Quarantine Meds Question

Timmain42

Disturbed Quasi-Genius
Jan 4, 2002
662
1
0
D/FW, TEXAS
www.xmenclan.org
I've been reading about quarantine and initial medication of new fish and new tanks. I was wondering:

Is there a quarantine medication that ISN'T lethal to snails? I know anything copper-based will kill the small snails and brain-fry the larger ones.

I'm about to Bio-Spira a 200g+ tank, which I will be initally stocking with live-bearers. I'd like to give them their initial medications, but I've already aqua-scaped the tank and added MTS to aid in the maintenance of the plants.

Any ideas? I'm not hunting down 75 MTS, even if they are adults....
 
im just wonderin wot u mean by 'initial medications'...
u shouldnt treat fish for anything unless theres a sign that they hav it, as they would build up an immunity to the medication, so when they did need it it wouldnt work. if u get wot i mean...
 
Initial Medications:

I don't just assume that a fish is healthy when I purchase it from the store. A perfect example of this is HITH, a cichlid disease that can lie unnoticed by the owner until a change in conditions causes the disease to become active.

When you quarantine fish once they are purchased, you give them a battery of medications to make sure they don't have anything (diseases and/or parasites) that they could pass on to your other fish. This same concept applies for when you are stocking a fishtank for the first time. You medicate the first fish that are going in your tank to prevent them from carrying a disease into the new environment.

What I want to know is: Is there a medication out there that kills parasites and diesase without killing snails? I love my snails.....
 
Timmain42, you're probably thinking specifically of treating for skin and gill flukes. Can you pass the new acquisitions through a short term bath with Clout or a strong salt bath or whatever you use, in a bucket, netting them out after the required time and into the main tank?

Medicating against Camallanus too?
 
HITH or HLLE is a condition brought on by diet and water conditions - it is an opportunistic infection, not something that can be cleared in advance.

A battery of medications used without cause or reason an a new fish is more likely to cause harm than benefit. There is always some degree of risk in medicating. Quarantine is done to isolate new specimens from existing and supposedly healthy stock. The fish is observed until you are reasonably sure it is heathy and not carrying infectious disease or parasites which could be transmitted to the other fish.
 
in my opinion, if fish arent of the highest quality, then dont buy them. of course, i agree totally with quarenteening new stock, you do not want to run the risk of spreading something to your old stock. but you shouldnt have to medicate fish when you but them...fish shops should be quarenteening fish before they offer them on sale, so any diseases should show up then, and the individual fishkeeper quarenteening fish is just for back up and peace of mind. if your lfs doesnt quarenteen fish before offering them on sale, then i would not purchase from there.
 
Just going with something I read about quarantining (sp?) and pre-medicating saltwater fish and Inverts.

Yes, I realize this is the FW Forum.

Go with me here.... Can anyone suggest a wide-spectrum med that isn't lethal to snails?
 
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