Do You Give Preventative Meds To New Fish?

[trianglekitty]

Because I've gotten all my fish at one time, I've never needed to quarantine new fish before. I will be adding new fish soon and want to set up a small five gallon quarantine tank for them. Should I be deworming or otherwise treating new fish with any kind of medication or natural remedy? I'm just wondering what peoples' routine is for adding new stock.

 

[Mikaila31]

depends where the fish comes from.

I do often deworm new fish. Sometimes give them a 1/2 treatment of a anti-parasite med.

 

[snowflake311]

All you need to do is keep up on wc and clean filters.

 

[KittyKat]

No, I will never medicate a fish without a reason such as it has a disease or there is a high probability that it will get a disease soon.

On the other hand, will I not buy fish which has any disease in its tank, or the tanks next to it, or in any other tanks on the same filtration system. Nor will I buy a skinny fish, unless I have been watching it for a few weeks and know for certain that it is a feeding problem.

 

[Mikaila31]

No, I will never medicate a fish without a reason such as it has a disease or there is a high probability that it will get a disease soon.

On the other hand, will I not buy fish which has any disease in its tank, or the tanks next to it, or in any other tanks on the same filtration system. Nor will I buy a skinny fish, unless I have been watching it for a few weeks and know for certain that it is a feeding problem.

I agree with most of that, but if you have ever dealt with internal worms.... These and other internal parasites can easily get through a 2 week quarantine. It can take them months to show up. By the time the keeper figures out what it is the fish is usually beyond help. A good dewormer takes all of 24 hours for a full treatment. The more worms a fish has the more likely that the treatment kills the fish though. Worms are attached/dug into the intestinal lining. Removing them leaves open wounds. If there are enough worms a already weak fish can die from the bleeding/ect. The treatment itself is very mild on most fish, but very very effective on worms.

 

[trianglekitty]

No, I will never medicate a fish without a reason such as it has a disease or there is a high probability that it will get a disease soon.

On the other hand, will I not buy fish which has any disease in its tank, or the tanks next to it, or in any other tanks on the same filtration system. Nor will I buy a skinny fish, unless I have been watching it for a few weeks and know for certain that it is a feeding problem.

I agree with most of that, but if you have ever dealt with internal worms.... These and other internal parasites can easily get through a 2 week quarantine. It can take them months to show up. By the time the keeper figures out what it is the fish is usually beyond help. A good dewormer takes all of 24 hours for a full treatment. The more worms a fish has the more likely that the treatment kills the fish though. Worms are attached/dug into the intestinal lining. Removing them leaves open wounds. If there are enough worms a already weak fish can die from the bleeding/ect. The treatment itself is very mild on most fish, but very very effective on worms.

Can I ask what dewormer you normally use? As a vet tech, deworming just makes sense to me. Any new cats or dogs coming into the household are always dewormed no matter what age they are or what source they were obtained from.

 

[elisew]

One of the most popular wormers is Kusuri Discus Wormer plus. It is/was used majoritively by Discus breeders but has a great reputation by many other fish keepers now.

I had a problem a while ago with some leptosoma and bought some of that wormer. I had no idea that the fish had basically got to the point where nothing was going to fix them, as it turned out they didn`t have intestinal worms, it`s believed that they had something called skinny disease...apparently a form of TB so the wormer wouldn`t have worked anyway
It`s not the cheapest on the market by far but it`s one of the best and that`s more important.

As I now have the stuff I`d be happy to worm my fish at least once every 6 months but luckily I buy from a breeder/hobbyist who worms his stock anyway

I don`t, wouldn`t add any other meds i.e whitespot meds' just in case' though, I would only use the meds if a problem was present and could be diagnosed as such.

 

[drobbyb]

I don't believe in treating a disease that you have no diagnosis for.

The only exception to my rule is with wild fish. Wild fish can carry some nasty tings, and most likely your farm raised fish won't be immune to something not found in their environment.

 

[Athena]

I usually treat my new fish with Myxazin (It says on the bottle to dose only for 2 days when being used to introduce new fish). You can also use it to sterilise your nets (e.g. especially after netting a dead fish) and live foods.

The reason I choose to do this now is because when I first started keeping fish I noticed that quite often the new fish would be stressed out from the transporting/handling/netting/new environment etc which often lead to a bacterial disease in the new fish - by using the Myxazin as recommended in the first couple of days it helps prevent this. Obviously, this med doesn't treat for worms (although, luckily, I've never had issues of fish with worms yet).

I will also be using it when I transfer my current stock to their new larger tank because I know that is going to be a major stress for them all as they will not only be taken out of their comfort zone but will be spending a portion of time in a bucket being transported to my new abode and their new tank set-up.

But we all have different ways of doing things and there's no rules to say you must or must not use preventative measures.

Regards, Athena

 

[Squidward]

I deworm all new Angels I get with Kusuri.

Otherwise - no.