Antibiotic treatment -- How long?

[blueplanet]

Hi all,
With reference to combating bacteria infection using antibiotic like Furan 2, I wonder whether the antibiotic medication period needs to strcitly follow the prescribed direction given in the medicine? Can I shorten the treatment period if fish shows recovery sign? One reason for shortening the treatment period is to get the fish out of the NH3 & NO2 spiked treatment tank.. too toxic. Fish may be killed by toxic rather than by bacteria. ....

 

[SAT]

Well, clearly you don't want the fish to die due to toxins. For that I suggest water changes and an ammonia detox solution. If you stick with straight nitrofurazone or Maracyn-Two, by the way, the antibiotic will probably not interfere with nitrification (unlike the methylene blue in Furan 2).

There are two reasons not to shorten the treatment. First, some antibiotics have the property that they can suppress disease organisms without killing them. This was observed during early penicillin trials: the patient would improve, the treatment would be suspended, the patient would die.

Second, incomplete eradication of the disease organism will result in development of disease-resistant strains. This is the reason why year after year antibiotics have become less effective. At one time a unit of penicillin was considered to be an interesting quantity. Now a standard dosage is 1/2 million units.

 

[kevin2000]

As Stuart has indicated .. not an either or situation. Also ... When running a QT sometimes your forced to use certain meds which will quickly destroy your biofilter .. as such its always a good idea to make up a large batch of extra SW so you always have a ready supply of aged SW on hand to make necessary water changes to maintain water quality. When making water changes you need to redose/adjust the medication level to insure that your maintaining the proper doseage for the entire treatment period.

 

[BTTRFLYGRL]

Directions for Furan-2 call for daily water changes, adding more medication everyday.

 

[blueplanet]

Thank You SAT & Kevin2000.
The brief words on the antibiotic is very beneficial to me. Thx .
My experience of medical treatment is always made more difficult & challenging with Ammonia & Nitric surge at the same time.
Is daily massive water change a common practice performed by most aquarists when treating medicine that destroys Bio Filter (most of them do)? I certainly do daily water change...but NH3 & NO2 is still creeping everyday.
What kind of Ammonia detox is good? Does it really work? I have tried both AmQuel & Algone. Didn't really work for me. May be I didn't try long enough. becasue , I would still change water (sometime more than 80%) daily, the moment I see that Detox not working to control the NH3.
One mor equestion: Would Polyfilter and carbon remove antibiotic like furan-2?

 

[blueplanet]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7030825#post7030825 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BTTRFLYGRL
Directions for Furan-2 call for daily water changes, adding more medication everyday.

Hi BTTRFLYGRL, Furan-2 needs change of 25% water after 2 days dosages of treatment. I found it difficult as NH3 approaches 1.0 everyday as I was treating a big fish. So I changed water everyday (80+%) and dose Furan-2 everyday too. But I think I would have under-dose with this approach since it would have been diluted ...right?
Question: should I does 2 x the dosages since I am amking almost 100% water change?

 

[kevin2000]

Remember that when using an ammonia detox agent like amquel etc. many ammonia test kits become worthless. Those agents tend to work by converting toxic ammonia into less toxic ammonium .. since most ammonia test kits only register total ammonia (ammonia plus ammonium) the detox agents don't appear to have any effect. If your ammonia test kit cannot destinquish between ammonia and total ammonia then you should consider purchasing a Seachem ammonia test kit which does. Also an inexpensive Seachem ammonia alert badge only registers ammonia which is also helpful when using detox agent.

As far as water changes go ... do whatever it takes to keep ammonia levels at zero ... if that means super large water changes every day .. so be it. As I indicated earlier .. always good to have alot of extra SW around to insure you can do major water changes as required.

Hope this helps.

 

[leebca]

Most chemical treatments interfere with or are interfered by the use of medications.

I have found the use of Algone during medication treatment of fishes in my QT to be an exception to the first paragraph:
http://www.algone.com/directions.htm

 

[blueplanet]

Hi Lee & Kevin,
Tks. I suppose the Detox like Amquel & Algone merit good consideration. BUT just that I was so nervous and ended up changing water every day the moment I saw NH3 start creeping. Just too nervous when the fish is sick... .

 

[leebca]

You did the right thing by changing the water. Don't ever worry about changing large quantities of water. It is one of the best things you can do for your fish providing:
1. The water is the same pH as the water you're replacing;
2. The water is the same temp. as the water you're replacing;
3. The water is the same salinity as the water you're replacing; and
4. The water is properly aged and mixed.

I've done 90% water changes twice a day on occasion. Whatever is needed. This is a good thing.

:thumbsup:

 

[SAT]

Regarding "aged and mixed"... As near as I can tell, that simply means fully dissolved and in equilibrium with the atmosphere (oxygen & CO2). You can do that in a few hours by putting an airstone in the mixing tank. Adjust the pH only after the water has reached equilibrium.

If the water is not saline enough, that's probably OK, as long as the resulting mix won't drop the tank below about 11ppt. There's a growing concensus that rapid drops in salinity are not harmful to fish (but the reverse is not true).

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/3/aafeature1

 

[TerryB]

In the future, keep a cycled quarantine tank running at all times so you don't have to struggle so much with water quality issues when treating fish. The others have given good reasons why not to cut treatment short. It is worth repeating that it is preferrable not to add extra medications such as methylene blue. You can get nitrofurazone, Maracyn-Two, Furanase, kanamycin and neomycin packaged without other medications. Some of these antibiotics can be used in combination, but I would not use any other antibiotics or antiseptics with them.

Terry B

 

[blueplanet]

Sure thing, Terry!

Gee. Would like to thank all for the helpful advices/inputs. Cheers! . Tis is a good forum.