"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.

 

sorry for the loss hey

 

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!!!

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!

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,

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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:

Regards
Lauré