chloroquine diphosphate

scooter86

Member
I am going to be treating a fish that has marine velvet disease with chloroquine diphosphate. I have it available to me inexpensively as "chloroquine diphosphate salt." Are these 2 preparations the same, or are there differences that need to be addressed.Thanks for any info!
 
Scooter

I'm not sure how much you know about this Antimalarial drug for treating A. ocellatum but just in case.

Dosage

10 mg / l for 10 days and watch and observe the fish for a least 3 full weeks. Use a BB tank that has been cycled and no algae or other inverts. Monitor Ammonia daily. 10 days is usually enough for the treatment. After the 3 weeks do a 50 % WC and add activated carbon for filtration and continue to observe for 1 more week. If the disease still seems to be in the system after 3 weeks treat a second time for another 10 days.

This drug does not kill free swimming dinopsores but kills then when they are first attached to the fish and going form the Dino stage to the trophont stage that feeds on the fish. As this alike other antimalarial drugs this one is also absorbed by the fish.

Dinopsore can be greatly reduced but treating the water with a UV sterilizer. The real killing issue here is the high density of the parasite you get on the gills. A pre- 5 min FW bath at the same temp can usually remove many of the dino's. During such baths you need to be right there, as the bath on Angles often causes the fish to "shut-down". When you see this all that is required is to just gently lift/prop up on the fish with your hand to get him going again. You may need to do this 4-5 times in that 5 min bath. Some fish are not affected by this bath at all and seem almost normal. Lastly and most important is that the fish is eating. However, if the treatment is to late the drug will be of little use as there is to much gill damage.
 
Thanks Boomer,
I'm using guidelines from Noga, and they seem to be identical to yours. Right now the fish is doing very well. She is in my BB QT.I have just ordered the chloroquine, and unfortunately it will take several days to arrive. In the mean time, she is in 1009 hypo. I know this doesn't kill Amyloodinium, but it can mitigate its virulence.By the way, she has ich as well.
Noga says that it has "no effect on tomont division, but it kills dinospores immediately on their encystment."
 
Yes Noga is good ref and I have a few others as well, i.e., Kingsford, Stoskopf, Herwig, Couch, Clifton and Bassleer.

"no effect on tomont division, but it kills dinospores immediately on their encystment."

Tomont = after if falls off the the fish and settles to the bottom where is then goes through cellular division and then releases water born Dinospores. On attachment to the fish the Dino's turn into feeding Trophonts. It is at this first attachment where the Dinspore are killed directly from the drug. I see little info on actually killing the parasite once it has reached full Trophont stage on the fish. But I would think so as it would be adsorbing the drug from the fish here also.

Question

What makes you thing you have Velvet ? Did you ID it as a Dinoflagellate ? Have you mis-ID by observation and you really have Brooklynella hostillis. Are you sure it is not just "ick" and not a clouding of the skin caused by excessive production of protective mucus by the fish misleading to a ID as Velvet ?

One of the theories on Velvet is to get the fish to over mucate in the presence of Copper @ 0.15 ppm. It is believed it is the ability of the mucus to concentrate high levels of Copper. In this case copper does not kill the parasite either but breaks its cycle.

Research done by Bower years ago showed that under the right conditions, which have not been really ID, at times the Dino's can still be found active for almost 40 day but these are in untreated tanks. Even bleach at 3 tsp / 10gal for 24 hrs. does not phase the Tomonts, yet there is 100 % death of all bacteria. FW also does about Zippo for Tomonts and are fine after 6 wks in FW but do better in tap water than distilled water.
 
I have had the misfortune of having experience with ich and velvet in the past. Also, this fish is a C. meredithi. It's black body has shown the characteristic lesions for both ich and velvet. If she dies, I will send out a gill biopsy to confirm my diagnosis.The larger ich lesions were gone within hours of hypo, but the characteristic lesions of velvet remain.Believe me, I wish I was wrong!
 
I was interested in what your angel looked like. I believe this is correct:

post-24-1147935859.jpg


I wish you success with the treatments. You have a beautiful fish.
 
Yes Highland, that's a representative photograph of my fish.
Billsreef, I hope to get the medication from a Biomedical company that sells it for research purposes. As soon as my account passes their due diligence, they will be shipping it out. Shoot me a PM if you want more specifics.
 
To bad Bill Aquatronics is not longer around. They use to sell that stuff and other anti-malarials. Back in the olden-days even SeaChem use to.
 
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I still mourn the loss of Aquatronics :(

These days I get most of my meds from National Fish Pharmaceuticals, they've got a great selection, including large quantities. However, the one thing they don't have is Chloroquine. But now, thanks to Scot, I've got a source for that too :D
 
Yah, me too but Pete was just getting to old and had enough. I did not even know he closed shop and found out by accident when I went for a look awhile back for a drug someone wanted. Then I went looking for Filtronics and that was dead also :( I still have a closet full of his stuff new, i.e., filters, pumps, values, etc.. I even have that rare back flushing filter he designed, "Reverseaflow", new in box and his Dual-Turbo pump. Still all master pieces.
 
Found the following med called "Crypto-Pro" that uses quinine sulfate.

Manufacturers website:

http://www.fishyfarmacy.com/products.html

From the above site:

""Crypto-Pro"
USE: Same as the Quinine Sulfate, but packaged for sale to hobbyists and retail aquarists. FDA approved, child-proof packaging. Bar-coded. Instructions and measuring spoon included."




Is quinine sulfate any less effective than chloroquine phosphate/diphosphate?
 

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