I started working on this hours ago but have been interrupted repeatedly by my family.... sigh.... but I wanted to post on this thread.
I strongly disagree with
Cerianthus, and have had this disagreement with him on other threads.
Without any intended malice or in any way meaning to be unkind, I will say that I can't speak for the experience or credentials of Cerianthus; I can say outright I do not consider myself a guru of fishkeeping, evenso I have had very much experience, successful experience, with using this method when treating fish for bacterial infection.
I learned to do this from AC fishkeepers that I do consider to be gurus of fishkeeping, and the thing is logical and reasonable when you understand that antibiotics are very unstable in the environment of the fish tank.
Here is a link to a thread by
Flaringshutter who was one of our mods until recently, and is one of our gurus here on AC.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134928
She advocates water changes while treating with antibiotics.
Another couple of gurus, Msjinkzd, one of our global moderators, has years of fishkeeping experience and another AC member,
Dr. No, who has years of experience with fishkeeping and is a medical professional, both held in very high regard here on AC, support the importance of pristine water while treating any fish for bacterial illness.
I've read threads in which they, among others, also state that antibiotics break down in the water column and are, for the most part, unavailable after a few hours, and who recommend daily water changes and then dosing with antibiotics, and who have done this successfully.
There are many others who have advocated this practice and when I have time I'll find the threads to back it up, but I've got 15 different projects going on right now and can't do that today.
Pristine water is of utmost importance, especially to fish that are sick. If your fish are in water with traces of ammonia and or nitrite (or even undetectable levels) and excessive dissolved organic compounds the fish are fighting two issues... the
infection and the
water chemistry that is causing harm by impacting negatively their immune system and their ability to fight the infection, as well as potentially burning gill tissue, in the case of ammonia, and/or interfering with 02 uptake, in the case of nitrite.
I have personally called
Jungle Labs in the past and spoke to one of the technical support people there and asked about this issue. He said that they don't advocate water changes on the packaging to the public because they don't think people can manage doing large enough water changes and then dosing the tank, and the assumption is that they will therefore overdose the fish.
He agreed that meds break down in the water and become unavailable and that increasing levels of ammonia or nitrite impact the ability of the fish to fight the infection. When I pointed out that ammonia can be building up in the tank... he said, "It is a conundrum", but he said the concern is the fishkeeper will not do huge water changes and will overdose their fish.
I have spoken to the technical rep at
Seachem, which makes
Kanaplex, and the technicial rep said, "yes, in a perfect world the hospital tank would have huge water changes every day before dosing with
Kanaplex. It does begin to lose its efficacy within the 24 hour period and breaks down in the water column." She said, "The concern is that the fishkeeper will dose everyday and won't do the huge water changes and will overdose their fish."
That's why I like to do as close to 100% water changes in the hospital tank as I can. However, even doing 80% water changes should be sufficient to remove ammonia, nitrite, and enough of the antibiotic that has broken down.
While speaking to the
Seachem rep I asked her opinion of about the use of Prime while treating with antibiotics.
I told her about a case where I knew I couldn't do daily 80-100% water changes so when I started seeing ammonia traces, using a liquid test kit, I dosed the tank daily with Prime.
I had also recommended that same method to another fishkeeper who felt they couldn't do daily big water changes and they successfully treated their sick fish. They monitored their water carefully every day and began to use Prime daily when they started seeing ammonia traces.
The
Seachem rep agreed that my daily use of Prime was a very good solution to the problem of ammonia and/or nitrite in the hospital tank.
She said that their other product
Neoplex, however, would not be one you would want dose every day, even with water changes, and said dosing with Prime would be good in that case as well.
If you want to give your fish the very best conditions for recovery, daily huge (80 or 90 to 100%) water changes with good conditioned water, preferably using Prime, and temperature matched water that is kept to around 75F in their tank, then dosing with fresh antibiotic, will work wonders.
There are some medications and anti parasitics that you would not dose daily after a water change, but for most antibiotics, including the ones mentioned here,
Maracyn, Maracyn 2, Kanaplex or Kanamycin, all of which are commonly used for Columaris, this is what I would do.
Salt in the hospital tank is optional, though I like to do a low dose of .1% in the hospital tank for Columnaris.
In the main tank where fish have been exposed but have not yet contracted the infection I would do the .3% salinity to help prevent the infection.
Sidenote:
I like to handle antibiotics responsibly: I prefer to pour tank water with antibiotics in it out onto the ground rather than let them go into the drain and directly into the water system.
ADDENDUM: Please forgive typos and sentence fragments; I have been up and down with so many interruptions during this lenghty post that I just haven't done any proof reading.
