Robert Ranciato
Well-Known Member
Is it ok to use amoxicillan instead cipro when making a long term dip for my torch corals. I'm afraid to use in my main system. I'm going to dip them for few hours to see if they improve.
Question about antibiotic dip
- Thread starter Robert Ranciato
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Latte
Active Member
Just like there are a million other reasons your headache may have gone away after you licked the Tylenol, there are a million reasons why the coral may have healed after the antibiotic dip.
It's dangerous and irresponsible to keep playing with these medications like they are toys when the vast majority of hobbyists have absolutely no idea how they work (see this thread for some perfect examples) when we're staring down the barrel of developing more resistant bacteria and returning a society without effective antibiotics. If you don't know what you're doing, just stop.
Sure we might be a small contribution to a big problem, but that's no justification to keep adding to the fire. That same justification can be used by almost everyone contributing to the problem - it won't stop with just me stopping, so why shouldn't I keep making it worse?
If you know how antibiotics work, are able to identify what type of issue you're dealing with and which antibiotic and dosage to use to target that issue, as well as understanding how to manage the risks associated with this for public health - go for it. If you're a hobbyist who has an unhappy coral with no idea what the real problem is or how these medications work, but you saw a post on a forum so thought you'd give it a go - you are the problem.
It's dangerous and irresponsible to keep playing with these medications like they are toys when the vast majority of hobbyists have absolutely no idea how they work (see this thread for some perfect examples) when we're staring down the barrel of developing more resistant bacteria and returning a society without effective antibiotics. If you don't know what you're doing, just stop.
Sure we might be a small contribution to a big problem, but that's no justification to keep adding to the fire. That same justification can be used by almost everyone contributing to the problem - it won't stop with just me stopping, so why shouldn't I keep making it worse?
If you know how antibiotics work, are able to identify what type of issue you're dealing with and which antibiotic and dosage to use to target that issue, as well as understanding how to manage the risks associated with this for public health - go for it. If you're a hobbyist who has an unhappy coral with no idea what the real problem is or how these medications work, but you saw a post on a forum so thought you'd give it a go - you are the problem.
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Goaway
10K Club member
I know plenty of people who nearly died to flesh eating bacteria. They get a drip line.
To prevent infection, they get a tablet.
Coral dips can go from 15 minutes to 8 hours. Again, depends on the severity.
Sometimes its best to pull the infected for isolated treatment, especially if needed long term. Whole tank treatments work too.
But, this doesnt rule out a bucket with heater and an aerator for longer exposure.
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Latte
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I don't think "but this is the way we've always done it" is a persuasive argument to continue to do something that's wrong.
We're already seeing antibiotic resistant bacteria more and more often in hospitals, this isn't a possible issue further down the line, it's a problem that is already appearing today and will only continue to get worse if we continue with the abuse of antibiotics. We've very quickly forgotten how revolutionary antibiotics were to medicine - common and minor infections nowadays may have been life threatening within recent history.
Personally, it's more important that my children and grandchildren are still able to use them rather than I get to take pot shots at whatever might be going on in my corals with medications I don't understand.
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bushdoc
Valuable Member
Ciprofloxacin has different, spectrum than Amoxicillin.
Some infections like Urinary tract infections or Travellers Diarrhea require very short course of Cipro ( just few doses). Amoxicillin need to be given over at least 5 days or a week ( in humans) to adress infection.
I actually have also personal experience with Cipro and Amoxicillin. Cipro stopped my travelers diarrhea in High Andes after 2 doses!
Short course of Amoxicillin ( short dip) could actually contribute to bacterial resistance and you could have more virulent strain taking over, not to mention that it might just not work for bacteria strains you would like to eliminate, but it might work on those you dont want to be eliminated. Who knows!
Some infections like Urinary tract infections or Travellers Diarrhea require very short course of Cipro ( just few doses). Amoxicillin need to be given over at least 5 days or a week ( in humans) to adress infection.
I actually have also personal experience with Cipro and Amoxicillin. Cipro stopped my travelers diarrhea in High Andes after 2 doses!
Short course of Amoxicillin ( short dip) could actually contribute to bacterial resistance and you could have more virulent strain taking over, not to mention that it might just not work for bacteria strains you would like to eliminate, but it might work on those you dont want to be eliminated. Who knows!
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Latte
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That wasn't me either, I just explained the analogy that another poster gave.
But yes, just because we've used something in the past doesn't mean we should continue to do so. I can think of plenty of things we've done in this hobby and moved away from when we realised they were harmful, ineffective or cruel, this is just another.
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Latte
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To add more context, from what I can tell this is largely an American issue. Most other countries already have regulations that stop people getting their hands on antibiotics and contributing to resistances like this, hopefully the system in the US can catch up to the rest of the world and this argument won't matter
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WillpoleReefers
Active Member
I can only reiterate what I posted in the thread yesterday that got taken down. Antibiotics such as these are on restricted supply by law under a written prescription only, as each and every use has potential to generate antimicrobial resistance. This applies not just in the place of use but throughout the entire waste water processing system. The less we use the better from the AMR perspective. In veterinary medicine it is now expected and required that each use is individually justified by us on grounds of risk to life or of serious ill-health. Evidence of a specific infection is gathered where possible and appropriate, often involving microscopy with lab bacteriology (including sensitivity testing). I cannot see that routine prophylactic treatment of fish or corals could ever comply with pharmaceutical law in any properly regulated prescribing environment. It would appear from the outside that in some countries, possibly including the US, such regulations are not as effectively applied as they might be. For me it is a concern when an online forum allows posts that might encourage a use that is unlikely to be legal.
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Latte
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These are completely different treatments that work on bacteria in completely different ways. One of them you can use to treat infections inside of people, another you can't.
Antibiotics generally target specific parts of the cell, like a type of protein that makes up a cell wall.
Alcohol santisers dissolve lipids that make up the cell (from what I understand).
One of these can be avoided with relatively simple mutations, while the other can't. Comparing these things and saying they're both as likely to develop resistances is like saying people are as likely to evolve to outpace predators as they are to evolve to be able to sustain a bullet to the head. They're completely different mechanisms, and only one of them poses a real immediate threat of mutated resistance.
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LRT
10K Club member
I think it's especially super important to point out in this thread, that in the thread I posted as well as countless many other successful cipro dip threads across the board.
It's been reccomended to use between 250-500mg cipro per 1 gallon of tank water for 3hrs and up to 3-7 treatments is sometimes neccesary.
Having said that many folks including myself have seen instant positive results after the 1st treatment I just described.
Perhaps corals aren't that human afterall and again I'd love to see more testing and data with corals and cipro treatments in general because it has been proven to be super successful for treating infected corals with certain ailments. For sure. Just dipping them for 3 hrs in alot of cases.
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Latte
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There's a big difference between the risks and results from those two scenarios. As I explained before it's more like a bacterial evolving to not be susceptible to getting shot in the head. And further, we don't give patients bleach to help them with an infection. Our number of effective antibiotics that humans can safely take to help with a specific infection are likely far more limited than the number of chemicals we can use to wipe down surfaces and disinfect them. A bacteria becoming resistant to bleach is likely many orders of magnitude less likely and less impactful than antibiotic resistance (which we are already seeing today).
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WillpoleReefers
Active Member
You have actually nailed the the issue well in that comment. Risks of human resistant infection from poultry are real. Those poultry might acquire those bugs from somewhere and they could be generated by any blanket use of such drugs.
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