Should the fish med industry be obliged to..

[DavidW]

Should the fish med industry be obliged to list exactly what is in their medicinal preparations?
A lot of fish meds don't list all the ingredients, Some don't list any. Some crazy claims are made by the same people for the efficacy of their meds or water treatments , such as " won;t kill your filtration' but at the same time 'will kill (gramme- or gramme+ or both) bacteria'.
Finding out what the actual ingredients are , especially in the 'shotgun meds' is often a nearly impossible task.
The same with many filters, where manufacturers make claims like " good for a 100 gallon tank" etc, which to me is totally misleading as filtration needs to be measured against bioload not against water volume.
There seems to be very little in the way of 'truth in advertising' in the trade, in fact it is almost totally unregulated, leading to many products which are nothing better than snake-oil designed primarily to separate the fishkeeper from his/her money.
What do you think?

 

[Miguel]

Undoubtedly so!

My constant fear ( to cite only one ) is the impact of med's on the bio filtration....

 

[cichlid2006]

Undoubtedly so!

My constant fear ( to cite only one ) is the impact of med's on the bio filtration....

Tell me about it, I treated for Columnaris on a salvini I received a few weeks ago and although the box stated "will not harm biological filtration" my filter crashed and cycled again. Unfortunately it died, not sure if it was the columnaris or the stress of the disease coupled with my filter cycling again. I lost a few other fish as well. I'm glad I buy the 2 litre bottles of Prime or it could have been worse, it could have been Tubby my midas.
I used Interpet's medication for mouth fungus (columnaris), No.8 I think.

As for misleading advertising. API are quite bad with Melafix and Pimafix. They are great as first aid to prevent infection/fungus from taking hold but they are both completely useless at treating one that has dug in.

 

[Piscine]

I hear ya....The "this product may cause cancer" warnings kinda make me wonder.....

 

[krzr3000]

Totally, the filtration ratings leave a lot to be desired. They are pretty much accurate for a tank with nothing in it. The advertising is awful, like on the boxes of the marineland eclipse tanks. I remember the 5g hex photo having 7 or 8 sizable goldfish in it.

 

[spotfin]

Yes, would be nice if the fish med industry listed all ingredients used in their products. Are there any regulations for fish medications used in fish aquaculture regarding listing medical ingredients?

 

[felixxx]

Petition!

 

[ballinouttacntrol]

all that really needs to happen is people who are passionate about fish keeping get involved in the industry to balance out those who are executing a proper business plan of making money.

 

[Chaitika]

Yes they should but they never will. I'm not sure I would either if profit was on the line.

 

[johno27]

I have found the list in the freshwater disease section very useful. It gives a good idea of what is in most medications and what side effects if any may occur.

An even more eloborate list worked on by the fishkeeping community may be the quickest fix. Atleast for MFK members

You would think with all the money people are making they could have a little more research into their products affect on fish and filters. Companies that really seem to care like Hikari (IMO) get my money more times than companies that don't seem to do much research.