bogusmove
Fish Fanatic
I am posting this thread about how medication operates because it may well be of interest to other people. It is only about WATERLIFE PROTOZIN, but if anyone wants to add info about other medications or comment generally I for one would be interested to know in case I use them in the future.. it's important to understand how medications work to do the right thing in certain situations. Before learning about Waterlife Protozin from the manufacturer I was offered various advice which would result in underdosing in one case and overdosing in another in different circumstances, so I hope this is of interest to some people.
I spoke to Waterlife, specifically to learn what the correct action was w.r.t. doing water changes during treatment, and they explained to me how it works so that I could take the correct action.
Protozin is dosed on days 1, 2, 3 and 6. Once you dose the water, protozin stays
in the water, it does biodegrade with time, but it will be there for as long as 2 weeks! So by day 2, the amount of protozin in your tank is about 2 times the dose amount, and by day 3 the amount of protozin in your tank is about 3 times the dose amount, the biodegrading being relatively insignificant at this stage.
The reason for the gradual build up is so as not to shock the fish with a big dose all at once. The idea is that by day 3 you should have enough medication in the water to deal with the pest. The reasoning behind the day 6 dose is a belt and braces approach, to make sure no pests are escaping the medication is given a final top up. By day 6 of course there is probably some significant biodegrading of the medication and so this may only bring it back up to the day 3 level, maybe a little more, Waterlife were not specific on this point.
This assumes no water changes if course. If you do a 50% water change after day 1 you will lose half a dose, so to maintain Waterlifes recommended medication schedule you would need to add this back. If you did a 50% water change after day 2 then you would lose half of 2 doses worth and thus have to add a whole extra dose to maintain Waterlifes recommended medication schedule!
For example, say you have a tank with 600 litres of water (i'm sticking to litres because there is only one version of a litre). The FULL dose amount for Protozin is 20 ml. NOTE THAT WATERLIFE RECOMMEND A HALF DOSE (10ml in this example) IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS SUCH AS WITH YOU HAVE SCALE-LESS SPECIES. READ THE BOTTLE
In this example, assuming you are doing a full dose, you would add 20 ml on day one. If you did a 50% water change you would have to add back 10 ml. Your day 2 dose would be 20 ml again. Now if you do a 50% water change you would have to add back 20 ml (because that is what you've lost). Your day 3 dose is 20 ml again, and if you do a water change now you will lose about 30 ml!! Maybe a little less to account for biodegrading.
It's more difficult to say what dose to add back after day 3 as biodegrading becomes more significant and the exact rate of biodegredation as a function of time would have to be known. Even at day 3 it might be better to err in the side of caution and add back 20 ml instead of 30 ml in the example above. Safest option is of course to avoid water changes during treatment, if you can.
Some people advise that in the case of ich one should discard the dose recommendations and treat the water ever day until it is gone, and then for 3 days afterwards. This is, by Waterlifes account, overdosing. I don't however want to dismiss totally what people in the field may have found to be the most effective way of using a product in practise, but be careful if you adopt this approach.
Finally, I urge you to understand the above and be sure it fits your own interpretation of the information Waterlife gave me as well as your bottles dosing instructions (in case they change for one thing), do your own calculations and use good judgement...
I spoke to Waterlife, specifically to learn what the correct action was w.r.t. doing water changes during treatment, and they explained to me how it works so that I could take the correct action.
Protozin is dosed on days 1, 2, 3 and 6. Once you dose the water, protozin stays
in the water, it does biodegrade with time, but it will be there for as long as 2 weeks! So by day 2, the amount of protozin in your tank is about 2 times the dose amount, and by day 3 the amount of protozin in your tank is about 3 times the dose amount, the biodegrading being relatively insignificant at this stage.
The reason for the gradual build up is so as not to shock the fish with a big dose all at once. The idea is that by day 3 you should have enough medication in the water to deal with the pest. The reasoning behind the day 6 dose is a belt and braces approach, to make sure no pests are escaping the medication is given a final top up. By day 6 of course there is probably some significant biodegrading of the medication and so this may only bring it back up to the day 3 level, maybe a little more, Waterlife were not specific on this point.
This assumes no water changes if course. If you do a 50% water change after day 1 you will lose half a dose, so to maintain Waterlifes recommended medication schedule you would need to add this back. If you did a 50% water change after day 2 then you would lose half of 2 doses worth and thus have to add a whole extra dose to maintain Waterlifes recommended medication schedule!
For example, say you have a tank with 600 litres of water (i'm sticking to litres because there is only one version of a litre). The FULL dose amount for Protozin is 20 ml. NOTE THAT WATERLIFE RECOMMEND A HALF DOSE (10ml in this example) IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS SUCH AS WITH YOU HAVE SCALE-LESS SPECIES. READ THE BOTTLE
In this example, assuming you are doing a full dose, you would add 20 ml on day one. If you did a 50% water change you would have to add back 10 ml. Your day 2 dose would be 20 ml again. Now if you do a 50% water change you would have to add back 20 ml (because that is what you've lost). Your day 3 dose is 20 ml again, and if you do a water change now you will lose about 30 ml!! Maybe a little less to account for biodegrading.It's more difficult to say what dose to add back after day 3 as biodegrading becomes more significant and the exact rate of biodegredation as a function of time would have to be known. Even at day 3 it might be better to err in the side of caution and add back 20 ml instead of 30 ml in the example above. Safest option is of course to avoid water changes during treatment, if you can.
Some people advise that in the case of ich one should discard the dose recommendations and treat the water ever day until it is gone, and then for 3 days afterwards. This is, by Waterlifes account, overdosing. I don't however want to dismiss totally what people in the field may have found to be the most effective way of using a product in practise, but be careful if you adopt this approach.
Finally, I urge you to understand the above and be sure it fits your own interpretation of the information Waterlife gave me as well as your bottles dosing instructions (in case they change for one thing), do your own calculations and use good judgement...
