Any Body Used Melafix?

[drag]

well here is the deal i have a 30 gal tank w/ LR and inverts such as blue legs, narssisus snails, cerith snails astrea snails, and 2 turbo snails. and some yellow polyps.

i had one clownfish for about 2 months and decided he was lonely so i got a clother clownfish . well they were getting along fine. the only weird thind was that the new clown would get in front of the old one ( facing the same direction) and lean to one side and wiggle. i looked kinda funny. well after about 3 days today i come home and my old clowns dorsal fin was nipped ive been observing them and the new one kinda lookes alittle agressive. not bitting but lunges toward him like if he wants to. still does the wiggle thing. kinda like wanting attention.

oh and the fish are the same kind--- false percs, and the same size.

So has anyone treated w/ melafix (for damaged fins ) with any succes?

the bottle says it reef safe for inverts and corals? any body ever added it straight to main tank.if so any damage or stress to inverts?

 

[CutieWitBooty]

yeah i have used it a few times and i have corals/inverts. I have no problems with it, but do exactly what it says and do the water change in 7 days.

 

[fish_keeper2]

i advise that you do NOT use it. i did once and instantly i saw the effects on my inverts. my feather duster hid in its tube, my zoo colony closed up and the cleaning crew especialy the snails started acting wierd. it required lots of water changes to reduce the levels. all meds should be used in a quarantine tank even if they say they are reef safe.

 

[Donya]

Are you sure you don't mean Pimafix? That one will do bad stuff to inverts. It's odd that the Melafix would have affected snails at a normal dossage. I've read plenty of reports of it being safe for marine species and tested it extensively on freshwater and recently brackish/marine Nerites. But...to be safe you should step up the dossage rather than doing it all at once, and an accidental over dossage can "knock out" freshwater snails within a couple minutes (they recover if removed from the medicated water). The tollerance differes depending on snail species, and the medication also has to be dilute by the time it comes into contact with the snail or you may see some really bad reactions. I imagine it could be the same for other invertebrate species.

 

[Aquascaper]

Just as a side note:

When adding a second Clownfish you should always ensure that the new fish is smaller to reduce agression from the established Clown. This is due to the fact that Clownfish start off as males but the larger of the group will fish will think that the newcomer is female and will fight for dominance (I supose its every Clownfishes dream to become female or something )

This method is also recommended for quite a few other species of fish, especially Dwarf Angels

 

[drag]

yeah the new fish is slightly bigger, but it is the aggresive one. tha store sold it to me as tank raised but i think it is wild because i wouldent eat any thing , pellet , flake, frozen brine, dried brine, live brine, or dried plankton.

 

[Opcn]

well it being the agressive one is the problem.

It fights because itsthe biggest one, and the old clown fights because it owns the reef that it lives in, and everyone gets stressed, and things die.

When you get a new small clown it submits to the reef owner and is accepted.

 

[tropicalmadness]

i actually just added a larger clown to my tank with a smaller clown present. I have not seen any outward signs of aggression, despite my nervous sucspisions. Maybe i just had good luck. Another thing with clowns being aggressive is that stores often mislable and/or misidentify the species of clownfish since they are difficult to tell apart when they are young, this mostly happens with the ocellaris and the juvinile percula clowns. it is possible to reduce aggression by rearranging the landscape of the tank but if you have a reef tank this would be the least optimal choice.

My take on melafix and pimafix which work synergystically together to heal fish is this: they work well i have used them before but, it should definetly be used in a hospital tank. As i experienced the pH is greatly affected by the medications and very frequent water changes are neccessary or the fish will not survive due to the lowerd pH (in a marine tank that is) these medications also make protien skimmers go wild becasue of the "slime" effect of the medication.