Loaches Online Forum

hi can anyone help i have a clown loach with skinny disease and have read that you need erythromycin to treat it but cannot find anywhere you can buy it can anyone tell me where to get it . and is it contagious to other clown loaches and other fish thank taxidon thanks for advice i live in watford

If you could possibly state your loaction-be a bit eaiser for others to chime in about effective meds etc that are avaliable in your area

Welcome to LOL

Ashleigh

Welcome, taxi.

Can you tell us about your tank and your sick fish?

I have put them in a treatment tank 24 x 12 x12 i have treated them with worm er plus an they are just getting worst they are now all bony looking

Maracyn is Erythromycin. Use that and some Prazipro. If that don't work, you'll need to try something else, like Levamisole.

thanks chefkeith can you tell me where i ca get some thanks

Maracyn should be at any fish store

I found Maracyn at PetSmart and PraziPro here:
http://www.rockymountaindiscus.com/prazipro.htm

Unfortunately, the UK has very tight restrictions on the treatments available for use by fishkeepers. Antibiotics have to be obtained through a fish-friendly vet, and there really aren't that many of them around.

taxidon59749 - how many treatments have you carried out with Wormer Plus, and how long did you leave it between treatments? (for those who aren't familiar with this product, it contains Flubendazole and is able to be sold over here through the small animal exemption scheme). What are you feeding your fish to try and put weight on them, and how often?

Emma

Sorry to jump your thread. I figured another skinny thread would be redundant. I have a striata that definitely has it. I want to use the suggested maracin treatment, but don't want to harm my tank's bio system. Other than ISO, is there another successful treatment that would not harm the beneficial bacteria in the tank?

A friend just called and told me where to get Prazipro. $53.99 for 16oz. Is it worth it??

$53.99 for 16oz. Is it worth it??

How much money will you spend buying fish until you accidentally get some healthy ones?

I found a smaller bottle locally that will give me the treatments my fish need, and it is cheaper, being a smaller volume.

Erythromycin has little effect on nitrifying bacteria. I would not use it if the tank is still cycling, it might slow the growth of the bacteria, but it does not kill a well established colony.

How much money will you spend buying fish until you accidentally get some healthy ones?

What does that mean??
I have been leery with any type antibiotic. Maracyn so badly crippled one of my marine aquariums that I had to start it over. I am willing to try maracyn in fresh water, but as a last resort.

1 oz of Prazipro treats 120 gallons. Be sure to shake bottle well before usage. Prazi will not harm the biological filter.

Prazipro is expensive at some places. I probably spent $12 on a 4 oz bottle. It is worth it, but it is not a gauranteed cure. This only treats for flatworms and flukes. If the problem is roundworms or bacterial, then this will not help.

Here is what it means:
If the fish cost $5.00 each, and you want a school of 10 fish you could start out spending $50.00. Many of these fish might be carrying parasites, or bacterial problems. If you catch these problems early, quarantine the fish when you first buy them and treat right away, and buy $20.00 worth of medicine you have now spent $70.00, or $7.00 per fish.

If you did not medicate, and lost half the fish, tried again, buying another 5 fish at $5.00 each, they brought in more disease and you lost them all (original and new ones) then you bought more and more fish until finally a couple of hundred dollars later you just by chance happened upon some fish that did not carry some disease or parasite, you would then have spent...
First purchase: $50.00
Second purchase: $25.00
Third-seventh purchases: $200.00
eighth purchase (that finally survived): $50.00

equals $32.50 per fish.