Magnesium sulfate soaked in food will work to move the gut but won’t treat the potentially active hexamita now. I suspect the hex is active now. Need the metro but can try w/o if reluctant. If not eating can dose some metronidazole or General cure to the tank. Once it’s got an appetite then the medicine works better when ingested.
Mouth constantly open, not eating and stringy poo
- Thread starter Tripping Willow 91
- Start date
RD.
's Pinned post https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/treating-hexamita-aka-spironucleus.523470/Suggests that magnesium sulphate ingested into the gut via soaked food will in fact treat hex. I'm certainly not reluctant to dose metronidazole if needed but I'd rather avoid exposing my fish to more meds if it's not essential, if the magnesium sulphate can do the job this is definitely the route I'd like to take. If the fish continues to refuse food then I think dosing the water with metro sounds like a good next step. Would you advise removing the fish and treating in a quarantine tank or medicate the entire tank?
Suggests that magnesium sulphate ingested into the gut via soaked food will in fact treat hex. I'm certainly not reluctant to dose metronidazole if needed but I'd rather avoid exposing my fish to more meds if it's not essential, if the magnesium sulphate can do the job this is definitely the route I'd like to take. If the fish continues to refuse food then I think dosing the water with metro sounds like a good next step. Would you advise removing the fish and treating in a quarantine tank or medicate the entire tank?
Treat only the individual fish with metro in the tank water. Epsom salt won't hurt the other fish so you can treat them at the same time with it. I would look into getting Repashy bottom scratcher gel based food when you are ready to treat with metro so that the fish will eat both the gel food and metro. The water base for Repashy can be the epsom salt solution.
Ok so I think I'll stop soaking the food in Epson salt and give it a couple days to see if it'll eat anything. If not I'll remove him to a quarantine tank, dose the water with seachem metroplex and if he starts to eat again I'll try the repashy trick, do you know if I'll need seachem focus if mixing the metroplex in repashy?
No you do not. Focus is a binder for soaked krill or soaked pellets. Since metroplex will be bound by the gel, then you do not need it. You add the metroplex while mixing the gel powder and epsom salt water. I use a 1:2 ratio of gel:water.
Forgot to mention, heat up the water first, then add to gel powder, mix the two for 3 seconds or so, and then add in the metroplex total dosage. It's best to set aside the metroplex dosage needed in a small container that you can dump straight in versus scooping out what you need into the gel water mix.
I meant since the magnesium sulfate wasn’t doing anything. Just didn’t type it out. I do agree with RD.
Suggests that magnesium sulphate ingested into the gut via soaked food will in fact treat hex. I'm certainly not reluctant to dose metronidazole if needed but I'd rather avoid exposing my fish to more meds if it's not essential, if the magnesium sulphate can do the job this is definitely the route I'd like to take. If the fish continues to refuse food then I think dosing the water with metro sounds like a good next step. Would you advise removing the fish and treating in a quarantine tank or medicate the entire tank?
Thanks for the tips. I've just been looking at getting some metroplex and suprise suprise you can't get the stuff over here in the UK, I should of know not sure why I assumed you could. I can order some over from the US for £15ish but it won't be here until early to mid may, not sure if there's any decent alternative that's readily available in the UK?
Glad to hear you agree. Hopefully this guy will start eating soon because I've discovered that with me being in the UK it's going to take me a few weeks before I can get any metroplex
