Fin Rot, time to call in the big guns

I tried to get rid of the fin rot with Melafix/Primfix combo and it
did not really work. I wonder if it is time to call in the big guns.

Will Fish Zole do the job? It is said to be used for control of common
bacterial infections in fish. I hwave a whole bottle and ready to use
them. I thought I would ask around before dropping them in the tank.

I have a 125 g Discus tank that has 11 3" discus in there, 3 corys, 4
ottos and one zebra loach.

temp 88F
PH 7.02
Ammo 0
lightly planted

eeek fin rot! Have you done the whole adding salt to the water thing?
Fish Zole is metronidazole from what I've read. I've never used this
on fish, but I know that in humans we use it mainly to kill anaerobic
bacteria and parasites that live in the gut. Apparently fin rot is
mostly caused by dirty water conditions and stress sometimes (? expert
opinion backup required here). You've got ammonia 0 but what are the
other parameters like the nitrates and nitrites and things, because
I've also heard that stress is a big cause of fin and tail rot too. So
if the other parameters are bad then it might be freaking out your
fish.

If you are going to use the Zole, follow the instructions of course,
because they usually recommend that antibiotics be used for a week or
something like that - ceasing them early could cause resistant bacteria
to form in your tank, which could make the fish sicker or even you
sick! Having said that, continuing antibiotics that dont' appear to be
working increases the selection pressure on a community of
microorganisms which also contributes to development of "resistant
superbugs" (well that's what the news paper insist on calling them
anyway!).

Also, watch out for your filter material - using antibiotics could wipe
out all your filter bugs and the tank could cycle again, which would
increase stress on your fishies.

Hi, my black moor has had this twice. I got rid of it both times with
daily water changes and salt. I did use Furanase the first time with
the salt and water changes but couldn't get any the second time so I
just used the mentioned. Somebody did point out to me that it might be
'black molly's disease' due to too big a water change. Kept the
frequency up but cut back on the amount. He recovered in no time.

Hope this helps
Mellie

My betta had fin rot and was close to dying, i used applus+ anti-fungus, its
2 doses 48 hours apart i did two treatments then started using melafix for
the next two weeks, of course with daily water changes and he got better.
Nik



"Mellie101" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi, my black moor has had this twice. I got rid of it both times with
daily water changes and salt. I did use Furanase the first time with
the salt and water changes but couldn't get any the second time so I
just used the mentioned. Somebody did point out to me that it might be
'black molly's disease' due to too big a water change. Kept the
frequency up but cut back on the amount. He recovered in no time.

Hope this helps
Mellie

fish lover wrote,
I tried to get rid of the fin rot with Melafix/Primfix combo and it
did not really work. I wonder if it is time to call in the big guns.
Will Fish Zole do the job?

Malafix/Primfix - more of a tonic than a treatment. Fish Zole is an
antibiotic - for fin rot you need an anti-fungus medication such as
applus+, as Nikki pointed out. Clout also works good on fin and tail
rot, along with 20% daily water changes...

temp 88F ..........

Little warm for 3" discus, isn't it? ............... Frank

Frank wrote:
fish lover wrote,
I tried to get rid of the fin rot with Melafix/Primfix combo and it
did not really work. I wonder if it is time to call in the big guns.
Will Fish Zole do the job?

Malafix/Primfix - more of a tonic than a treatment. Fish Zole is an
antibiotic - for fin rot you need an anti-fungus medication such as
applus+, as Nikki pointed out. Clout also works good on fin and tail
rot, along with 20% daily water changes...

temp 88F ..........

Little warm for 3" discus, isn't it? ............... Frank

Is it? All the LFS here keep discus at 88F - 94F. They're healthy,
active, and amazingly colored. I never would have thought of keeping
discus that warm but it seems to keep them healthy in the store.

FishZole (metronidazole) is an antiprotozoan. The only antibiotic
activity it has is against anaerobic bacteria. It is utterly useless
against bacterial finrot. Metronidazole is for treating hexamita,
cryptocaryon, costia, and other protozoans. The complete lack of
activity against aerobic bacteria is the reason you can add
metronidazole to a display tank without any problems.

I used to use Paragon II for stubborn finrot. Now that it's off the
market, I've switched to SeaChem's PolyGuard. It's healed a couple fish
for me.

BTW, Never dump an antibiotic into a display tank. You will likely kill
your biofilter along with whatever you're trying to treat. Many
medications also contain plant-killing methylene blue. IIRC, Clout
kills plants. Move the discus to a clean quarantine, treat with
antibiotic for a full course of 7-10 days (to avoid creating nasty,
resistant bacteria) and then return the fish to the display.

I've also treated finrot with a Q-tip and mercurichrome. You can't get
mercurichrome any more, but peroxide is supposed to work quite well if
you keep it away from the eyes and gills. You can follow the peroxide
with Neosporin cream. You do have to handle the fish, but I find most
fish fare better with some handling than they do cooped up in quarantine.

BTW, are nitrites zero and nitrates very low? Finrot is almost always
triggered by a water quality problem.

--
Put the word aquaria in the subject to reply.
Did you read the FAQ? http://faq.thekrib.com

I tried to get rid of the fin rot with Melafix/Primfix combo and it
did not really work. I wonder if it is time to call in the big guns.

Will Fish Zole do the job? It is said to be used for control of common
bacterial infections in fish. I hwave a whole bottle and ready to use
them. I thought I would ask around before dropping them in the tank.

I have a 125 g Discus tank that has 11 3" discus in there, 3 corys, 4
ottos and one zebra loach.

temp 88F
PH 7.02
Ammo 0
lightly planted
Thanks guys/gals for the reply.

I was using Discus Buffer to lower my PH. It is a phosphate based
product so the phosphate level could be high. I'm not sure if that's
the cause. Nitrate and nitrite are all low. I change 40% of water each
week

The other possible cause is due to the weather changes, my room temp
changes form low 70's to low 80 within 24 hours, which causes the tank
temp going up and down for the last few days. I would say between 85
to 89 depend on the time of the day. I'm trying to lower the tank temp
to about 86 so it will not have such big swings.

I could not find any products/meds suggested above in my LFS
(PetSmart). Here is what I found and trying to use it in the tank:
APPLUS+ anti-fungus from Aquarium Products. It says treat fungus and
fin rot. The active ing is Malachite Green and Arciflavine
Hydrochloride.

Is this going to work?

"fish lover" wrote in message
...
I tried to get rid of the fin rot with Melafix/Primfix combo and it
did not really work. I wonder if it is time to call in the big guns.

Will Fish Zole do the job? It is said to be used for control of common
bacterial infections in fish. I hwave a whole bottle and ready to use
them. I thought I would ask around before dropping them in the tank.

I have a 125 g Discus tank that has 11 3" discus in there, 3 corys, 4
ottos and one zebra loach.

temp 88F
PH 7.02
Ammo 0
lightly planted
Thanks guys/gals for the reply.

I was using Discus Buffer to lower my PH. It is a phosphate based
product so the phosphate level could be high. I'm not sure if that's
the cause. Nitrate and nitrite are all low. I change 40% of water each
week

The other possible cause is due to the weather changes, my room temp
changes form low 70's to low 80 within 24 hours, which causes the tank
temp going up and down for the last few days. I would say between 85
to 89 depend on the time of the day. I'm trying to lower the tank temp
to about 86 so it will not have such big swings.

I could not find any products/meds suggested above in my LFS
(PetSmart). Here is what I found and trying to use it in the tank:
APPLUS+ anti-fungus from Aquarium Products. It says treat fungus and
fin rot. The active ing is Malachite Green and Arciflavine
Hydrochloride.

Is this going to work?

that is what i used for fin rot and it worked very well, i did two courses
of it instead of one, so i dosed four times .
nikki

fish lover wrote:
I tried to get rid of the fin rot with Melafix/Primfix combo and it
did not really work. I wonder if it is time to call in the big guns.

Will Fish Zole do the job? It is said to be used for control of common
bacterial infections in fish. I hwave a whole bottle and ready to use
them. I thought I would ask around before dropping them in the tank.

I have a 125 g Discus tank that has 11 3" discus in there, 3 corys, 4
ottos and one zebra loach.

temp 88F
PH 7.02
Ammo 0
lightly planted
Thanks guys/gals for the reply.

I was using Discus Buffer to lower my PH. It is a phosphate based
product so the phosphate level could be high. I'm not sure if that's
the cause. Nitrate and nitrite are all low. I change 40% of water each
week

The other possible cause is due to the weather changes, my room temp
changes form low 70's to low 80 within 24 hours, which causes the tank
temp going up and down for the last few days. I would say between 85
to 89 depend on the time of the day. I'm trying to lower the tank temp
to about 86 so it will not have such big swings.

I don't know that it's falling low enough to really stress discus. I'd
worry if it fell much lower.

I could not find any products/meds suggested above in my LFS
(PetSmart). Here is what I found and trying to use it in the tank:
APPLUS+ anti-fungus from Aquarium Products. It says treat fungus and
fin rot. The active ing is Malachite Green and Arciflavine
Hydrochloride.

Is this going to work?

It's a reasonable thing to try. Acriflavine is a very good
broad-spectrum treatment for protozoans and bacteria and malachite green
helps with fungus. I'm always a fan of non-antibiotic medications.

Watch your tank carefully. Acriflavine can kill plants and damage
biofiltration. I only use it in quarantine systems.

--
Put the word aquaria in the subject to reply.
Did you read the FAQ? http://faq.thekrib.com