Removing Meds

sly2kusa

sly2kusa

Lover of Esox
Jul 25, 2006
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I just put 4 new Rite-Size "E" cartridges in yesterday evening around 7pm my time to remove some meds that have been cycling through my setup for the past 10-13 days. I was told that I should remove these, and do a water change of about 15g's (it's a 90g setup) in 24 hours, and place other new ones in to start things back up again.

Is 24 hours enough time to remove the meds from my tank? I've already got all the cartridges for this phase, and yes - they were expensive, but worth it if the process is correct. Just want to see what you all think before the 24 hour mark gets here tonight at 7pm.

Thanks
 
IF the tank is an ESTABLISHED cycled tank, I would leave the cartridges in one more day and then do a 50% water change. It really depends on the meds used, the fish in the tank, and how long the tank has been set up. Let us know a little more if you get a chance...good luck!
 
YoFishboy said:
IF the tank is an ESTABLISHED cycled tank, I would leave the cartridges in one more day and then do a 50% water change. It really depends on the meds used, the fish in the tank, and how long the tank has been set up. Let us know a little more if you get a chance...good luck!
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Thanks for the quick response! The tank was just cycled back on July 31st (zero on both Ammonia and Nitrites). The Nitrates were reading at about between 20 and 40ppm right before I started the meds. This is a 90g tank that has 4 Tiger Muskies in it. The fish that was sick was a Plecos (that has since passed on because of my stupidity - not the disease).

What was being used was the Virbac Animal Health products - specifically their Mardel line of consumer stuff. I ran 2 5 day cycles of Maracide Concentrate (for Ich), and also Maracyn-2 (an Antibiotic for what I thought might have been a bacterial thing on my Muskies fins).

The tank had been setup for just a little over 2 and a half months when this med cycle was run, and there was a small spike of Nitrites during the cycle (didn't go over 0.25, but it was still there).

Evaporated Sea Salt was added at about the 3rd day of the cycle at the dose of 3 teaspoons per g.

My thoughts here were to replace the cartridges - do the water change tonight - and continue with the salt levels until the end of the month (which would still give me some overkill on the potential Ich that may be in there).

The water temp is normally cool, but was raised to 76 degrees for about 7 days. It has slowly been brought back down to 70 since, and will eventually be back down to it's normal 67 degrees at the beginning of September.

Sorry for the disorganized thoughts, but hopefully this gives you a better picture of what's going on.
 
jm1212 said:
just to ask, did you take the biowheels out of the tank and float them in a bucket of tank water? i hope you did, for most meds are to get rid of bacteria, and that includes the good kinds
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No I did not. I had wondered about that, but was told that it was not going to get rid of the good bacterial balance that had already been established.

I removed the cartridges (even though they were well over 5 days old) just so no meds would be removed, but the Biowheels stayed in. Just cleaned all the parts yesterday before putting in the new cartridges.

If the good bacteria would be removed - why would they not include on their instructions to remove any bacterial load collectors during the meds cycle? That wouldn't make much sense - they wouldn't really be able to sell a product that did that without warning in my mind.
 
most only say to remove the carbon, for it gets rid of the meds, but they dont say to move the bio-mateiral because they assume that most people dont know what that is, and they also say just to add so much and it will be fine. truth is, all antiBIOTICS get rid of BACTERIA. i had a bad experience with that and it ended up putting my tank into a second major cycle. watch your params and you will have lost at least some bacteria, so be ready for more water changes
 
Wow - this is getting worse with every new event. The guys at my LFS (yeah I know but it was before I met you all out here) even said that it was not going to remove any of the good bacteria. They did say that there may be some of it removed, but not enough to cause a major cycle to happen all over again.

This sucks - thanks for the heads up!
 
Next time save yourself money. Buy a container of carbon and then put it into a media bag or old stocking and jam it in the filter. If it wont fit, hang it in the tank near and intake or outflow. Heck of a lot cheaper than carts.
 
TwoTankAmin said:
Next time save yourself money. Buy a container of carbon and then put it into a media bag or old stocking and jam it in the filter. If it wont fit, hang it in the tank near and intake or outflow. Heck of a lot cheaper than carts.
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Hmmm - actually that sounds not only more expensive, but more time consuming, and not worth the trouble.

I'll just buy the duel "E"'s for the $6.99 I paid for them - thanks.
 
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