Worsening HITH

[duanes]

If it were me, keeping S American species, I'd be using peat or some other tannic acid producer to bring tannins to the systems water. The tannins have an anti-bacterial component, and I believe because many S American cichlids come from naturally tannin infused water, they are less resistant to the bacteria that cause HITH.
Water change water containers could have bags of peat suspended in them, much like giant tea bags to be mixed with tap when water changes are performed, or have a constant drip of concentrated tannin infused water.

 

[duanes]

Another way of bringing in tannins, is to use leaf litter.
I was working with wild type bettas from Borneo for a while, and found them to also be susceptible to bacterial infections in my alkaline water, so in fall, I would collect magnolia, maple, and some other leaves, boil and soak them until the water was brown, and use the water for water changes, put the leaves directly in the tanks, and would use and pour left over green tea into their tanks. This seemed to help stave off some of the bacterial problems.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

He is in a 180g tank so treatment via water is not happening. I did that once when he was in a 75g and it just costs too much. Will have to do it via food. He really likes the large NLS pellets so if I cannot get him to take HEX, I will just soak NLS with metro+ like I did the last time.
What size pellets do you guys use on your fish? Are 10mm too large for a 10-11in fish? The 3mm are too small for him to notice.

I've found with those NLS pellets the best way to get a fish to ingest them is to get a little $10 coffee grinder and make a powder out of them. then I soak whatever the fish will eat in that powder/water mix for a few hours. I also tend to "press" the mush into the food just to make sure its at least somewhat present still when the food hits the tank. This has worked for me, if your fish takes tilapia or another similar product, I'd give that a try. Hope this works out for you.

 

[nzafi]

I've found with those NLS pellets the best way to get a fish to ingest them is to get a little $10 coffee grinder and make a powder out of them. then I soak whatever the fish will eat in that powder/water mix for a few hours. I also tend to "press" the mush into the food just to make sure its at least somewhat present still when the food hits the tank. This has worked for me, if your fish takes tilapia or another similar product, I'd give that a try. Hope this works out for you.

I was always under the impression that once you add water to the mix it pretty destroys/breaks down the good stuff in the pellets over time. Hence why you normally want your fish eating the pellets as quickly as possible, and why creating a water based solution would not work. Am I wrong?

 

[predatorkeeper87]

I was always under the impression that once you add water to the mix it pretty destroys/breaks down the good stuff in the pellets over time. Hence why you normally want your fish eating the pellets as quickly as possible, and why creating a water based solution would not work. Am I wrong?

I would say theres probably truth to that but I'm not talking days here, 30 mins to an hour tops. a breakdown of the medication/vitamins in the pellets isn't going to be an instant event. I would say it would take quite a bit of time for that to occur. But I understand the hesitation in doing this.

 

[RD.]

I agree with Duane, and discussed that in the thread I started recently on this subject. (HITH Revisited)

As far as grinding the pellets, and mixing with water, then soaking food in that mixture. Unless one is presoaking popcorn, a lot of the nutrients and medication would be lost in the solution, and then the tank water. Most of the powder would remain powder, even when mixed with water, it would just be very small for the naked eye to see once the soaked food is dropped into a large tank

Better off to find a pellet size/make the fish will eat, and presoak in a dissolved metro solution.

What size pellets do you guys use on your fish? Are 10mm too large for a 10-11in fish? The 3mm are too small for him to notice.

Really depends on the fish, yours isn't a typical tropical fish. If it likes larger pellets then I would use those larger pellets, and presoak them with the medication.

 

[nzafi]

Any suggestion of brands or where I can get metronidazole? The last time I bought it, I bought hikari metro+ but cant seem to find it anywhere. I found seachem metroplex but according to the website its only 70% metro. Would that still work?

 

[RD.]

Metroplex should be fine. You could also try and source it directly from a vet in pill form, then crush it yourself with a mortar & pestle. Far cheaper that way.

 

[nzafi]

I reached out to my vet that I take my dog too. They told me I need to bring my fish in so that they can samples to make sure that he has the bacteria that is treated by metro. Otherwise they won't give me the meds

Looks like I am digging online to buy it.

 

[RD.]

For humans it might be listed online as Flagyl, if that helps at all.