish]

Having kept both FW & SW fish for 35+ years now, I can tell you its a night & day experience when it comes to diseases. The dips/baths/herbal remedies that work on FW fish don't cut it when dealing with SW fish diseases.

I would start by reading this: How to Quarantine

And here is a list of medications I use: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/medications-to-keep-on-hand.213574/

There is information on baths in the last link, but IME chemical baths are more useful for temporary relief than permanent eradication.

 

[Megumi05]

I do quarantine mostly. I however do not have the space to set up one for my saltwater tank quite sadly, thus, I am making a drive some ways out from me to buy from a private seller. Due to the high amount of wild caught fish in saltwater he treats his tanks with low dose cuppramine because other wise an outbreak of flukes would cost him hundreds of dollars in stock. Best looking tanks I've seen since my local private shop closed down years ago and the fish I had gotten as a kid from that shop gave me way less problems than fish from name any corporate owned store. Since it's just a handful of fish enthusiast taking care of the fish instead of fresh out of school new hire kids that aren't trained worth a snuff, the fish actually get proper care are are treated for anything that may pop up.

 

[Megumi05]

Having kept both FW & SW fish for 35+ years now, I can tell you its a night & day experience when it comes to diseases. The dips/baths/herbal remedies that work on FW fish don't cut it when dealing with SW fish diseases.

I would start by reading this: How to Quarantine

And here is a list of medications I use: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/medications-to-keep-on-hand.213574/

There is information on baths in the last link, but IME chemical baths are more useful for temporary relief than permanent eradication.

Humblefish thank you for the links. I see you mentioned a few things I was considering. I live by prazipro but didn't even think about all my feather duster worms. Luckily they're mostly in one of the live rocks so I'll just move that to a heated bucket of tank water until treatment is done and the meds have be water changed out. Typically I use fenebendazole powder to soak food in for internal parasites. It gets things prazi won't and it gets the meds right to the source of the problem. Easier to water change out of the water, hard to over dose, and actually kills eggs, but does kill inverts if they ingest too much of the medicated food. Think I'll go with the Ich-X you mentioned. Had formalin suggested for dips multiple times and that's all I can get with it in it. Api General Cure's ingredients (didn't want to spell them out) really need to be used for days to be effective so they won't do much during a dip. I know formalin is also harder on the fish so usually I see it recommenced for use in baths/dips only and not for dosing the tank.

 

[Humblefish]

@Megumi05 Interesting about using fenbendazole to food soak for intestinal worms. Wonder how well it works with marine fish? Metronidazole is what I primarily use.

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish It's very similar to metronidazole and I have no problem picking some of that up. I had gotten Fenbendazole as a powder because it's the same thing used for treating intestinal worms in reptiles (just sprinkle it on the crickets). It was multi-purpose for me so that's what I had gotten. Like Metronidazole in order to get it as a powder and not mixed with other medicines I have to order it from an online fish pharmacy store. Fenbendazole is for animal use only so is readily available over the counter in pet shops (though as a dog de-wormer so it has other ingredients in it) while in my state at least Metronidazole is a prescription though I can order animal grade stuff legally. It's just not stocked on shelves. Lost half my freshwater tank before I realized it was internal worms. Fenbendazole soaked food followed up with a week of Prazi Pro after some water changes is what saved the fish not badly affect yet. Those with a strong enough immune system and not too badly infected have been going strong and happy every since, but the bulk of the fish were too bad already to make it through. =( Guess you could say I learned about quarantining the hard way and it's why I now de-worm all my fish when they get home. Then some big chain store (not sure which one) infected my one tank with suspected TB (conferred with someone studying the disease) that didn't show up for months, so way passed quarantine. Had to have a friend come over to euthanize the tank for me as I couldn't do it myself to the spunky ones yet that were fighting it well, but it had to be done or risk re-infection of new fish. Then I had to scrub everything in alcohol, yuck. This is what prompted me to really look good and hard for a different supplier of fish. Found a private owned little shop tucked into a nook of a neighboring town. His tanks look great and he runs cuppramine through the system because of the high rate of flukes in saltwater especially since most are wild caught and those things that are captive bred are on a separate water system to prevent cross contamination. Music to my ears it was. Asked the guy about his suppliers and stuff and he really sounded like a hobbyist just like us who cared for the fish and made it a business. He's even willing to special order anything by request he has a source to get in for you =) Only bad thing I could find about the place was that his care info is a little off on the more exotic (first time stocking it) fish, but hey that's why we research ourselves before we buy.

 

[Humblefish]

@Megumi05 Do you feel there are any benefits to using fenbendazole over metronidazole for deworming purposes? I've been noticing food soaking metro hasn't always worked for some of our members. So, I'm more than willing to experiment with a "new" treatment.

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish Fenbendazole from what I understand it is both broad spectrum and is the only de-wormer that can kill the eggs of some parasites. It's hard to over dose too. Downside is that it can be quite hard on the lining of the stomach which can cause dosed animals to temporarily go off food or have small streaks of blood in their stool. It is best given with a probiotic food and immune boosting vitamins. I use Garlic Guard to cover up the medicine flavor in the food, use a food high in vitamin C & A, and you can find fish foods with probiotics in them (a varied diet usually does the trick). I do not know what typical tank meds it may interact with but I never had problems with adding tap conditioner while using Fenbendazole. As mentioned it is quite toxic to invertebrates and any leaching into the water from the food will decimate corals. Not that there are many invert and coral safe meds. Followed up by PraziPro it hits all the major internal worms for the most part. Like I said it saved my tank and I've had no sign of intestinal worms since or fish sudden fall ill. Those that made it through treatment have been going strong for almost half a year now.

 

[Humblefish]

As mentioned it is quite toxic to invertebrates and any leaching into the water from the food will decimate corals. Not that there are many invert and coral safe meds.

Metro has one clear advantage over fenbendazole then. It is apparently reef safe at low enough dosages:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagellates-dinos-a-possible-cure-follow-along-and-see.253917/

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish is Metro also invert save then as well for tanks with cleaner shrimps, crabs, and snails. Guess it still would effect bristle worms and feather duster worms though wouldn't it? Since I don't have the room to setup a quarantine for my SW I will have to repetitively net fish out of the tank for multiple dips/baths for treatment and/or treat them directly in the tank. If I use metro soaked food every other day for the instructed time frame and did small partial water changes with it would my feather duster worms be okay? Sounds like Metro is the way to go with SW but I'll keep using my Fenobendazole in my new FW stock. I'm also getting Ich-X (malachite green, menthol, formalin) to use as my dip while new comers are in the bag. If I remember reading correctly these ingredients are all reef and invert safe as long as it's not over dosed or used long term. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish I also thought I would share with you that this current tank of mine (a 29G I had lying around after I discontinued a FW project for it) is just a training wheels sort of tank building up to a much much grander scale SW project. Since I had a tank, filter, and heater all spare I figured I better see if I can handle SW and learn some valuable experience lesson before I go building a shark and ray pond a couple of years down the road. Since inevitably one makes a few screw ups and learns the hard way with anything; best to do it now on a small scale with cheaper fish, LOL. This tank will actually become my refugium for the pond (upgraded later). Haven't figured out yet how to connect it to my planned water system. Should I pump water from the pond into the refugium then let it over flow to the sump or the other way around (filter the water mechanically first then have it over flow from the sump to the refugium where it'll overflow back into the pond). Any thoughts? I may very likely have dual sumps all gravity run so there's only 1 pump to use electricity or wear out. Thinking of getting one of those heavy duty, tall plastic garage storage racks, putting a food grade container on each level and can cut a hole in the plastic shelves so I can flow water from the top sump to the one below it via PVC pipe or I know how to make a no drill PVC overflow.

 

[Humblefish]

@Megumi05 The only medication I would personally dose in a reef tank is Prazipro. You can food soak certain other medications (metro, powder praziquantel, kanamycin) IF you also use a binder (ex. Seachem Focus) to prevent the medication from leaching out into the water. Running carbon while food soaking medication(s) is a good insurance policy.

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish Even with Seachem Focus there's still considerable leeching of medication into the water. I do run carbon consistently unless I'm purposely dosing the water column. Insurance policy against chlorine, bacteria toxins, etc. I will be adding all fish and other inverts to the tank and screen treating them for intestinal worms, external parasites, bacteria, and fungus all before any corals are put into the tank. My concern is more so if Metro is safe for feather duster worms, crabs, snails, and shrimps if they would happen to eat any of the food soaked in it? Duly noted that if anything breaks out after I have corals that I should either remove coral frags during water treatment or do all treatments via a serious of baths.

 

[Humblefish]

@Megumi05 I highly suggest treating all your fish in a QT before placing in the DT. There are several diseases (ich, velvet, etc.) baths/food soaking does not treat. Once you get one of these diseases in your DT, you have to go fallow (up to 76 days) to starve it out.

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish Would a Rubbermaid tub with a sponge filter work as a 2wk quarantine tank (QT)? That's about all the spare equipment I have since I have a QT running for my FW aquarium. If I get salt creep on the tub from the air run filter it's not a big deal I can throw it out. I can also move a piece of bio-active rock from the DT to the QT and I'll use water from the tank currently as it's mostly cycled already. I have a tub around I've used for guppy breeding before and the air run filter has mechanical sponge with chemical ammo-carb in it.

 

[Humblefish]

@Humblefish Would a Rubbermaid tub with a sponge filter work as a 2wk quarantine tank (QT)? That's about all the spare equipment I have since I have a QT running for my FW aquarium. If I get salt creep on the tub from the air run filter it's not a big deal I can throw it out. I can also move a piece of bio-active rock from the DT to the QT and I'll use water from the tank currently as it's mostly cycled already. I have a tub around I've used for guppy breeding before and the air run filter has mechanical sponge with chemical ammo-carb in it.

A Rubbermaid or Sterilite container will work, but its hard to see the fish from all sides in one of those. Petco will periodically have a "dollar per gallon" sale on Aqueon aquariums up to 55 gals.

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish I missed that sale. I can get a few brands that are very clear. Not as good as glass but good visibility and relatively smooth plastic that doesn't distort the fish inside. Since what I have is an air drawn filter and breaking air bubbles can cause salt creep I'm thinking of what I can use that's cheap and disposable so if it gets ruined I don't mind. I'd be upset to lose my empty 5.5G and it's stainless steel cover to salt creep. I'll set up a QT plastic tub tonight with a good portion of it's total water volume from the main tank (adding fresh seawater could do it some good). It's almost cycled so hope to get first stock in 2wks. I'll move a piece of the rock to the QT setup too so I know I have bio-active surface area in there.

 

[Humblefish]

If you can fill the container high enough, how about one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Marineland-Penguin-Power-Filter-50-Gallon/dp/B0009IODZG/

You can use the bio-wheel for biological filtration and the spinning wheel/water breaking the surface will provide gas exchange for oxygenation.

 

[Megumi05]

@Humblefish I forgot I have one of those in the 30G size with the wheel and all. Someone suggest I convert it to my refugium but didn't want to waste the electricity or my back up filter in case of emergency of one suddenly wearing out. Forgot I picked up a 3rd heater too when I found a used one for $3 and figured again for emergency back up, ha. Can't fill the container in mind high enough though to fit in even 1 of the intake tubes. The container is more long and wide than tall.

 

[Humblefish]

Can't fill the container in mind high enough though to fit in even 1 of the intake tubes. The container is more long and wide than tall.

You could pickup a Sterilite container cheap. I've used this one with HOB filters: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite-27-gal-Stacker-Box-Black/43393263