What worm do my fish have

[Frank Castle]

I'm going to soak the food in general cure, it has metro in it, I got general cure beacause foster and Smith had no metro plus only general cure which has metro and prazi in it. And I needed to get it from there beacause I wanted to get free shipping for my sand.

you will want to do this for about a month or more. I have been doing it since the 2nd week of December and i'm just NOW seeing normal fecal matter from the fish affected by it. I still have 2 more that are STILL not showing positive results yet

Thanks, btw when my general cure and garlic guard comes how should I go about making medicated food? Should I put some general cure powder in a cup filled up like 1/4 and let the food sit for a while then bathe it in garlic guard? Or should I mix it with garlic guard and metro at the same time? And should I let it dry before feeding it? Also is prazi only effective as a bath or orally too? And assuming all my fish eat the medicated food will I be OK only feeding metro and not putting it in the tank?

Read the 1st link I gave you above.

I was mixing the 1 Tablespoon of Epsom salts into about 2-4 oz. super-hot water, stir w/ a spoon,letting it dissolve for an hour or so then adding a dose (default scoop size that comes w/ the Metroplex) and stir again and let it sit for another hour.

Then I added the food and let it soak anywhere from a few hours to overnight - you can pre-soak ALOT of pellets for several days ahead of time as the salt seems to keep them from getting too soft and falling apart due to density.

I then strain the pellets so I can save the medicated, salted water to re-use over and over, instead of dumping it into the tank w/ the food. I used a plastic spoon to scoop out the pellets from the soaking container and drained the excess liquid by turning the spoon sideways pressed against the side of the inside of the soaking container.

A very small net will work equally well for this....the smallest size brine shrimp net is perfect

 

[Frank Castle]

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/soaking-food-in-metronidazole.678678/

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/treating-hexamita-aka-spironucleus.523470/

 

[Pomatomus]

Thanks, btw when my general cure and garlic guard comes how should I go about making medicated food? Should I put some general cure powder in a cup filled up like 1/4 and let the food sit for a while then bathe it in garlic guard? Or should I mix it with garlic guard and metro at the same time? And should I let it dry before feeding it? Also is prazi only effective as a bath or orally too? And assuming all my fish eat the medicated food will I be OK only feeding metro and not putting it in the tank?

A few people have posted some useful information about feeding with general cure. I have not prepared medicated feed with that product specifically, but I have used seachem polyguard and focus in frozen food. I have used oxytetracycline with flakes. I have also used romet and florfenicol with pellets. The exact method depends on what you're feeding them, but the idea is to have the meds absorbed into the feed, so make sure you don't have a liquid broth (like from thawing frozen food) that would absorb it instead. If you still have questions after reviewing the methods posted, feel free to ask me how to incorporate it into the feed. I would avoid adding too much garlic guard which would add too much liquid to the mixture. Just a bit should work, but you can't really overdose it. It makes medicated feed more palatable and only has minor effects on parasites. A little will go a long way in terms of flavor!

And yes prazi is effective when given orally. It depends what product you have though. Pure prazi powder is very poorly soluble in water and must be mixed with ethanol to make it dissolve. But the powder is easily added to food. But if you have a liquid product then the prazi is pre-dissolved and ready to treat the tank. I'm not sure if those can be effectively added to feed. They might be, I just haven't checked.

General cure can be used directly in the tank as well, but if you're targeting intestinal parasites I'd lean towards dosing the feed. Saltwater fish drink a lot of water and would get it in their guts, but freshwater fish hardly drink at all.

 

[Fishguy679]

A few people have posted some useful information about feeding with general cure. I have not prepared medicated feed with that product specifically, but I have used seachem polyguard and focus in frozen food. I have used oxytetracycline with flakes. I have also used romet and florfenicol with pellets. The exact method depends on what you're feeding them, but the idea is to have the meds absorbed into the feed, so make sure you don't have a liquid broth (like from thawing frozen food) that would absorb it instead. If you still have questions after reviewing the methods posted, feel free to ask me how to incorporate it into the feed. I would avoid adding too much garlic guard which would add too much liquid to the mixture. Just a bit should work, but you can't really overdose it. It makes medicated feed more palatable and only has minor effects on parasites. A little will go a long way in terms of flavor!

And yes prazi is effective when given orally. It depends what product you have though. Pure prazi powder is very poorly soluble in water and must be mixed with ethanol to make it dissolve. But the powder is easily added to food. But if you have a liquid product then the prazi is pre-dissolved and ready to treat the tank. I'm not sure if those can be effectively added to feed. They might be, I just haven't checked.

General cure can be used directly in the tank as well, but if you're targeting intestinal parasites I'd lean towards dosing the feed. Saltwater fish drink a lot of water and would get it in their guts, but freshwater fish hardly drink at all.

OK, thanks. I just have 2 more questions. Should I dry the food after I soak before I feed(pellets) and should I soak the pellets in garlic guard with the meds or do a separate soak after?

 

[Pomatomus]

OK, thanks. I just have 2 more questions. Should I dry the food after I soak before I feed(pellets) and should I soak the pellets in garlic guard with the meds or do a separate soak after?

No, I'd say feed immediately if possible, but it depends on how wet the pellets are I guess. You don't want them to turn into mush. You also don't want them to just sit out, as they will promote fungal growth. You might be able to heat them, but heat can destroy a lot of chemicals so it might reduce the effectiveness of the medication. I suppose if you have a dehydrator that might work, but I've never tried it.

Top-coated feed can usually sit for a while. At work we throw the pellets in a cement mixer, spray them with water from a spray bottle, and add the powdered meds. We repeatedly spray and add while the mixer turns until we reach the desired concentration. This method works but you run the risk of losing more meds in the water than if you soak the feed. We were dealing with hundreds of pounds of feed so this was the most economical method for us.

I'd add the garlic guard at the same time so you can make sure that nearly all of the liquid is absorbed.

If all of your fish are good at getting to the food I'd feed slowly to minimize the amount of time the food sits in the water. The longer it sits, the more medication will leak out.

 

[Fishguy679]

Also, only 2 of my fish seem to still be affected, so is it possible to put them in a "bath" of a high concentration of API general cure(which contains metro) for like an hour and feed medicated food, or would that do more harm than good? Also if putting them in a high concentration of metro for a short period of time works how many times the normal dose should I do?

 

[Frank Castle]

Also, only 2 of my fish seem to still be affected, so is it possible to put them in a "bath" of a high concentration of API general cure(which contains metro) for like an hour and feed medicated food, or would that do more harm than good? Also if putting them in a high concentration of metro for a short period of time works how many times the normal dose should I do?

why would you do more than the recommended dose?

 

[Fishguy679]

why would you do more than the recommended dose?

I'm talking about putting a fish in a high concentration of metro for a short period of time and if anyone has done it before and if it works, seems like a plausible idea and I want to know if anyone has experience with it and if it's been done before.

 

[Frank Castle]

I'm talking about putting a fish in a high concentration of metro for a short period of time and if anyone has done it before and if it works, seems like a plausible idea and I want to know if anyone has experience with it and if it's been done before.

I wouldn't overdose on any medication regardless of the reason, your best bet is to feed it to them and get the medication down into their digestive tract so it can do it's job

 

[Frank Castle]

No, I'd say feed immediately if possible, but it depends on how wet the pellets are I guess. You don't want them to turn into mush. You also don't want them to just sit out, as they will promote fungal growth. You might be able to heat them, but heat can destroy a lot of chemicals so it might reduce the effectiveness of the medication. I suppose if you have a dehydrator that might work, but I've never tried it.

Top-coated feed can usually sit for a while. At work we throw the pellets in a cement mixer, spray them with water from a spray bottle, and add the powdered meds. We repeatedly spray and add while the mixer turns until we reach the desired concentration. This method works but you run the risk of losing more meds in the water than if you soak the feed. We were dealing with hundreds of pounds of feed so this was the most economical method for us.

I'd add the garlic guard at the same time so you can make sure that nearly all of the liquid is absorbed.

If all of your fish are good at getting to the food I'd feed slowly to minimize the amount of time the food sits in the water. The longer it sits, the more medication will leak out.

if you put the meds in a small amount of water and soak the food in the medicated/Epsom salt-saturated water wouldn't the medication just get soaked into the pellets? I'm finding your post a little confusing here....