"Body Fungus" Help Please!

BigDylan420

BigDylan420

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May 23, 2007
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So I was cleaning my tank earlier and when I was done I happened to notice that one of my new sunburst platties had a bit of fin rot. Upon further inspection I noticed that he had some white patches of fungus around his head. I just bought him yesterday from a LFS about 45 min away so today I went to the local Petco (which happens to be about 3 min from my house thats why I go there so much) and the aquatic dept. "expert" talked me into buying some medicine to cure this. It is Mardel Maracyn tablets that are for fin and tail rot, popeye, and "body fungus". Now my main concern is that I had read about before is that a lot of people swear by not using these chemicals to treat their injured fish. I would rather try to cure it without using these Maracyn tablets but I have no clue how to. Is there a way to treat this symptom without using these expensive tablets?? Or should I just use them?, and if so has anyone had good or bad results?

By the way I tested my tank this morning and everything was perfect
It is a 20g with 3 cory cats, 4 platies, 2 long finned zebra danios, and 2 rainbowfish with red fins?

Thanks a lot
 
Fungus is caused by bacteria. Antibiotics (maracyn) would be your best bet if you don't want to lose the fish. Maracyn is an excellent product, I have used it in the past. When faced with killing the bacteria or killing the fish from failure to medicate....I would medicate. Sometimes fish need the meds just like we do. I have never heard that Maracyn in any way hurts the fish.
 
I started to medicate the tank following the instructions yesterday. How long before I should notice the fish getting healthier? because he looks no different and I have already medicated twice. I did have a suffering fish that I believe my mom flushed while I was gone. It was a yellow molly? i believe and it looked like it lost the function of its whole tail. It had been acting kinda bad for a few days and today it was swimming upside down and such struggling pretty bad. All of the other fish now look healthy except for the main one I am treating a sunburst platy. I was wondering if I should add some salt to my tank? I got some mixed reactions at first when I was setting up my tank and I asked but I do remember that people said it was good to use salt to treat parasites. I didnt know if it would help with my problem or not?
 
also watch your water parameters carefully as using antibiotics can sometimes wipe out your bio-filter causing a mini-cycle.
 
Hopefully youll see improvement by the end of the first 5 days of treatment. If you see a big improvement before the end of 5 days, please continue the whole course of treatment so there is no setback. Both of these meds can be repeated for another 5 days if needed. I don't know how severely your fish are affected so I really can't guess whether you'll have to do one treatment or 2 treatments. I've used the meds for popeye and septicemia with only 1 five day course of meds.
 
What about adding salt yes or no? I just tested the water today before the 3rd treatment and my nitrites were up just a bit so I gave it a 50% water change/gravel vac and then proceeded with the third day of treatment. I was still wondering about adding salt or not??
 
skip the salt..maracyn is erythromycin works well on gram + bacterial infections.

redose if you change water..complete the prescribe dosage..if the fish are improving you need to fisnish the course..as bacteria can re-establish.

typically erythromycin does not affect the bacteria(good)..but it is best to monitor the water parameters.
 
the water has definitely gotten cloudy since I have been treating them. They definitely dont look like they are getting better but maybe actually worse. The others look okay except it looks like fin rot has affected some more of my fish. I dont know what to do. My water is always kept perfect although the cloudiness appeared overnight and I wasnt home. When I tested the water this morning it was at .25 ppm Nitrites. Would that be enough stress to cause more fin rot to develop overnight?? All of this started when I brought home a fish and noticed fin rot and body fungus on one platy. the others show no sign of the fungus but about 5 total fish show small signs of fin rot. What should I do??
 
Finish the treatments, and do large, frequent water changes, your tank is likely going through another cycle if the water is cloudy and you have detectable nitrites, but finish the treatments so that the infection doesn't become resistant to the medication.
 
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