View Full Version : "Caution" NOT FOUND ON THE LABEL
Hey dudes and dudettes,
The 18th of Jan marks a VERY sad day for me and my wife!
I am medicating my tank for Anchor Worm. It's a 2 part medication process. THe first dose is on day one, and the second dose is on day 7 to kill any eggs of the worms that may have hatched. Then on day 14 I need to introduce Carbon Chips to the filter to remove all meds, along with a 50% water change.
My one angel has developed a fungus on his eye, and I had already lost my guppy to the same fungus. I decided to medicate with TetraStop fungicide.
Within 20 minutes my wife was racing to "Madam's" house to get some activated Carbon, (as I didn't have any), I was frantically getting water out the tank and filling the bath with prep water with Dechlor in!
All my fish were hanging at the top of the tank breathing very frantically, the ancistrus was trying to get to the surface, and the Cory's kept swimming to the top for air.
Last night I lost all 17 of my neons, my 2 female Beta's, all my Zebra Danios, Guppy's and swordtails.
The Black Widows, Angels, Cory's and Pristella Tetra's pulled through, as well as the 2 ancistrus and male Ram.
So this is a CAUTIONARY TALE to all you people out in fishyworld... a caution that I have personally never found on any label, on any instruction insert, or on any internet reading to date...
DO NOT MIX MEDICATIONS IN YOUR TANK. TREAT FOR ONE SYMPTOM, REMOVE THE MEDS AND TREAT FOR SECONDARY SYMPTOM THEREAFTER!
Hectic hope things go better today.
guido.coza
19-01-2010, 06:35
Hey dudes and dudettes,
The 18th of Jan marks a VERY sad day for me and my wife!
So this is a CAUTIONARY TALE to all you people out in fishyworld... a caution that I have personally never found on any label, on any instruction insert, or on any internet reading to date...
DO NOT MIX MEDICATIONS IN YOUR TANK. TREAT FOR ONE SYMPTOM, REMOVE THE MEDS AND TREAT FOR SECONDARY SYMPTOM THEREAFTER!
Hi Zoom very sorry to hear)-: )-:
I think i read only ones not to mix the one med with a specific other commpound. (Cant remember which one though)
Would that not be something for the "Prof" to reserge?
Again that sucks!!!!
Sorry man!
Yes indeed it is very important to use only one medication at a time, unless the medication is suppose to be used in combination with another (although i cant think of one used on fish right now?).
Its vital that all medications are spaced out by around 2 weeks in order to avoid any counter contraditions! And then after the course is completed, and before the next is started, to clean out the water with Activated Carbon or other such active water cleaning compounds like Purigen!
I learnt the hard way when I started and lost LOTS of fish! Lessons always are easier to remember when they cost you the most!
I generally leave the medication in the water for upto 4 days after last dose, just to be sure its completed treatment, and then I filter it out only if I need to, or if I need to treat for something else?
So although Zoom has had this loss, let it be a lesson learnt for all you good folk out there starting out! Some treatments DO carry a warning for not dual treating a tank, but there are some that don't! Be very aware!
Sorry again Zoom for your loss!
Regards
Big G!
I have successfully treated Ich and Fungus on a male betta at the same time without any issues. Both were Tetra products. I have also read the documentation that comes with both medications very carefully and did not see any warnings against dual treatment.
Sorry about the lost
This can be emotional scaring hopefully a lesson well learnt.
I stock the full Sera range – after my first mass loss.
The sera range of meds do caution/warn you in the fine print
DAMN Zoom!!! That is just crazy!!! :mad::mad::mad:
Do any of the fish that's left still have the worms attached?
Damn if you were down in CT I'd borrow you a 3ft as a quarantine tank so you can start from scratch on the main tank.
Good luck
very sad to hear about all the fish losses you had there!
what was the 1st medication you were using for the anchor worm problem?
Hi Laure! I'm suprised that the anti ich doesn't have a warning? That's usually one of the main ones that are bad in combination with others I believe? Certainly in my experience (which in terms of diseases is not THAT extensive thankfully!)! The other VITAL factor is to make sure you get the dosage right! Nothing is worse than overdosing! Cheers! Big G!
Oh dude that's awefull news :( sorry to hear that!
Think it largely depends on what meds are being used. I've treated Columnaris/Flexibacter and an internal protozoan infection at the same time on the same Discus.
But like you said Zoom, RTFM to make 100% sure of side effects or any issues with using the required meds
Sorry to hear that Zoom!
What is also 100% necessary is to make sure that you have an air stone in the tank when treating the tank with hardcore medications. A lot of the medicines deplete the oxygen supply in a tank. I would recommend this at all times when treating a tank with medication.
Also, once you have completed the course, you should add bacteria back into the tank either with Seachem Stability or Microbe lift or something similar.
Thanks for all your concern and sympathy. Indeed it was a rather hectic shock to the system to see so many die. The nightmares that followed last night didn't help the trauma either!
Sorry man!
Its vital that all medications are spaced out by around 2 weeks in order to avoid any counter contraditions! And then after the course is completed, and before the next is started, to clean out the water with Activated Carbon or other such active water cleaning compounds like Purigen!
That was my intention. The problem was that a fungus was starting to cause deaths, and I assumed that it would have been better to medicate the entire tank than remove to QT,
very sad to hear about all the fish losses you had there!
what was the 1st medication you were using for the anchor worm problem?
Thanks Dolphin. I couldn't source the medication you suggested, but after extensive research, the one I got was recommended by many LPS. I can't remember the exact name, but it was by a company called Interpet, and it was their NUMBER 12 product.
Think it largely depends on what meds are being used. I've treated Columnaris/Flexibacter and an internal protozoan infection at the same time on the same Discus.
But like you said Zoom, RTFM to make 100% sure of side effects or any issues with using the required meds
I generally read the entire box, bottle AND the paper insert in the boxes VERY thoroughly!! To the point that the FIRST medication, (Interpet) had conflicting dosage instructions on the box compared to the bottle. When I contacted the LPS to confirm, they said it would be better to follow the bottle instructions, rather than the box.
Sorry to hear that Zoom!
What is also 100% necessary is to make sure that you have an air stone in the tank when treating the tank with hardcore medications. A lot of the medicines deplete the oxygen supply in a tank. I would recommend this at all times when treating a tank with medication.
Also, once you have completed the course, you should add bacteria back into the tank either with Seachem Stability or Microbe lift or something similar.
The tank has a hectic air curtain at the back of the tank... but yet, I agree with you 100%... I believe that the combination of the 2 meds knocked the oxygen out the tank completely, as pretty much ALL the fish were at the top gasping for air.
Sorry to hear about your loss, and as luck would have it or is it murphy it would always be the favourite ones.
But like a forest fire when only ash is left behind it is time for the new to sprout. Hope you find marvelous new fish.
P.S do you have a LFS that stock Jungle parasite tablets? I think you mentioned it.
[quote=Vis;34138]Sorry to hear about your loss, and as luck would have it or is it murphy it would always be the favourite ones.
quote]
Correction . It is now Sipho's law,Not Murphy anymore.:p
Dirk Bellstedt
19-01-2010, 20:56
Hi Zoom,
Sorry to hear about your losses, not good.
Suppliers of medications will often inform you with regard to which combinations of their own brand of medications can be used together or which ones you should not use together, but I would advise in general that one should NOT USE ANY MEDICATIONS FROM DIFFERENT SUPPLIERS together. One of the most common medications used is formalin and if you add a double dose through using meds from two suppliers you can have this effect on the breathing. Formalin used in correct amounts is such that it just does not kill fishes, but if you now add formalin from two different sources you will easily have too much and then be in trouble.
So we all learn from our mistakes unfortunately.
I want to tell you a few other things from my many years of keeping fish. I would say that I have killed more fishes from medication than from disease because in general, medications have a load of side effects. Particularly when keeping discus, I would almost say that this is my rule, I am categorically against medication because of the damage it causes to them. What you must learn is to treat the cause and not the symptom. Why are the fishes looking off colour or sick? Filtration, water conditions, temperature, over stocking and so we can carry on with reasons why, but these first four reasons are about the most important and the ones that I first ask myself about. Often if you correct these errors you do not need medication. I would for example never consider medicating against fungus. If given the right conditions, fishes will recover on their own in most cases.
Just a few thoughts but the rule should be: prevention is better than cure.
Better luck next time.
Kind regards,
Dirk
Thank you Professor,
I am also very cautious when it comes to medication, and the first thing I do when I see anything not normal in my tank is to do a test of the water, generally followed by a 25-50% water change.
I stand to be corrected, but I believe the only way the anchor worm could have got into the tank would have been through introduction through another source, so I was forced to look at medication. I personally prefer to use the Bio-elite stuff, as I believe it is a more "natural" product, but this time I had to go for the more drastic medication. (Dirk, I did try your suggestion, but I couldn't get hold of that medication.)
I have since been in contact with Waterlife in the UK, and have received medication purely dedicated to Anchor worm, as the first med did not work.
Dirk Bellstedt
20-01-2010, 06:49
Hi Zoom,
You are correct that the Anchor worm could only have come in through a contaminated source, in all likelihood through fishes.
When you orginally asked me about the medication that you wanted to use against the anchor worm and you told me that it would destroy all biological filtration, I immediately strongly suspected that this medication contained formalin. Whilst formalin will kill off flukes and other external parasites, anchor worm is quite a tough parasite and I was not convinced that you should use it and I advised you against it. I am also of the opinion that there are far better and more specific medications for this problem and that is why I advised flubendazole. I am quite sure that this medication (the Bio-Elite stuff) is actually the one that was responsible for your problems in the first place and not the additional second medication. If this first medication knocked out your biological filtration this would lead to an increase in ammonia and nitrite levels. The symptoms of ammonia and particularly nitrite toxicity are that they damage the hemoglobin, the pigment in the blood that carries oxygen. This means that the symptoms that the fishes show as a result are extremely heavy breathing (which you observed and which lead to the death of the fishes) and the only way you can rectify this is by large repeated water changes and possibly by the addition of salt.
If you go back to Bio-Elite and make a claim against them about the fishes you lost, they will say that they warned you on the label. What this means is that they are selling a toxic product and that they do not want to hold responsibility for it. Is Bio-Elite a SA company? I do not know but I think so? You can smell formalin because it has a sharp smell, please smell the bottle and tell us if you can smell it. I think that you should tell us exactly what this medication is (I know, but I want you to write it here) and that we should have a sticky thread to warn members against this product, it sounds lethal to me.
My personal opinion on medications is that I would only use the meds of three companies: Tetra, Sera and Waterlife. For the rest, I find that they use completely outdated components. Many of the diseases are known to have developed resistance against the older medications and as a result these medications do not work any longer and have drastic side effects on filtration or kill plants, which is really not necessary, there are much more specific and elegant medications on the market.
Kind regards,
Dirk
Hi
I would like some comments on this procedure I found on the web:
Anchor worms can be treated with potassium permanganate in the community tank (will color the water) or by bathing sick fish in a potassium permanganate solution (10mg per litre) for 20-30 min. Treating the entire community/holding aquarium will as I said color the water and be a little messy but it is still a god idea since it guarantees that no other fish are infected and that the disease doesn't return in a few months by emerging from a fish that is currently showing no signs of infection. If you decide to treat your entire tank you should add 2 mg potassium permanganate to every litre of aquarium water in your tank.
Regards
Lauré
Dirk Bellstedt
20-01-2010, 08:42
Hi Lauré,
Potassium permanganate is one of the older medications which I do not think will work any more. It will also give your plants a huge knock. You must remember that most fish are imported from Malaysia and Singapore where they are infected with anchorworm because they are kept in ponds, and in these countries medications are used freely leading to resistance to most common medications.
What is actually a huge problem is that the parasites that come in with the fishes from the East are all resistant to common medications yet these are the medications that are used in particularly the cheaper brands of medications that are sold here. This is then also the reason why I would recommend the use of the brands as I have indicated as these manufacturers keep up to date with the disease resistance developments as well.
Kind regards,
Dirk
What about JBL Professor? I have contacted them out in Germany to see about bringing in their products, I am just awaiting response.
Do you have any experience with them?
http://www.jbl.de/?lang=en
Dirk Bellstedt
20-01-2010, 09:35
Hi Slagter,
I have seen JBL's ads in my German Aquarium magazine and I have no reason to think that their products do not work. Germany is a very tough environment in which to produce aquarium products, if you make one wrong step and the public finds out about that, that is the end of you, so they seem to be doing the right thing.
I do however have no first hand experience of their products.
Kind regards,
Dirk
So sorry to hear. Thanks for the warning tho
Hi Zoom,
You are correct that the Anchor worm could only have come in through a contaminated source, in all likelihood through fishes.
When you orginally asked me about the medication that you wanted to use against the anchor worm and you told me that it would destroy all biological filtration, I immediately strongly suspected that this medication contained formalin. Whilst formalin will kill off flukes and other external parasites, anchor worm is quite a tough parasite and I was not convinced that you should use it and I advised you against it. I am also of the opinion that there are far better and more specific medications for this problem and that is why I advised flubendazole. I am quite sure that this medication (the Bio-Elite stuff) is actually the one that was responsible for your problems in the first place and not the additional second medication. If this first medication knocked out your biological filtration this would lead to an increase in ammonia and nitrite levels. The symptoms of ammonia and particularly nitrite toxicity are that they damage the hemoglobin, the pigment in the blood that carries oxygen. This means that the symptoms that the fishes show as a result are extremely heavy breathing (which you observed and which lead to the death of the fishes) and the only way you can rectify this is by large repeated water changes and possibly by the addition of salt.
If you go back to Bio-Elite and make a claim against them about the fishes you lost, they will say that they warned you on the label. What this means is that they are selling a toxic product and that they do not want to hold responsibility for it. Is Bio-Elite a SA company? I do not know but I think so? You can smell formalin because it has a sharp smell, please smell the bottle and tell us if you can smell it. I think that you should tell us exactly what this medication is (I know, but I want you to write it here) and that we should have a sticky thread to warn members against this product, it sounds lethal to me.
My personal opinion on medications is that I would only use the meds of three companies: Tetra, Sera and Waterlife. For the rest, I find that they use completely outdated components. Many of the diseases are known to have developed resistance against the older medications and as a result these medications do not work any longer and have drastic side effects on filtration or kill plants, which is really not necessary, there are much more specific and elegant medications on the market.
Kind regards,
Dirk
Hi Dirk,
The innitial medication I used was the one I discussed with you... It was NOT Bio-Elite. I was also concerned initially as it carried a warning about killing off my filter. The Medication was called Interpet No 12 Anti Crustacean Parasite. It was my concern over the filter being harmed that resulted in me seeking your advice and suggestions. I unfortunately could not get hold of any of the stuff you mentioned, and after speaking to a few other LPS, they all highly recommended the INTERPET stuff. I realised that this would be followed by daily 25% water changes to prevent the ammonia and nitrite spikes, which I was prepared to do.
The second medication I added was the Tetra anti Fungus medication.
It was within 20minutes that I was loosing fish. So i could only assume that the introduction of the Tetra mixed with the INPERPET is what caused the problems.
Thereafter I did a 90% water change, and put carbon into the filter to take out the remaining medication. I have reintroduced bacteria to my filter through the aid of Cycle, and I am basically attempting to get my tank back to where it was BEFORE I started with any meds.
In the interim, I contacted Waterlife in the UK as I believe their product is very good. They lead me to the right person in SA, who in turn has managed to supply me with a product called Waterlife Perazin, which is, according to Waterlife, specifically made for Anchor Worm, and should destroy all stages of the life cycle of the worm in a single dosage.
On Friday evening I plan on doing a further 50% water change. By that stage I am hoping that the water will no longer have any more meds in, and I will then be able to put the Waterlife Perazin in. It would appear that most traces of the Anchor worm are in fact gone, except that the Ram has got new worms on him.
Bio-Elite (not sure if they are in CT or not) is a very cheap alternative to buying from Sera/Tetra etc. In the past I have used their anti fungal, heal all, dechlor, and anti stress very effectivelly. It claims to be a lot more environmentally friends product. You can see their products here: http://www.bio-elite.co.za/product_catalog.htm. I have not used ANY of the Bio-elite stuff recently for the treatment of the anti fungal or Anchor worms!
I hope that helps Professor? I am trying to find a website that can give us an indication of what is in the Interpet stuff tha is so lethal, but I cannot find anything... except prices. I will check if I still have the booklet at home that came with the bottle, but I know I through the stuff out. Was not going to risk using it again!
Is there not a law that states that nothing can be sold to the public if its content is not specified on the label?
Have also been using the bio-elite anti chlorine with no problem. All there bottles state clearly that does not effect the nutrifying bacteria.
@ Prof, Is flubendazole only used for aquariums or would I have to look somewhere else. Could not find any in the lfs among the aqua medicine
Looking for internal parasite meds.
Guys.... there has been a mix up here...
BIO-ELITE IS SAFE. It was NOT used in this mixture of meds!
It was a mixture of INTERPET & TETRA meds that caused the mix up.
Professor...
I cannot find any "ingredients" on the Interpet stuff, but there is a big warning on the label stating it contains Sodium Chlorite! Would this in conjunction with the Tetra have caused the poisonous effect?
Dirk Bellstedt
20-01-2010, 19:24
Hi Zoom and Vis,
I do not have enough time now to answer all your questions, but I want to check on one thing. Zoom, you say the label says Sodium chlorite. Chemically this is not correct, it can only be Sodium chloride, which is salt, or Sodium hypochloride which is the active ingredient in jik. If this is in this medication then there is no way that any fish can survive this treatment.
Please clarify.
Kind regards,
Dirk
Hi Professor,
Just to try sound "clever" if my science is correct, sodium chloride (salt) is a sodium molecule + 2 Chlorine molecules, and sodium chlorite is the same but 3 chlorine molecules. (Just trying to act big here... so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
The box clearly says Chlorite... see pics of box + warning label
And as I posted that thread I saw the fine print... "Do not use with other products"
(Baaah HUMBUG)
Dirk Bellstedt
20-01-2010, 20:18
Just did a Wiki on Sodium chlorite and got the shock of my life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_chlorite . How anyone could consider using this on fish beats me stone dead. This stuff is highly oxidative and definitely not suitable for use on fishes, I do not care what Interpet say. Again, I would say that this stuff killed your fishes, definitely not the Tetra stuff...
I am actually shocked that someone could actually consider using this stuff on fish.
And Zoom, your chemistry was a bit disastrous, but let us forget about that....
Kind regards,
Dirk
And Zoom, your chemistry was a bit disastrous, but let us forget about that....
Dont worry Zoom I had to do chemistry 101 twice to eventually "get it"
Incidently I cannot believe that they used Na+ in a treatment for fish... Although saying that I know that some people have used it for treatment of human ailments!!
Anyway shame Zoom I think you should give Interpet a call....
Thanks Professor,
I did say my science was a bit rusty, and I was taking a stab in the dark. KiazerG, I can't phone Interpet, they are in the UK firstly, and secondly I MIXED medications.
I believe that the professor is right in that the Sodium Chlorite killed the fish, BUT would it have been the introduction of the other meds that activated it into the dangerout stage? The meds was in the water with no side effects on the fish for 5 days. 20minutes after putting in the other meds the fish started dying.... and all together.
It's going down to school fees.... and to be honest, I've come to terms with it. I have now got a much emptier tank... and am now in a position to start looking at the more "prettier" fish rather than the usual boring stuff.
Already go 2 pairs of Apisto. Sunbursts waiting!
Dirk Bellstedt
21-01-2010, 06:16
Hi Zoom,
I think we can only speculate about how the two medications reacted with each other resulting in the death of the fishes, so this is not going to help. Also, this is not going to get your fishes back.
So, your attitude is correct, you have learnt from this in a very hard way and can now start afresh, which is a good prospect.
Sterkte and kind regards,
Dirk
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