Body Slime

[bohlke]

My Flame looks like it has body slime, I have started an erythomycin treatment in the tank and it seems to be going fine though my water quality got a bit out of control. Anyway I am treating every 24 hours like the package says to do and doing a 25% water change prior to treatment. Has anyone used this pharma before (not in humans )? I am noticing two things:

- my protein skimmer is going crazy I had to put the cup on its highest setting just to make it through the day. I am not seeing any changes for the worse in water quality so I have no idea why its getting so many more bubbles.

- The water is getting cloudy, I am assuming this is fine and will get better after the final treatment and water change when I add the filters back into the tank.

You can see pics of my sick fish here but they are not great:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=775012

 

[bohlke]

It appears now that the other fish are a little stressed from the first treatment. Is this to be expected? Should I hold off on the second treatment tonight?

 

[TerryB]

I would never use an antibiotic in a display tank unless it was in the food. You could damage your biofilter and some inverts. Besides that, erythromycin is a poor choice of antibiotic for saltwater fish. It is effective against gram-positive bacterial and most pathogenic bacteria in saltwater fish are gram-negative in nature. I would not continue treatment in your display tank. If you cannot move the sick fish to a quarantine tank for treatment then the best option left is to add a good antibiotic to the food. This is still not ideal as some residual may affect the water chemistry.

Terry B

 

[TerryB]

I just read your other thread (the link) and you should not be using an antibiotic. You should be making some LARGE water changes and drastically improving the diet. Soak the foods alternately in vitamins and selcon. Expand that diet to include some seafood. You can use uncooked prawns (cut in pieces), salad shrimp, clams, etc. For color you should be using Pacifica plankton and some frozen spirulina, cyplopeze (sp). I feed my fish at least a dozen different foods. How healthy would you be if you only ate two types of food (say potato chips and bananas)?

Terry B

 

[bohlke]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6752075#post6752075 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TerryB
. I feed my fish at least a dozen different foods. How healthy would you be if you only ate two types of food (say potato chips and bananas)?

Terry B

I am now using Formula 1, Formula 2, Marine Cusine (mysis), and Prime Reef. I am doing water changes at about 25% per day now to get the nitrate under control. Thanks for replying, I am going to suspend the treatments now but continue the water changes until everything is back under control. I still dont know what happend but I will never suspend periodic water testing again.

Also LFS said it was invert safe, is that not true?

 

[TerryB]

Good just add a lot more variety to the foods. Four foods is not enough. Give them something different to eat a couple times a day. My fish usually get about 4-6 different types of food a day.

Terry B

 

[bohlke]

I am going to LFS to get some Angel Formula, with that (and my old stuff) I should have 6 types of food.