Chloroquine Primer

[alprazo]

Treats:
Amyloodinium (velvet)
Cryptocaryon (Ich)
Uronema marinum - with recurrence upon cessation and return to display
Possibly Brooklynella

Compatible with:
Praziquantil - YES (the known interaction has to do with cytochrome P450 in the first pass, hepatic metabolism of praziquantil and is not relevant when treating in bath formulation)
Amquel - YES
Prime - YES
Nitrofurazone (furan II) - YES
UV light - NO
Dimilin - YES
Copper - MAYBE (evidence exists that it my be synergistic)

Dosing:
10mg/l or 40mg/gal bath formulation
50 mg/kg - oral

Duration:
30 days - single dose - Ich
14 days - single dose - velvet

Degradation:
Carbon - removal
Light in the UV near visible light spectrum (390 nm) CF lighting with typical peaks in the 500s and 600s should be fine.

Half life:
After one oral dose at 50mg/kg - mucus levels remained therapeutic for 7 days and detectable for 30 days for velvet.

Activity:
In velvet, 10mg/l dose resulted in 100% dinospore inactivity at 48 hrs and 100% cure at 14 days. At a dose of 25 mg/l it took 24 hrs for 100% inactivity.

Lethal dose:
A dose of 200mg/l showed no adverse organ effects on necropsy.

Contraindications:
Pipefish
Sea dragons
possibly some wrasse

Miscellaneous:
Chloroquine has a known anti-inflammatory effect. In theory this could possibly reduce gill edema and increase oxygen transport (The gill edema and poor oxygen transport is what kills our fish)

It has been used in aquaculture since the late 70s

There is no known antibacterial activity and therefore will not effect biologic filtration

Strong algicidal activity

 

[HumbleFish]

Excellent info! May I re-post this information in a couple of local (Louisiana) boards I frequent? If so, I will be sure to give you proper credit for this information.

 

[alprazo]

No problem. All data expect for compatibility and contra indications is based on published data.

Compatibility is based on my own observations except copper
Pipefish and sea dragons is from a public aquarium
Maybe some wrasse is from my own experience and some others on the board.

 

[Deinonych]

Uronema marinum - with recurrence upon cessation and return to display

Can you explain what you mean by this?

 

[MrTuskfish]

Good info. I'm sure you know that CP had a lot of chatter going on during your sabbatical. Thanks!

 

[alprazo]

Thx Steve. I kept getting calls from my pharmacy friend about CP questions his vet couldn't answer so I figured the topic was active.

deinonych,

When I first started experimenting with CP, I tried it on different diseased fish. At one point I bought a group of 10 chromis, some of them already showing signs of Uronema. The fish were treated, 2 died the first night, but the rest pulled through. After a month, I returned them to a tank that I knew had Uronema in the past. On the 45th day after treatment I diagnosed one of the chromis with Uronema. 6 of them in total died over the next 6 months. Couldn't tell if all were from Uronema. Three of the fish I never found.

This was not the case with velvet and ich. Fish that were infected with Amyloodinium and successfully treated with CP, did not show disease when re-exposed to it. These fish however were infectious and new untreated fish would rapidly show signs of infection if I placed one of these cp treated but reinfected fish in their tank. With ich, previous treated fish did show signs of re-infection when returned to an ich contaminated tank, but only when there was a new untreated fish with a bad infection. It appeared to me that the treated fish developed a partial immunity, but the immune system could be overcome with a high contagion load. These are only my observations.

Also know that Uronema is not a obligate parasite like crypto or ammylodinum. It is free living, able to run a full life cycle without a host. There is no fallow period that is successful for this one. Fortunately it seems to only cause issues in chromis and sometimes other fish maintained in poor conditions. Pristine water tends to keep this one at bay.

I was never able to obtain a brook infected fish during that time. I just never saw one so I don't know if CP works.

 

[alprazo]

Btw. As mentioned before in other threads. This carrier created state for velvet is one reason why I discourage the use of CP in holding facilities and stores. These fish will not show signs of velvet, will look great in QT, but once placed in the DT, it can infect all of your other fish. The same may be the case with ich. This is also why I recommend treating every new fish. More and more facilities are using CP, unfortunately after recommendations from some of the leaders and experts in this hobby. Unlike copper, which has proven long term success, it may also lead to the rapid development of resistance.

 

[snorvich]

Btw. As mentioned before in other threads. This carrier created state for velvet is one reason why I discourage the use of CP in holding facilities and stores. These fish will not show signs of velvet, will look great in QT, but once placed in the DT, it can infect all of your other fish. The same may be the case with ich. This is also why I recommend treating every new fish. More and more facilities are using CP, unfortunately after recommendations from some of the leaders and experts in this hobby. Unlike copper, which has proven long term success, it may also lead to the rapid development of resistance.

Actually copper can mask velvet and ich when dosed non-therapeutically, which is a similar but related problem. Fish can develop immunity to ich and velvet but still carry it by my guess, about 5% of the time. I think I recall malarial studies in people with malaria becoming resistant to some medications (perhaps CP was one of them).

 

[snorvich]

Also know that Uronema is not a obligate parasite like crypto or ammylodinum. It is free living, able to run a full life cycle without a host. There is no fallow period that is successful for this one. Fortunately it seems to only cause issues in chromis and sometimes other fish maintained in poor conditions. Pristine water tends to keep this one at bay.

So does that mean that with tanks infected with Uronema that 4 week treatment with CP will rid the tank of uronema?

 

[MrTuskfish]

Actually copper can mask velvet and ich when dosed non-therapeutically, which is a similar but related problem. Fish can develop immunity to ich and velvet but still carry it by my guess, about 5% of the time. I think I recall malarial studies in people with malaria becoming resistant to some medications (perhaps CP was one of them).

I think you're right on the studies showing malaria resistance in some meds; I remember reading a proposed fund raising piece for a NPO that ran it.

 

[alprazo]

Actually copper can mask velvet and ich when dosed non-therapeutically, which is a similar but related problem. Fish can develop immunity to ich and velvet but still carry it by my guess, about 5% of the time. I think I recall malarial studies in people with malaria becoming resistant to some medications (perhaps CP was one of them).

Good point. Another reason not to dose sub therapeutic levels.

 

[alprazo]

So does that mean that with tanks infected with Uronema that 4 week treatment with CP will rid the tank of uronema?

In theory, if you treat the display tank you could eradicate Uronema.

 

[alprazo]

Resistance to antimalarial meds is widespread.

 

[Flashy Fins]

With ich, previous treated fish did show signs of re-infection when returned to an ich contaminated tank, but only when there was a new untreated fish with a bad infection. It appeared to me that the treated fish developed a partial immunity, but the immune system could be overcome with a high contagion load. These are only my observations.

Different ich strains, maybe? I hear talk of "super strains" that are resistant to certain treatments, but I don't know anything about how many strains there really are, or if the idea of more than one strain is just another ich myth.

Also know that Uronema is not a obligate parasite like crypto or ammylodinum. It is free living, able to run a full life cycle without a host. There is no fallow period that is successful for this one. Fortunately it seems to only cause issues in chromis and sometimes other fish maintained in poor conditions. Pristine water tends to keep this one at bay.

As someone who is going through a fallow period after disease (thankfully, not uronema), this makes me so nervous! Pristine water conditions are the goal, of course, but with a parasite that needs no host, I worry that if something unusual happens to stress a fish out, uronema could show itself seemingly out of nowhere, the same way ich rears its head after a stressful event in tanks wrongly believed to be ich-free. It makes me especially wary about buying fish from stores where I've seen uronema-infected chromis, but for all I know, even stores that don't have any chromis in their tanks have uronema in their tanks, either from previous chromis or from other fish that shared tanks with chromis along the chain of custody.

I'll feel better when more is known and understood about why chromis are having this issue. I'm not interested in buying any, but I do like other small fish they're frequently housed with in stores.

 

[Tetra84]

If you know that a fish does have Uronema in your QT, do you even risk introducing it into your reef display after a supposedly successful CP treatment? or should it be completely banned? I've got 5 chromis together with one suspected of having the disease. I'd really like an answer on this one.

 

[Tetra84]

Can you explain what you mean by this?

I'd like to know also, alprazo are you saying that CP won't completely cure Uronema? If not, will anything?

 

[alprazo]

In the reef system, where water conditions are important, I would not worry about uronema unless you plan to keep chromis. If a different species does come down with it, I would consider that fish immunocomprimised and it would die of another cause soon if not uronema.

As for chromis. Ime I have been able to clear some fish. Upon return to the display, they again came down with it, different fish at different times, and perished. I would look at the DT as permanently infected and you would probably have to treat with copper or chloroquine to eradicate it. Neither are acceptable choices. If placed into a virgin tank, I'm believe the treated chromis would be clear.

Btw, if one chromis has it, I would treat all.

 

[Tetra84]

Thanks alprazo, I appreciate the feedback. FYI here is what my black axil chromis looks like in QT that has the suspicious spot:

They've never seen the inside of my reef tank. I've had chromis before in my main tank, but I haven't seen Uronema in my display before. I'm currently treating my QT with 75mg/gal of CP as of this morning.

 

[Deinonych]

I wonder if the higher incidence of Uronema in chromis has to do with their characteristic picking on each other all the time? It's common knowledge that chromis will winnow themselves down to one or two individuals over time. Perhaps the wounds are inflicted as part of this behavior, and the protozoan takes advantage of the situation.

 

[Tetra84]

I wonder if the higher incidence of Uronema in chromis has to do with their characteristic picking on each other all the time? It's common knowledge that chromis will winnow themselves down to one or two individuals over time. Perhaps the wounds are inflicted as part of this behavior, and the protozoan takes advantage of the situation.

Yeah perhaps, They were all bagged separately and the one with the sore had it when I received them. Perhaps it might have been picked on and developed the sore in Live Aquaria's tank?