Aquarium salt for Hospital Tank use.

[RDTigger]

Dealing with a listless Yellow Lab and have created a salt bath, ~3tbsp in a 10G tank with elevated temps to 85.

Fin came unclamped and seems less tressed and more stimulated. He was swimming listlessly and clamped fins on one side.

My question is what and how to continue treatment and what to look for?

 

[RDTigger]

 

[Rbishop]

I would jstmaintain at that level I think.....in that size tank, I would use 20 teaspoons for ich issues.....but most times, repetitive fresh water changes often are as beneficial....good that he seems to be responding

 

[RDTigger]

No maintaining allowed now...

He has a swollen right eye that has me worried.. just did sold 75% WC on the hosptal tank. This can't be bloat?

Clout and tetracycline on hand atm.

What do I do here?

 

[RDTigger]

Ummm, is anyone good with dosing meds and nursing sick africans back to health?

 

[GoldLenny]

What are your water parameters? pH and hardness levels especially.

TC is an effective antibiotic and will work in water with pH below 7.5 and as long as it's not hard water.... but you probably have water parameters that are NOT good for using TC.

The more info you can give us, the better. I have a Sick Fish Questionnaire on my blog. You could copy/paste the questions and answers here which would help a LOT with trying to diagnose and cure your fish. Here's the link to the questionnaire. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2009/06/sick-fish-questionnaire.html

 

[RDTigger]

What are your water parameters? pH and hardness levels especially.

TC is an effective antibiotic and will work in water with pH below 7.5 and as long as it's not hard water.... but you probably have water parameters that are NOT good for using TC.

The more info you can give us, the better. I have a Sick Fish Questionnaire on my blog. You could copy/paste the questions and answers here which would help a LOT with trying to diagnose and cure your fish. Here's the link to the questionnaire. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2009/06/sick-fish-questionnaire.html

My pH is ~7.8 and the heater is set at 78 degrees.Can't speak for hardness, no tests for that, but the 7.8 pH stays steady. I saw the comment on TC not being effective over a ~7.5 and hoped i could get away with using TC over Clout.
I'll be checking on him again in an hour or so but it appeared his swelling in the eye was coming down. My thought was to do a 50% WC and add carbon to the sponge in the filter tonight...and see how he does when the water has clearerd up and I can pull all the antibiotics out. Unsure if some aqua salt or epsom salt wouldn't be in order though?

 

[GoldLenny]

Clout is for treatment of parasites.

While I know that our first goal is to try and get the fish well, it's NOT good to start throwing every kind of medicine imaginable into the tank. It's BEST to try and figure out what is wrong and then treat the health issue.

When we don't know and are trying to figure things out, the best thing to use is salt... plain table salt works fine. Iodized is OK also since the idodide levels are so low, they don't really matter for short term therapeutic use.

Slowly, over 24 hours, raise the salt level to 3 teaspoons per gallon (0.3%) and keep up with partial water changes, replacing the amount of removed salt with each PWC.

Your 3 tablespoons per 10G is only equal to 9 teaspoons per 10G so you are at just about 1 teaspoon per gallon. Add two more doses, spread out over 12 hours, of 3 tablespoons per 10G, diluting the salt in water first and then slowly pouring it into the hospital tank, avoiding close contact with the fish or the filter intake. This will raise the salt level to 2.7 teaspoons per gallon, which is probably going to be 3 teaspoons per gallon since a 10g tank probably only holds 9G anyhow, since we don't fill it to the very top, etc.

From: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/salt.shtml
"Salinity measurements. A 3ppT or 5 ppT (parts per thousand) salt solution is equivalent to 0.3% or 0.5% salinity, or 3 or 5 grams per liter, or 3 or 5 teaspoons of salt per gallon. Remember, a level tablespoon is equivalent to three level teaspoons. This is the standard recommendation for salt treatment for skin parasites and for Ich."

Salt, at that level will also kill off many different bacteria, especially external bacteria.

Here's an article by a fish veterinarian... about salt.
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/ponds/Kebus_Salt_Treatments.html

Keep observing the fish for any specific signs of a particular parasite or bacteria. This means checking the fish's poop for health signals. If the fish isn't pooping, it could just be constipation that is causing the health issue and that would be a different treatment.

 

[GoldLenny]

I meant to add that the swelling in the eye could be the start of pop-eye, which is a symptom or side-effect, rather than a disease. It's thought to be a side effect of one of a couple of internal bacterial infections. If these types of symptoms or side-effects continue, then you may have to step things up and go with an antibiotic like Furan II which will not be affected by your higher pH and likely harder water. If you have Melafix, which is a very mild antibacterial product, that could be used right now as well, while trying to figure out things for the specific disease or pathogen.

I also noticed that you mentioned using carbon tonight. Why? Did you dose the tank with the TC or something other than salt? Carbon won't remove the salt so there's no need to do that and besides, I don't think you should at this time. Doing PWC"s are great as long as the replacement water is dosed with the same amount of salt as the removed water so you don't change teh water parameters too much, too fast.

When the fish is well, then you can start lowering the salt levels with a serieds of 10% PWC's, then 25% PWC's until it's mostly fresh water again, when you can move the healed fish back to your main tank.

 

[RDTigger]

I picked up Pimafix over Melafix yesterday...

I started laying off the salt when I started dosing with TC, as I read it inhibits TC with high hardness and pH of the water.

My plan was to lower the TC level and then use carbon to pull out more, slowly. Figure the little guy has had enough treatment with TC. My other concern is how to get him to eat something.