This could be fun, I dare you to......

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I am not operating the quote function right @AdoraBelle Dearheart but there are things in your cabinet I know nothing about. Wormer? For fish? and using alder cones and cherry shrimp to prevent egg fungus on cory eggs? Where should I learn these things

Wormer meaning de-worming meds, for fish, you know, since they can get round worms and flat worms, and when I kept livebearers they arrived with worms. Apparently super common with livebearers especially, after being mass produced in fish farms;

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

The cory eggs thing - corydoras eggs often develop fungus. The unfertilised eggs and any that fail tend to grow fungus, and especially since the eggs are often clumped together, that fungus can spread and ruin good eggs, so people who breed cories usually use some kind of method to try to prevent that from happening too much. Using some methylane blue in the water the eggs are in is one method, but alder cones also have anti-fungal properties, so I've used those too after learning the tip here. Then I read elsewhere that cherry shrimp are good at helping to prevent the fungus by picking around the eggs and cleaning the area, and cleaning any infertile eggs so the fungus doesn't grow and spread, and they don't harm healthy eggs. So last few batches I've just added some alder cones and cherry shrimp to the egg container, and they've done a great job at being 'nannies' for the eggs. Had way more eggs hatch too! That might be because I've had more experience each time too, but I mainly credit the cherry shrimp.
Sorry, I was being a big vague when I said all that in my previous comment!

 

[GaryE]

Gutworms are an issue - generally chronic but prone to cause problems when fish are stressed. I should have a bottle of praziquantel around, but it expired. You only need it when you are getting a lot of new fish in. Helminth worms are a breeze to clear.
Nematode worms, Camallanus, are a different issue with very pricey cures. They are also deadly. I avoid pet store fish and focus on wild caught or local breeder stock, but for them, I keep a seller bookmarked. In Canada, the meds are $50 to start.
There are some good stickies on the site for disease and parasite treatment.

Acid water kills many types of bacteria and fungus, as we tend to have alkaline water from taps, so the creatures are adapted to it. You can collect alder cones and boil them to make a tea. It darkens water and acidifies. Or you can drop a cone in with eggs. You can buy leaves from tropical plants that do the same. A lot of fish from acid blackwater are killed by our tanks when they encounter dangerous pathogens for the first time. They have no defences.

One year I was harvesting alder cones and turned around to see a very annoyed deer staring me down. There were plenty of them to go around...

The thread is based on the premise we don't need meds or additives. I half agree. There is a lot of snake oil, homeopathy and unproven herbal stuff in the hobby. There are also unneeeded chemical concoctions. It's a business.

If you are getting new fish in, deworming doesn't hurt. If they arrive with Camallanus or Ich, they'll die without intervention. So you may need meds. But with careful purchasing, you can dodge those bullets for years. Buying online leaves you wide open. If you have chlorine or chloramines,you need to deal with that. They're biocides, and fish are bio.

If you breed your fish, you go in new directions. I use methelyn blue for my killies, because unfertilized eggs change colour in it and I can remove them before they do harm. Then I can change the water. I use alder cones, oak leaves, rooibos tea and epsom salt, as needed for specific fish and situations. I always have malachite green with formalin, because my soft water makes Oodinium sp parasites, velvet, an enemy to watch for. 2 medicinal dyes, salts, salt, dewormers as needed, dechlorinator. Botanicals for projects, and ferts if I need them. I run planted tanks with easy plants, so I rarely need them.

 

[VioletThePurple]

My additives:
Prime
Aqueon water conditioner
Seachem root tabs

 

[Essjay]

Do you use both Prime and the Aqueon product at the same time? You only need one water conditioner.

 

[Alice B]

Gutworms are an issue - generally chronic but prone to cause problems when fish are stressed. I should have a bottle of praziquantel around, but it expired. You only need it when you are getting a lot of new fish in. Helminth worms are a breeze to clear.
Nematode worms, Camallanus, are a different issue with very pricey cures. They are also deadly. I avoid pet store fish and focus on wild caught or local breeder stock, but for them, I keep a seller bookmarked. In Canada, the meds are $50 to start.
There are some good stickies on the site for disease and parasite treatment.

Acid water kills many types of bacteria and fungus, as we tend to have alkaline water from taps, so the creatures are adapted to it. You can collect alder cones and boil them to make a tea. It darkens water and acidifies. Or you can drop a cone in with eggs. You can buy leaves from tropical plants that do the same. A lot of fish from acid blackwater are killed by our tanks when they encounter dangerous pathogens for the first time. They have no defences.

One year I was harvesting alder cones and turned around to see a very annoyed deer staring me down. There were plenty of them to go around...

The thread is based on the premise we don't need meds or additives. I half agree. There is a lot of snake oil, homeopathy and unproven herbal stuff in the hobby. There are also unneeeded chemical concoctions. It's a business.

If you are getting new fish in, deworming doesn't hurt. If they arrive with Camallanus or Ich, they'll die without intervention. So you may need meds. But with careful purchasing, you can dodge those bullets for years. Buying online leaves you wide open. If you have chlorine or chloramines,you need to deal with that. They're biocides, and fish are bio.

If you breed your fish, you go in new directions. I use methelyn blue for my killies, because unfertilized eggs change colour in it and I can remove them before they do harm. Then I can change the water. I use alder cones, oak leaves, rooibos tea and epsom salt, as needed for specific fish and situations. I always have malachite green with formalin, because my soft water makes Oodinium sp parasites, velvet, an enemy to watch for. 2 medicinal dyes, salts, salt, dewormers as needed, dechlorinator. Botanicals for projects, and ferts if I need them. I run planted tanks with easy plants, so I rarely need them.

I am going to have to research the meds for Camallanus. I came up with fenbendazole. I have albendazole to worm my chickens, but I have no idea how to or if it can be used on fish.

I don't buy a whole lot of fish, I got 2 male guppies to spice up the color in my guppies last summer, and about a 15 corydoras, 5 bronze, 7 julii babies (lost 3 babies to pink checks and no whiskers before using antibiotics). I bought 5 panda garras from a local breeder but I think he ordered them in from somewhere, he'd had them over a month. The one he had in with the shrimp wasn't accepted by the others and appears to have jumped tank first night.

But I know nothing about these worms on a first hand basis. They are kind of new, pre- my fish encyclopedia type books.. I also didn't know oak leaves were useful. I have water oak, live oak and red oak in my yard, so I don't think I have to buy those. My water is pretty alkaline but I like to be able to see thru it.

 

[Essjay]

As I don't live in the US I don't know which products contain what, but look for something which contains levamisole.

 

[GaryE]

The last time I had Camallanus show up (sight unseen online livebearers) I made a paste food with a dog dewormer, as the med wasn't water soluble. It worked.

 

[Alice B]

I heard something about dog wormer for parasites in a local facebook group and I ordered the wormer, then the admin deleted the post. hmmm. How would you know if fish had these worms?

 

[itiwhetu]

Please be careful what you treat for, and make sure you have what you think you have before treating. So many so called diseases in fish are just fish being kept in water not suited to them.

 

[Colin_T]

I heard something about dog wormer for parasites in a local facebook group and I ordered the wormer, then the admin deleted the post. hmmm. How would you know if fish had these worms?

Most dog and cat deworming medications are similar to cattle, pig, bird and fish treatments.
Praziquantel is used to treat tapeworm.
Levamisole is used to treat round/ thread worms.

You can sometimes see small thin red hair like things sticking out a fish's butt. These are Camallanus round worms.

Fish can have a few worms in their intestine and look and act completely normal.

Fish can have heaps of worms in their intestine and look like a pregnant guppy. However, if they get dewormed, they lose the weight within a few houses of the treatment.

Fish can have a tapeworm and lose weight slowly over a period of months even though they are being fed well.

The only other symptom that is commonly seen in fish that have intestinal worms, is stringy white poop.

Most common livebearers (mollies, platies, swordtails and guppies) that come from Asia will have thread worms. Goldfish regularly have tapeworm. Other types of fish don't normally have worms but they can all get them if put into a tank with infected fish. I simply dewormed all my fish while they were in quarantine so they were free of worms.

Section 3 of the following link has information on treating fish with intestinal worms.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[GaryE]

I think you have to make the distinction between tapeworm types, which are generally not terribly harmful, and nematode worms, which currently usually kill their host. Nematodes (Camallanus sp) were not a problem until recently, and have spread through aquarium fish populations via fishfarms. They are infesting a lot of fish whose ancestors never had a reason to evolve defences. They are adapting to be less fatal - a parasite that kills its hosts runs out of hosts. Camallanus can now become chronic wasting parasites that kill slowly. When I first saw it, it wiped out tanks in days.
In the big picture, fish medication is a small commerce, and it has been strongly regulated in many places. Gone are the days when you could pour valuable antibiotics into tanks with zero idea of what you were doing. But the controls also affect wormers, and wormers are easy to learn. Active ingredients are all that matter - brand names don't. Learn to read the small print and look up what these things do, or step away and let nature take its course.

 

[Alice B]

Most dog and cat deworming medications are similar to cattle, pig, bird and fish treatments.
Praziquantel is used to treat tapeworm.
Levamisole is used to treat round/ thread worms.

You can sometimes see small thin red hair like things sticking out a fish's butt. These are Camallanus round worms.

Fish can have a few worms in their intestine and look and act completely normal.

Fish can have heaps of worms in their intestine and look like a pregnant guppy. However, if they get dewormed, they lose the weight within a few houses of the treatment.

Fish can have a tapeworm and lose weight slowly over a period of months even though they are being fed well.

The only other symptom that is commonly seen in fish that have intestinal worms, is stringy white poop.

Most common livebearers (mollies, platies, swordtails and guppies) that come from Asia will have thread worms. Goldfish regularly have tapeworm. Other types of fish don't normally have worms but they can all get them if put into a tank with infected fish. I simply dewormed all my fish while they were in quarantine so they were free of worms.

Section 3 of the following link has information on treating fish with intestinal worms.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

I used praziquantel on my 55 and the 29, I think, earlier this year, although I am not entirely sure why, it was a very long and busy spring, I think I need to check my calendar. I gather that it does not treat camallanus worms? I have not treated the quarantine tanks with prazi or anything else in the way of a wormer. But the fish have done well and nothing visible hanging out of their anus, nor any bloating, or stringy poop

 

[itiwhetu]

I would like to say that this thread is really interesting, I am learning lots from you guys so thank you for contributing. As someone who has none of this stuff I find this fascinating.

 

[Lynnzer]

Add up the value of all the additives you put in your aquarium which are sitting under your tank and post the figure. Do not include food. Just other stuff (Water conditioner, medications, fertilizers, etc., etc.,).

Go on dig out those bottles and add up the value.

And then if you can be bothered add up the value of the expired or out of date products.

I thought this would be a cool challenge.

I'm too damn busy using the stuff to spend time valueing it.

 

[sharkweek178]

This is like confessing a deep dark secret.
...
...
...

*deep breath*

I have two bottles of Tetra Easy Balance Plus.

*sigh*
I was young and naive. I bought the Tetra test strips and was following the directions in the app.
I don't know what I'm going to do with it now that I know to just do water changes to lower nitrates.