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Need to know if there is any algae control medications that won’t hurt corals or anemones or scaleless fish?


EthanPhillyCheesesteak

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
Just now, Tamberav said:

On their website it doesn't mention ich, just says bacterial and wounds. It does however say, it is known to cause cancer... :eek:

Oh shit, I didn’t know that😨

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2 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

On their website it doesn't mention ich, just says bacterial and wounds. It does however say, it is known to cause cancer... :eek:

 

6pt.pngWARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including beta-Myrcene, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer. For more information go 

@EthanPhillyCheesesteak 

It says that it only known to cause cancer in the state of California. So stay out of California and you’ll be fine. 

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BustytheSnowMaam

Fluconazole can be fungistatic or fungicidal, depending on the species.  This might explain why it doesn't harm the zooxanthelae in coral.  

 

At any rate, it's generally used for yeast infections in women.  So if it doesn't work for your tank, you can offer it to your lady friend.

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3 minutes ago, ParticipationTrophyWife said:

Fluconazole can be fungistatic or fungicidal, depending on the species.  This might explain why it doesn't harm the zooxanthelae in coral.  

 

At any rate, it's generally used for yeast infections in women.  So if it doesn't work for your tank, you can offer it to your lady friend.

 

Does that have to do with bread? Yeast? 🤔

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5 minutes ago, ParticipationTrophyWife said:

Fluconazole can be fungistatic or fungicidal, depending on the species.  This might explain why it doesn't harm the zooxanthelae in coral.  

 

At any rate, it's generally used for yeast infections in women.  So if it doesn't work for your tank, you can offer it to your lady friend.

giphy.gif

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BustytheSnowMaam
2 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

Does that have to do with bread? Yeast? 🤔

A different kind of yeast.  No, a girl cannot bake bread in her hoo-ha.

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22 minutes ago, jbb_00 said:

@Tamberav are we 300% sure of this? ☝️

 

 

 

Again ... For Harold

I just tried to check google and found something very gross...

 

beer and bread from you.. know what.. :scarry:

 

:eek:

 

😭

 

🤢

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Should I just start using a better water source and get more clean up crew? I only have 2 turbo snails, 2 red legged hermits, 2 emerald crabs, and 2 different anemones(but they aren’t really a clean up crew), and a porcelain anemone crab.

And also get rid of this flame angelfish 

Bingo!  Lots more snails!  RODI or distilled water for water changes and top-up from evaporation.

 

FYI, anemones use up A LOT of phosphate, so while it's not normal to consider them part of the CUC, they are doing the "service" regardless.  

 

Can you post results from a nitrate and phosphate test?

 

It's worth noting that cyano is rarely harmful....just ugly.

 

(And BTW, the "miracle cure" doesn't work on any algae but green hair algae which is a broad category that includes bryopsis and "everyday GHA", but it doesn't include what's growing in your tank.  Also, results (efficacy) on the algae it does work on are a lot more variable than proponents want to admit for whatever reason.   Lastly, it will also effect fungi, which we don't know as much about but which are known to be present and integral to the complex reef ecosystem.)

 

1 hour ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I didn’t mean to start so much outrage, my bad😂

Yea, forgot him

The folks who get caught up in this "miracle cure" to the point of actively promoting it seem to track that way even outside of your thread....so it's not your doing.

 

1 hour ago, WV Reefer said:

No ones’s outraged. Just trying to get all the info so we can give you the best advice. 🙂

It seems like one or two folks might be happier if the OP would just use the miracle cure already.  :wink:

 

23 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

It says on the back of the bottle that it treats ich and a numbe of other bacterial diseases?

We're still talking about Melafix as mentioned earlier in the thread right? 

 

On the API website, it only says it's for external bacterial infections....doesn't mention parasites.  Does the bottle really say something different than the website??

 

Here's my take on melafix and the ich issue:

 

A fish that isn't too far gone CAN fight off ich on its own if conditions are GOOD and it's EATING WELL. 

 

Having other healthy fish and healthy growing corals around will actually improve their odds as well.

 

If that's the scenario (fish not too bad off, conditions good, eating well, etc), then something like Melafix could be beneficial in preventing or lowering the likelihood of secondary infections from the ich sores.  (But that's also something else the fish could also resolve on it's own if it's not too far gone.)

 

What a reef-safe ich medication (at least one that's really for ich...like Kick-Ich) is unlikely to be capable of is curing a full-blown tank-wide ich outbreak.  What it might do is allow a marginal fish enough leeway to get its immune systems functioning.

 

If whatever the fish has persists, then getting a better ID on it would be a really good idea.....lots of things can actually be mistaken for ich.

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52 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

A fish that isn't too far gone CAN fight off ich on its own if conditions are GOOD and it's EATING WELL. 

 

An unvacinated child that isn’t too far gone can usually fight off measles in their own too. Half of them die, but the 50% that live usually survive to adulthood. Forget the fact that we have science and vaccinations  that are 100% effective at preventing kids from getting measles in the first place....

 

We similarly have solutions for treating ich that are 100% effective. Leaving fish in a glass box to fend off the parasites that we introduced and hoping most of them survive is a pretty pathetic approach. Fish are able to fight ich in the wild because they encounter it haphazardly. Ich in our tanks is confined and limited to a few host fish and thousands of ich. Maybe we should lock you in a bathroom filled with thousands of bees, you’ll most likely live...

 

Treat. Your. Fish.

 

It’s not even hard to treat ich. It takes two buckets, a few water changes, and 14 days. If you can’t manage to do that, then perhaps you should find a new hobby that doesn’t involve caring for live animals.

 

I’m always astounded at the bad information on this forum. You might as well source your news from the national enquirer. 

 

 

 

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Inflammatory posts don't do much to make a point, even if they are accepted around here as some form of "normal".

 

There's nothing wrong with treating a sick fish.

 

Don't be so eager to jump to weird conclusions.

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

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Okay, not sure if I just need a new prescription for my glasses, but to me your pics still look like much of your algae is on the glass... you said you cleaned it with a rag in that other thread, but you need to scrape it with something like a flipper, or the scraper below. And I haven’t read this whole thread, but as I recall you only have three snails, and as I mentioned before and linked, Reef Cleaners recommends over 60 snails of certain types for a tank the size of yours. Start with those basics, give an adequate CUC a chance to do its job, then reassess. A scraper and proper cleanup crew are, in my opinion, the foundation for maintaining your tank... 

 

B44C16CC-5F19-4922-955D-3F4BA287F906.thumb.jpeg.232fc955b6d591c4aaeffcda56ab0845.jpeg

 

 

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2 hours ago, banasophia said:

Okay, not sure if I just need a new prescription for my glasses, but to me your pics still look like much of your algae is on the glass... you said you cleaned it with a rag in that other thread, but you need to scrape it with something like a flipper, or the scraper below. And I haven’t read this whole thread, but as I recall you only have three snails, and as I mentioned before and linked, Reef Cleaners recommends over 60 snails of certain types for a tank the size of yours. Start with those basics, give an adequate CUC a chance to do its job, then reassess. A scraper and proper cleanup crew are, in my opinion, the foundation for maintaining your tank... 

 

B44C16CC-5F19-4922-955D-3F4BA287F906.thumb.jpeg.232fc955b6d591c4aaeffcda56ab0845.jpeg

 

 

I have that, but with a plastic handle. The blades are metal though, and it's very useful for scraping the glass from brown film. 

Add-On: OP, get one. 

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
3 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I have that, but with a plastic handle. The blades are metal though, and it's very useful for scraping the glass from brown film. 

Add-On: OP, get one. 

I’m definitely going to get one of those

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak

I just witnessed something last night that I have never seen before, I just saw one of my emerald crabs acting as a cleaner shrimp? My flame angle went up to him, and the emerald started picking at him and taking stuff off of him?

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BustytheSnowMaam
20 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I just witnessed something last night that I have never seen before, I just saw one of my emerald crabs acting as a cleaner shrimp? My flame angle went up to him, and the emerald started picking at him and taking stuff off of him?

 

It's totally possible that the crab is eating the ich cysts.  They're both Carib sea critters and perhaps there's a relationship we don't know about.  

 

I was just reading about something called Dr. G's Anti-Parasitic Caviar to treat ich.  People say it's expensive ($25/bottle) but works.  No idea what it is.  

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2 hours ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I just saw one of my emerald crabs acting as a cleaner shrimp?

They're an omnivore, and that does imply "anything".  LOL  I've never heard of this either though - wild!!

 

Check this out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_symbiosis#Biological_range

 

There's another crab on the list, and that's just the wikipedia page.   Pretty cool list overall, BTW.

 

Apparently galapagos iguanas get cleaned by crabs too.

 

The closer you look at this hobby the more amazing it is.  Always something new too.

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak

Does this look like ich or fin rot? It looks more like fin rot, but he doesn’t eat very much at all, and he’s coughing and rubbing up against stuff, I thought that was ich? 

image.jpg

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1 hour ago, ParticipationTrophyWife said:

I was just reading about something called Dr. G's Anti-Parasitic Caviar to treat ich.  People say it's expensive ($25/bottle) but works.  No idea what it is.  

 

Dr. G's Anti-Parasitic Caviar is food laced with Chloroquine Phosphate. Chloroquine Phosphate will absolutely destroy a reef tank at higher doses, but the food has lower doses that apparently have been generally found to be reef safe. The problem with putting this medication in food is that it's impossible to know how much Chlorquine Phosphate a fish has consumed and whether the dose is sufficient to kill the parasite or too much that it kills the fish. It's also impossible to know how much Chloroquine Phosphate is getting into the water column.  The OP has a nutrient problem. Chloroquine Phosphate contains phosphates. I don't see how adding phosphates to this reef tank would be helpful. 

 

There are four ways to eradicate ich: 

  • Chloroquine Phosphate dosed to a hospital tank
  • Cupramine dosed to the hospital tank
  • Tank transfer method
  • Hyposalinty of 1.008 in a hospital tank

All of these options require that you remove the fish and treat them outside of the reef tank. The reef needs to remain fallow for 8 weeks.

 

I honestly don't understand the resistance to just treating the fish using the methods that are proven to work. The last time I bought Chloroquine Phosphate it was like $10 from the vet and it treats a wide range of issues beyond ich. Hyposalinty costs practically nothing. Neither is terribly difficult to administer in a hospital tank.

 

 

 

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28 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Does this look like ich or fin rot? It looks more like fin rot, but he doesn’t eat very much at all, and he’s coughing and rubbing up against stuff, I thought that was ich? 

image.jpg

Are there any white spots on the fish? It doesn't appear that there are. Is it rubbing against the glass or rocks?

 

There is nothing in the photo that appears to indicate ich. A bacterial infection is more likely.

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EthanPhillyCheesesteak
20 minutes ago, GlassHouse said:

Are there any white spots on the fish? It doesn't appear that there are. Is it rubbing against the glass or rocks?

 

There is nothing in the photo that appears to indicate ich. A bacterial infection is more likely.

I don’t really see any white spots, just a tail and fins that look like they are deteriorating. But he also does scrape against the rock and glass.

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31 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I don’t really see any white spots, just a tail and fins that look like they are deteriorating. But he also does scrape against the rock and glass.

 

Then I think you can rule out ich. The scraping is possibly due to bacterial infection. The damage to the fins could also be from another fish. Have you noticed anyone harassing him? If you haven't seen it, we can probably rule that out.

Regardless of how you answer this, this fish needs treatment and time to heal. If this were me, I'd remove this fish, set up a hospital tank and treat with a broad spectrum antibiotic.

 

What you are seeing is probably at least somewhat due to the bad husbandry in the tank. You need to clean your tank immediately. You may need to vaccum that cyano daily until you get your nutrients under control. Removing this fish temporarily (or permanently) will help. However, just cleaning the tank will not insure this fish's recovery and some additional care is advisable. 

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