Do not use anti-biotics unless you know what the problem is.

[Callisto405]

Well that is quite the read.

although not much more than I haven’t read in your other replies before.

A MOD should pin this post and save Colin t’s finger from the stress of repeating himself.

With that being said, let’s say a friend of mine (me), has a bottle of Pimafix and
A bottle of melafix. I know these are both considered “herbal” remedies, and you should add Canada to the list of the places unable to get anti-biotics.

what should I do with these bottles?Neither one of them did what they claimed they would do.

Are they even worth keeping around?

They have worked for me several times, very quick I might add. They are supposed to be used in unison to be most effective.

 

[Colin_T]

Not sure who the question is directed at but I would personally use Myxazin as a general cure based on me experiencing it to be very effective against things like body/fin rot and cloudy eye. It does carry a carcinogen warning on the bottle so I'd say be mindful of the cost vs benefit. From experience of using this for 10+ years, I've never seen any outward signs of cancer on any of my fish such as skin tumours.

Most fish health issues are caused by dirty tanks and poor water quality. Cleaning tank conditions up will often produce the same results as adding chemicals to treat the problems. You can use Myxazin if you like, but be careful when using it. It does work but it also contains harmful substances.

Fish medications containing Malachite Green that are sold in Australia don't have warning labels saying causes cancer, but most health departments and countries around the world now recognise Malachite Green as a carcinogen.

Talcum powder contains asbestos but there is no warning label on that saying "This product contains asbestos". The reason being that nobody would buy it. People use talcum powder on their baby's, but no government has ordered a warning label to be put on the products. Why not, this stuff is in a fine powder form and is dangerous.

Glyphosate (Roundup herbicide) is a known carcinogen and yet anyone, including children can buy it from any hardware store, nursery/ garden centre or even chain store/ supermarket and there are no warning labels saying this stuff causes cancer and you die within a couple of years of being exposed to it. Hell, most people don't wear any protective clothing when using the product and it is an extremely dangerous product.

I can't go to a shop and buy asbestos or radiation and people who handle these products need formal training. But the 3 items mentioned above are all carcinogenic and governments are failing us by not outlawing them, or at least putting some regulations/ controls on their use.

Cigarettes are another product but they have a warning label saying causes cancer, at least in Australia they have that label.

You can't use Myxazin or any other normal aquarium fish medication on fish being farmed for human consumption, why not? Because it gets into the fish and causes long term side effects to people and animals eating those fish that have been treated.

 

[Guest14017]

I am an American - and as such in one of the countries that Colin talked so badly about in his original post. Though I agree with widespread ABUSE of aquatic antibiotics being a problem, this is also the case with ALL widespread abuse of products.

Salt doesn't work on most fluke infestations anymore due to its misuse. Prazi has lost much of its effectiveness too, especially in the pond community. Many of us have switched to Flubendazole to treat flukes because we notice praziquantel isn't effective anymore.

Diagnosis is important all the way around. If you aren't sure - don't throw ANY type of medications at the fish. Microscopes really help a lot and I recommend them for everyone. As the Koi keepers say, SCRAPE AND SCOPE, DON'T DUMP AND HOPE.

 

[Silvermist80]

This thread is going to be harsh and a lot of people are not going to like what I have to say. But it needs to be said because anyone who uses anti-biotics when they don't know what they are treating, is contributing to the death and extinction of all animals on this planet, and that includes people.

I have watched as my family, friends and pets have died from drug resistant bacteria caused by people using and mis-using anti-biotics for the last 70 years. Enough is enough.

Every week someone comes onto this forum asking for help because they are losing fish. They have used numerous medications and quite often that includes several different types of anti-biotic. In 99% of these cases, the problem is not even bacterial and could have easily been treated with clean water and salt.

This thread is for anyone that cares about the survival of the human race and every species of bird, fish, reptile or animal on the planet.

DO NOT USE ANTI-BIOTICS to treat your fish unless the fish has a known bacterial infection that has not responded to normal treatments. Improper use and mis-use of anti-biotics has lead to drug resistant bacteria that KILL people, birds, reptiles, fish and animals.


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You don't take anti-biotics if you have scabies, lice or crabs because these are external parasites.

You don't take anti-biotics if you have tapeworm or round worms because they are internal parasites.

You don't take anti-biotics if you have the herpes virus, chicken pox, mumps, measles, or a runny nose because they are all caused by viruses.

You don't take anti-biotics if you have toe nail fungus or tinea because these are fungal infections.

You don't take anti-biotics if you have hay fever or other allergies. These are caused by something in the environment irritating you.

You don't take anti-biotics if you get a paper cut or gravel rash from coming off your bike and sliding along the track. You have a natural immune system that is quite capable of healing you if this happens.

Anti-biotics only work on bacterial infections and do nothing to any other type of disease or health issue. Even then there are two main groups of bacterial infection, Gram Positive bacteria and Gram Negative bacteria. As a general rule, Anti-biotics that work on Gram Positive bacteria do not work on Gram Negative bacteria, and vice versa.

So don't put anti-biotics in a fish tank when they aren't needed and don't work on the majority of problems in the fish tank.


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Most fish health issues are caused by poor water quality and a dirty environment (dirty filter and gravel). Following that, protozoan infections are the next most common cause of sick fish, followed by intestinal worms and then finally, by fungal and bacterial infections. These two latter health issues are normally caused by a dirty environment and injuries to the fish, and can normally be treated with clean water and salt.

The only one of these health issues that needs anti-biotics is bacterial infections and 99% of those infections can be treated with clean water and salt (2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt per 20 litres/ 5 gallons of tank water. Keep the salt in the tank for 2 weeks and that will normally fix the problem).

There are other medications that treat bacterial infections in fish too, including Formaldehyde, Methylene Blue and Acriflavine. These are not anti-biotics but are chemicals that kill bacteria and should be tried before using anti-biotics like Erythromycin, Oxycycline, Tetracycline, Nitrofurazone, Metronidazole, etc.


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Just because you can get anti-biotics from a pet shop or online, it does not mean you should use them. Especially if you are unsure about what the problem is, and you have no experience in using chemicals or anti-biotics. And taking a course of anti-biotics the doctor prescribed you for an ear infection does not count as experience.

Anti-biotics are difficult to obtain in some countries (UK and Australia) and there are good reasons for this. They cause drug resistance in bacteria, which get into all life on Earth and they can kill any species of animal, bird, reptile and fish. They also kill people.

Unfortunately in some countries, anti-biotics are still readily available and handed out by incompetent doctors and medical staff who should know better. You can also buy numerous different types of anti-biotics at pet shops and stock feed suppliers in these countries. These countries have very lax laws when it comes to anti-biotics and other chemicals, and are causing problems for the rest of the world because of these pathetic antiquated laws that they refuse to update.


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If your fish have a problem, find out what the problem is before adding anything to the tank.

If you don't know what the problem is, do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until you find out. This will dilute any disease organisms in the water and reduce any ammonia, nitrite or nitrate in the water that might be causing the problem. At the very least it will buy you some time to try and figure out what is wrong.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

If a pet shop says it might be this or that, here, try some anti-biotics. Tell them "no thank you, I want to know what the problem is before I add that stuff to my tank."

Obviously some fish diseases are easy to identify and if the shop assistant says your fish has white spot, it probably does. But if you have an unidentifiable problem, do not use anti-biotics or other chemicals in the tank because they usually make the problem worse. Even if they don't make the problem worse, you are exposing the fish and other inhabitants to chemicals, many of which are quite dangerous to the fish and to people and other animals.

I am not just talking about anti-biotics either. Most fish medications contain chemicals that are extremely hazardous to all life forms. Things like Formaldehyde (a preservative used to pickle bodies so they last forever). Malachite Green is used to treat external protozoan infections in fish but it also causes cancer. Don't be fooled by the ingredient Formalin, it is a type of Formaldehyde. Lots of fish medications are poisonous to fish and other life forms and do damage to the fish's internal organs. The more chemicals the fish are exposed to, the more likelihood of it dying from diseases, poor water quality, or organ failure.

If you don't know what disease the fish has, look in books on fish health, ask different people's opinion, and if need be, come onto a forum and ask for help. A lot of people here, including me, offer free advice and will not try to sell you anything. We are here for the fish and for the fish keeper. I try to offer advice that is safe for the fish keeper and their pets, and the environment. I want your fish to do well so you are happy with them and enjoy the hobby. I don't want to see people develop drug resistant bacterial infections in their skin or bodies, or watch their fish die from drug resistant bacterial infections. But unless people stop using anti-biotics and only use them when absolutely necessary, there are going to be major consequences to all aquarium fish and their owners.

Do not use anti-biotics unless the fish (or other animal) has a known bacterial infection that has been positively identified, and other treatments have not worked.

As I've told you before, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using antibiotics IF YOU DO IT PROPERLY. Where the trouble comes is when people are prescribed an antibiotic and they don't complete the full course. People start feeling better, they stop taking it. Since not all of the bacteria were killed, the remaining ones mutate. Bacteria and even viruses are very good at this. Bacteria will mutate something to make it immune to the antibiotic in the future. This strain in that human is the only one to develop this new mutation, the problem is, it spreads to other people. After these bacteria spread enough and doctors throw more antibiotics at them and people don't follow instructions, now you have a super bug. This is the problem with antibiotics. So if people truly have a bacterial infection, there is absolutely nothing that will go wrong if they follow the course and kill of ALL of the bacteria. I have gone to college, I took pharmacology, I took microbiology, parasitology, and I had to study this at length. It's not necessarily good advice to tell people to never use antibiotics. What you need to be telling them is to use antibiotics RESPONSIBLY.

 

[Colin_T]

As I've told you before, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using antibiotics IF YOU DO IT PROPERLY. Where the trouble comes is when people are prescribed an antibiotic and they don't complete the full course.

Problems also arise when doctors prescribe anti-biotics for something they are unsure of.
eg: a sore throat caused by a virus, intestinal pain caused by food intolerance, etc, and this still happens today.

Or when stock feed contains low doses of anti-biotics to speed up the growth of the animal that is going to be eaten. In the 1980s and 1990s, chicken feed had low doses of anti-biotics in. This has lead to drug resistant bacteria in virtually every commercial poultry abattoir around the world. Anti-biotics were also added to cattle feed for quite a few years. The cattle were fed a high protein food with low dose anti-biotics and unwanted cow parts to fatten the animals up before they were slaughtered. That was stopped after Mad Cow Disease appeared, but then hormones started being added to feed instead. Some countries still add hormones to feed up beef cattle in holding lots at the abattoir.

Problems occur when people add anti-biotics to aquariums when the fish don't have a bacterial infection, and the tank has lots of dirty gravel, a dirty filter and a lovely biofilm over the glass and everything else. The anti-biotics get wasted in dirty tanks because they get used up on the biofilm and bacteria living in the gunk. The bacteria living in and on the fish don't get affected as much and quite often survive the medication and start developing a resistance.

If people are going to use anti-biotics in aquariums, they should use the medication in a bare tank with no gravel or filter. The container should contain a heater and airstone, and it should be cleaned daily so the next dose of anti-biotics can treat the fish and not get used up on gunk in the tank.

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It's not necessarily good advice to tell people to never use antibiotics. What you need to be telling them is to use antibiotics RESPONSIBLY.

I did not say to never use anti-biotics.

These are some of the things I said, they are quotes from the original post.

DO NOT USE ANTI-BIOTICS to treat your fish unless the fish has a known bacterial infection that has not responded to normal treatments.

Anti-biotics only work on bacterial infections and do nothing to any other type of disease or health issue.

So don't put anti-biotics in a fish tank when they aren't needed and don't work on the majority of problems in the fish tank.

If your fish have a problem, find out what the problem is before adding anything to the tank.

Do not use anti-biotics unless the fish (or other animal) has a known bacterial infection that has been positively identified, and other treatments have not worked.

The last paragraph is the same as the first but I make that statement twice, once at the start and once at the end of the post.

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If people or animals or fish need anti-biotics for a known bacterial infection, then that is fine to use anti-biotics. But they should only be used as a last resort on known bacterial infections. People should not be adding anti-biotics or any other chemicals into their aquariums willy nilly. They need to know what the problem is and then treat it accordingly.

When I wrote this post, there had been a number of people asking for help with their fish, and they had added anti-biotics and everything else they could get their hands on. And none of the stuff they added fixed the problem. None of these tanks should have been treated with anti-biotics because the fish didn't have a bacterial infection.

And this is the problem. In some countries, anyone can go to a shop and buy anti-biotics off the shelf and add them to an aquarium, or give them to a pet bird or animal, and they don't need any formal training to do this. And most of the time they get it wrong.

In addition to this, anti-biotics get into the environment from people that are taking anti-biotics urinating in the toilet, which is normal, and when we drain out aquarium water that has been treated with anti-biotics. The anti-biotics in the water can go into the soil or river system where it comes in contact with other types of bacteria, and these can then develop a minor resistance to the anti-biotics because the drugs have been diluted down to such a degree, the bacteria are unaffected by them. This drug resistance gene is then passed onto successive generations of bacteria and can even transfer between different species of bacteria.

If anti-biotics are used correctly for positively identified bacterial infections, that is fine and will save lives. But improper use and mis-use of anti-biotics is causing major problems right now, and this will only get worse in the future.

 

[itiwhetu]

More than half the time we don't know what we are trying to treat, be careful out there the cure may be worse than the cause.

 

[CarnivorousPlant]

Curious about malchite green causing cancer, is it only a problem if you eat it? Because as has been mentioned in Australia there are no safety warnings on the products so last year I used a medication containing malchite green on my fish, it was effective and it didn't contain any antibiotics so don't worry. Anyway some got on my hands at the time so now I'm kinda worried, is it bad if you touch it or only if it is ingested in large-ish quantities.

 

[Colin_T]

Any contact with Malachite Green can cause cancer. However, if you wash your hands after getting it on your skin, you are unlikely to have any problems. If you have it on your skin for hours every day, or ingest/ inhale it, then you will probably develop some form of cancer (usually blood cancer). Having said all this, I used to get the stuff on my hands regularly (a couple of times a week for years) and I don't have anything bad growing on my skin.

Just make sure you try to minimise your exposure to it and wash your hands with soapy water after working in the tank or handling any chemicals, that includes test kit chemicals.

 

[CarnivorousPlant]

Thank you,
I did wash my hands and it was only once that I got it on me not regularly like you said so I'm inclined to think it will probably be ok. If it's not there isn't really anything I can do about it anyway I can't change the past.

 

[Colin_T]

You will be fine if it's only once and you washed up afterwards.

 

[YewBush]

Do I use antibiotics if my cat scratches or bites me? And do I use antibiotics in an aquarium if half the fish suddenly died from what seems to be columnaris?

 

[GaryE]

An anecdote here. In Canada, antibiotics without a veterinary prescription were banned a few years ago. But in my old Province, a ban was there for ages.
We all thought a ban would bring a fish apocalypse, but it didn't happen. I lose no more fish to bacterial disease than when I used to blindly shotgun antibiotics at problems. I have no lab, no training and just my eyes to diagnose. And by eye, we are a step above a medieval doctor when it comes to deciding what's wrong.
I have detailed disease handbooks, 55 years of experience, experience in the business and friends with greater knowledge than I can dream of having. It doesn't help much.
We can buy mela or pimafix, which seem to exist to make is feel we're doing something when we aren't. Or we can practice prevention.

Study fish closely. Recognize symptoms. Quarantine. Avoid budget stores and chains, and ideally, avoid farm bred fish. Make friends with humans, trade the offspring of your fish. Find sustainably collected wild caught fish. Change water regularly. Observe with your eyes, and not just test kit readings.

You'll have misses, and lose fish sometimes. But I'll wager you'll lose no more than if you used antibiotics.

I keep malachite green, methelyne blue, salt, praziquantel and whatever I can find against nematodes. Mostly, the same meds aquarists had 50 years ago. I accept that there are many more illnesses and diseases in fish than we allow ourselves to believe. They have very complex bodies.

Excellent post, Colin, although you don't need whomever I am to say that. Good stuff.

 

[DoubleDutch]

An anecdote here. In Canada, antibiotics without a veterinary prescription were banned a few years ago. But in my old Province, a ban was there for ages.
We all thought a ban would bring a fish apocalypse, but it didn't happen. I lose no more fish to bacterial disease than when I used to blindly shotgun antibiotics at problems. I have no lab, no training and just my eyes to diagnose. And by eye, we are a step above a medieval doctor when it comes to deciding what's wrong.
I have detailed disease handbooks, 55 years of experience, experience in the business and friends with greater knowledge than I can dream of having. It doesn't help much.
We can buy mela or pimafix, which seem to exist to make is feel we're doing something when we aren't. Or we can practice prevention.

Study fish closely. Recognize symptoms. Quarantine. Avoid budget stores and chains, and ideally, avoid farm bred fish. Make friends with humans, trade the offspring of your fish. Find sustainably collected wild caught fish. Change water regularly. Observe with your eyes, and not just test kit readings.

You'll have misses, and lose fish sometimes. But I'll wager you'll lose no more than if you used antibiotics.

I keep malachite green, methelyne blue, salt, praziquantel and whatever I can find against nematodes. Mostly, the same meds aquarists had 50 years ago. I accept that there are many more illnesses and diseases in fish than we allow ourselves to believe. They have very complex bodies.

Excellent post, Colin, although you don't need whomever I am to say that. Good stuff.

Agree for the fullest Gary.
No significance differences in amounts of dead fish between US vs Europe as well

 

[I Like Rare Fish]

@Colin_T has disappeared again….

 

[Rocky998]

@Colin_T has disappeared again….

Yeah and his last post scares me along with others... I hope he is doing ok...