Dose for scaleless fish

[Guest]

The shark still eats and swims. But still shakes his head sometimes. I didn't see him open up his gills like he did before. I didn't use Formalite. If he has bacterial gill disease, would he stop eating? Does hex-a-mit cure external parasites too?

 

[An t-iasg]

I believe that Hex-a-mit only helps with internal parasites. Look at this link: http://www.junglelabs.com/pages/details.asp?item=NJ115 I thought of this medicine for your shark since it says it treats gill mites and gill flukes.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for trying to help but the thing is, is that I don't even know if it is parasites. It says on the item description "Use half strength on Silver Dollars, Discus, Piranhas " which probably means that it contains malchite green. I wouldn't be surprised if the ingredients were almost the same to what I have now.

 

[An t-iasg]

As far as I can tell, your iridescent shark is a member of the Pangassidae family, and not the Characidea family. But malachite green is a fairly harsh medicine, so you could try the Jungle med or the Formalite at half strength. If he shows signs of stress, immediately do a water change.

If you're not sure that he has parasites now, what are his symptoms? Check the sticky in this forum and answer those questions in this topic, and we'll try to figure this out. Have you done any heat treatment, and for how long? Was that successful?

 

[Guest]

Ok first of all there is nothing wrong with the water conditions. The shark lived in my 90 gallon which had no heater so the water temperature was in the low 70's.

I saw him shake his gills when he swam which looked like he was shaking his head. Then once I saw him open up his gills like he was flaring like a betta & started shaking them. After that I was immediately "WHAT THE????" His gills looked black, but now that I think about it, the lights were turned off by then so they might have not been black.

So I thought it was Chilodonella since the parasite likes cold water temperatures and makes the gills black. So I went out & bought FORMALITE I which is supposed to kill the parasite quickly but was also not sure if it will kill the fish so I never used it.

I transfered him to a 10 gallon QT tank & raised the temp slowly to 85F. and threw in some Aquari-sol. I think I have been treating him with that a week now. The shark eats and swims. I don't see him shaking his gills when he swims anymore but when he lays still he sometimes shakes his gills a bit. His gills are less puffy now I think or maybe I am just imagining things. One thing I failed to mention is that he has kind of little red smears on his fins which are practically unnoticable. So thats when I started thinking it was bacterial.

Its really just totally confusing me & I don't know what to do. My bf is trying to convince me that there's nothing wrong with him & I should just throw him back in the 90 gallon & forget about him.

 

[An t-iasg]

Yes, a little confusing!

Don't put him back in the 90 gallon yet, until you're sure he is better. Bacterial infections sometimes accompany a parasite infestation, and can appear as red streaks -- keep watching them to see if they get better/worse. Continue the heat treatment, but try to get the temperature up to 87 degrees. This temperature will speed the ich through its life cycle faster. Just watch for signs of stress due to the heat, and do daily water changes. If the red streaks do not go away or get worse, you'll need an antibiotic, but let's continue with the ich treatment until his gills look better, and then see how he is.

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi fsh,
Just checking in to see how the shark is...

I know this type of shark is comfortable at lower temps, but the ich will simply reproduce faster, and not necessarily die, at a temp. of 85 degrees. The temperature must be over 86 degrees to kill the parasite.

If you want to use a med, Aquari-Sol is the best ich med, IMO. It isn't quite as toxic as the formalin products. I would still try to get the heat up, though, and use the Aquari-Sol at a half dose also.

Aquari-Sol will kill inverts like ghost shrimp (you didn't say you had any, but just so you know) so remove them before treatment.

I have read on some websites that people use a drop of Aquari-Sol per gallon all the time as a preventative measure. I wouldn't do this -- I would just treat the ich and then stop the Aquari-Sol. I have also read that using copper (the active ingredient in Aquari-Sol) all the time like this is bad for the fish's nervous system, and may shorten their life. By how much? A few months -- no one is really sure. But like a lot of parasite meds, you are choosing the "lesser of two evils" -- the med -- over the parasites. Once the parasite is gone, then you should stop treatment.

How are the red streaks on the fins? Hopefully with daily water changes, they are going away too.

 

[Guest]

The red smears appear to be fading....I read that a drug called chloramine-T helps resolve gill issues. I also read that formalin can only make gills worse if they are allready irritated. I allready used Aquiri-sol full dose without any problems but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Aquari-sol is copper and according to fishdoc.co.uk:

"When treating parasite disease, the free copper level must be maintained between 0.15 - 0.20 mg/litre. If the concentration drops below this range it will not kill the parasites. If it rises above this level then it will kill the fish!"

Now, I do not know how to measure copper.

I would definetely not recomend treating the water with a disease preventative, that is just a waste of money IMO. The bacteria or parasites would become immune to the medication & don't parasites live in water all the time but only outbreak in stressed fish?

 

[An t-iasg]

I'm glad the red streaks are getting better!

I never heard of chloramine-T; here's a link that I found: http://www.algae-control.com/chloramine.html It does say that bacterial gill disease and flukes are eradicated. I have a med from Mardel called Mar-Oxy that contains stabilized chlorine oxides. It may be similar to your med. When I bought it the lfs person said don't bother buying it and just add some tapwater, untreated, to the tank. I didn't do this because I didn't know how much tapwater would be enough or too much. Here is another link that says the chloramine-T breaks down to release chlorine and oxygen: http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/treatments/chloramine-T.htm

If you use this med, run carbon and do water changes to remove the Aquari-Sol. Be careful of too high of a dose; according to the link it can burn the "skin" so follow dosing directions carefully. Do you think that the Aquari-Sol or the heat didn't help? Does it still look like his gills are affected or he needs more treatment? I wondered if the heat plus the Aquari-sol would be stressful at the same time and that's why I recommended the half dose, and especially since he's scaleless, but it makes sense that a minimum concentration needs to be maintained in the water. Remember also that the ich parasite is only susceptable to the meds for a portion of its life cycle. There are copper test kits available. Here is one from Red Sea. It is for a marine tank, and I don't know how valid it would be for a FW tank. If you were interested, you could probably e-mail the company and ask.
http://www.aquadirect.com/store/catalog/Red_Sea_Copper_Test_Kit_p_692.html

There is debate on whether the ich parasite always resides in the fish and becomes active if the fish is stressed. You could do a search on the forums to read some of the ich threads. I don't think the ich lives in the water and only infests the fish if they are stressed. The ich can't live without a host, so it couldn't live in the water, and not on the fish, for any length of time. I don't know either about the ich living in the fish, but only causing an outbreak in stressed fish. Some say it's true but I have seen nothing to back this up in my tanks at all. Either it's not true, or my fish have not been stressed in two years, which is great too!

Well, I guess I started rambling, lol...See how your fish is doing over the next few days with daily water changes and finish your Aquari-sol dose, then re-evaluate to see if he needs more meds. Hopefully he will be ok, and not need any more meds.

 

[Guest]

But then how come some fish get sick with ich is & some fish in the same tank don't get ich?

On a totally different question - Can salt be used 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons with angelfish? They are scaleless aren't they.

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi fsh,
I don't have angelfish. But I like to watch them at the hatchery and I'm pretty sure they have scales. There are many different varieties of angelfish, but I'm pretty sure the ones I saw had scales.

Are the angelfish getting ich now? The directions on my salt container say to treat the water with one tablespoon per 10 gallons, so it would be about a teaspoon and a half for 5 gallons. That's just a general salt dose, and may not be enough for ich treatment. Here's an old thread that I found, where Allivymar wrote about her angelfish and ich. You'll notice that she says the loaches were being treated for ich, but the angelfish and pleco didn't show any signs. I guess it could be compared to someone in your house that gets a cold -- they get sick but you don't. Or, the ich was in the gills in those fish and just not visible as white spots. If I saw ich on one fish in the tank, I would treat the whole tank.

How is the shark now? I hope he's getting better. Remember to lower his water temperature slowly before putting him back in the main tank.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=9159&highlight=salt+angelfish