Medication - Bio-Media Safe?

[Capt. Neckbeard]

As a follow-up to my prior post about an ill platy (tuberculosis), I've been advised a generic anti-internal-bacteria solution from Interpet by my local petshop to help treat the tank and ensure the rest of the fish remain okay.

All I need to know, before adding it, is whether or not it's safe to keep the bio-media in the tank while the medication is doing it's work. The instructions state to remove the carbon, as well as any 'zeolite filter media'. So far as I know I don't have any of the latter but it got me worried this might have some kind of negative affect on my bio-media, meaning the medication might sterilise the entire tank.

Any insight on this before I use it? I don't want to go making any mistakes, least of all right now.

 

[Aiken Drum]

What precisely is the medication?

Nothing interpet make will have any antibiotic properties, so i doubt it will effect your bio filter. Interpet is a UK brand, (stocked by pets at home) so im guessing you are UK, and here you can only get anti biotics with a vets prescription. About the most effective antibiotic medication you can get without prescription would be something with malachite green like waterlife myxazin.

The most useful thing you can do with medication made by interpet is to show the bottle to the sick fish to scare it better.

"If you dont buck your ideas up and get well, this is going in the water".

 

[Aiken Drum]

Guessing this is what you bought? The active ingredient is formaldehyde.

I suppose formaldehyde has antibiotic properties in the same way donald suggested bleach as a treatment for coronavirus.

Its last resort, i highly doubt it will have any effect on TB. Its more likely to kill healthy fish than cure sick ones. Certainly treat in a hospital tank and not with other fish.

 

[Andy Sager]

TB is only transmissible through direct contact and what your fish I believe has is not going to effect the other fish in your tank without them consuming the sick fish or the sick fish dying and releasing the bacteria through decaying of the body. No other medication is necessary at this time. To my knowledge, Formaldehyde does not effect the insides of fish other than the gills but will kill any external bacteria, fungus or parasite. It's a rough treatment and can cause problems if overdosed. Most meds in the U.S. with Formaldehyde have been discontinued for this reason among others.
You can read about it here: http://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/09/Use-of-Formalin-to-Control-Fish-Parasites.pdf

FYI, The University of Florida is where all the Florida Fish Farmers use to get their information and extreme testing done.

 

[Colin_T]

There is no cure for Fish TB. That's it. Anyone trying to sell you products to treat Fish TB or prevent other fishes in the tank from catching it, doesn't know anything about Fish TB.
You can't treat it. There is no cure.

The Mycobacteria have a waxy coating over their cells. This makes it almost impossible for medications to get to the actual bacterial cell.

The Mycobacteria live in clusters called granulomas. If you somehow get the medication to affect the outer group of cells, all the ones under it will be unharmed.

The Mycobacteria live inside the fish's organs and you need to get the medication into the organs and most of it is filtered out of the fish's body by the liver and kidneys.

It takes months of daily treatment to get rid of Mycobacteria infections in people and they use special drugs for that. They don't allow those drugs to be used for animals and you need a doctor's prescription to get them. If you get a doctor's prescription for TB or Leprosy medications, you go on a national database and get a daily visit from a government worker to make sure you take your pills at the same time every day.

Whilst you might want to try and save your fish, you can't. I tried back in 2004-2006. I spent a couple of years looking into Fish TB and trying to save my fish. I ended up euthanising the lot. I killed over 600 fish that were all brood stock because I had Mycobacteria in my tanks. The best you can do is euthanise fish that show symptoms and enjoy them while they don't. Because most fish coming from Asia or from fish farms in general, and that includes fish in pet shops, have been exposed to Mycobacteria or have Mycobacteria. It is extremely common in fish now and getting worse.

Return the medication, euthanise the sick fish, and just enjoy the ones you have left.

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Carbon is a black granulated substance.

Zeolite is a white granulated substance.