I need a cure-all!

I dream of...

I dream of...

AC Members
Aug 26, 2004
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Fort wayne, IN
Since April, my sister was looking after my fish until I got settled in my new home four hours away. Needless to say, the tank wasn't cleaned as often as it should have been. I moved everyone down here (who was left) with no difficulties & thought regular tank maitenence would take care of the couple of problem fish I saw. But I have had the tank home for 3 weeks now & the problems still persist. One black neon has dark patches near it's middle above & below & a couple of the other black neons have a tiny white spot on the lower tip of their lip, possibly fungus, but the spot is so small, it is hard to tell (definately not ick!) Now, a glowlight tetra has neon disease (it got all pale). Is there a safe bacterial treatment that I can dose the tank with to make sure there are no other problems?
 
I dont know of any medication that would cure everything. I would reccomend getting a 10 gallon hospital tank. You could get a cheep filter and heater, and probably do the setup for around 30.00. You can now treat each fish instead of making them all get the medicine, plus it is a lot easier to treat 10 gallons of water than 72. It is also a good idea to keep new fish in this tank for 2-3 weeks before putting them in your big tank, so one disease dosent kill everything. Thats the only cure all solution I have.
 
The glowlight has been remove & euthanized. The reason I wanted to treat the whole tank is so everyone else won't get sick from what the others had. The black neons with the tiny spots on their bottom lip must have scar tissue on their lips because they haven't gotten any worse since I brought them home 3 weeks ago. I will just leave the black neon with the dark patches on his body alone because I cannot tell what it has.
 
RTR said:
NTD is untreatable and fatal. Remove the affected fish immediately before it dies and disperses the infection.
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What is NTD? Neon Tetra Disease? I am unfamiliar with this disease...
 
Yes, NTD is neon tetra disease. It's good your not framiliar with it... it's a nasty, nasty disease.
 
beavertayl1 said:
salt is a cure all.
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I even know salt is not a cure all, it just buffers the water to help the fish be less stressed. I cannot add any to my main tank because I have corys & they cannot have salt in their water because it stresses them.
 
I dream of... said:
I even know salt is not a cure all, it just buffers the water to help the fish be less stressed. I cannot add any to my main tank because I have corys & they cannot have salt in their water because it stresses them.
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Salt isn't a cure all, but it is far more than a stress releiver, or buffer. in most cases salt will add stress at some level or another to freshwater fish. Fish that enjoy hard water will tolerate it much better, but even then most of them would prefer higher TDS's ( total dissolved solids) via another route. The CL in NaCl does help with relief of nitrite poisoning, but then so does CL in any other usable form such as KCL which many of us use to dose K for our plants. In this case it takes very little of either to do the job.

Salt stresses and or kills many parasites, including ICH, it can be used to help with and treat quite a few things effectively thus the common myth that salt is a cure all. so it does cure a lot of things but folks who use it long term end up with other problems related to high TDS. It should only be used as a short term specific treatment for known diseases or problems.

As far as true cure all there isn't one that I know of, and most meds that treat multiple diseases are extremely hard on fish especially cories and similar skinned species. First order of buisiness ( and the most difficult IMO) is diagnosis, then treat accordingly.
Here is a good article on Salt, as well.
http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/salt.shtml

HTH
dave
 
Thank you for the helpful article. Now I can explain fully to my husband why it is better for our fish to turn off the water softener when we do water changes.
 
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