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[pantherlax]

My fish has taken a turn for the better, hope everyone else's is too. Thanks for the info, especially NorCali. When he began eating again I made sure to give him plenty of time to digest before turning out the light and so far so good!

[fishnfst]

I found a pretty good place for the metro again.. It's called vetamerica.com How are your fish doing Mike?

[Darth Odo]

This is repititious of the post I put in the "haits fading" thread, but I have added some links. Most links say to treat with metronidazole, but some say to use Clout. If hexamita is the culprit, maybe metro is the way to go. Many have used Clout with good results.

I have read the pathogen is a protozoan parasite that resides in the gut naturally to some degree. When fish get stressed it wacks out the digestive track and the organisms get out of hand. Maybe a parasite population increase is what causes other fish to get sick. I have read that other organisms are responsible, but not viruses. I believe, and this is my guess, that certain fish stress differently and/or have a digestive tract that can only process certain foods properly. The stress or change in food throws the intestinal flora out of wack and brings on bloat. Therefore I think it is an interaction between three variables: stress, food, and parasite. Therefore, different fish are predisposed to get bloat more than other fish. This is my hypothesis or opinion only.

I should say that Malawi bloat or bloat in certain herbivorous fish is different than bloat in easily stressed fish or fish that have a digestive system that is greatly affected by stress. This disease, I believe, is a complex problem. I may start searching for answers from some of my colleagues....

Links
http://www.fish-disease.net/diseases.htm
http://www.malawimayhem.com/articles_health_02.shtml
http://www.tropicalresources.net/phpBB2/d_...in_the_head.php
http://www.fishyfarmacy.com/articles/hexamita.html
http://www.aquariumlife.net/articles/fish-diseases/34.asp
http://www.tfhmagazine.com/default.aspx?pageid=309


The last link states that

hexamita is a protozoan that is often confused with Spironucleus. It, too, is an inhabitant of the gut whose numbers can increase if the fish are stressed. Infected fish lose their appetite and become lethargic and thin. Some fish may develop a dropsy-like condition with swelling of the body cavity. Hexamita can spread via the bloodstream causing a disseminated hexamitiasis. Less severely affected adult cichlids may experience reduced fertility, egg hatchability, and fry mortality.

Treatment is with metronidazole at 50 mg per kg of body weight, added to the food daily for five days. As an alternative for fish that are not feeding, metronidazole can be administered in a bath at a concentration of 5 mg per liter every other day for a total of three treatments.

I'd like to find out what exact ingredients are in Clout as I don't recognize the molecular names of the ingredients.

[Big_Kill]

I have used clout and metro before to treat this. IMO the clout works better. I use epsom salt along with whatever drug im using. Sometimes it works sometimes i doesn't. I think it just has to do with how soon you catch it. I have heard that idea about feeding before the lights go out too so im trying to make sure i don't do that. You can get 100 grams of metro from Jehmco for $10.

[NorCaliCichlids]

I found a pretty good place for the metro again.. It's called vetamerica.com How are your fish doing Mike?

Lost the Micropthalmus but the other 4 are eating spirulina flakes heartily. My plan is to do a epsom salt treatment 1 time every 2 weeks or so to flush out the fish the day before a big water change. I think that could be a decent preventative measure. I also have 100 tabs of 500mg Metronidazole coming from one of the sellers on Amazon you told me about so thanks for that.

This post has been edited by NorCaliCichlids: Feb 8 2007, 09:42 PM

[chc]

How about this? Not eating, no white feces, no bloating....... Just listless and no appetite while all the other fish are fine.....

[NorCaliCichlids]

My micro was like that for about a week and a half before I started seeing white crap and bloating. When in doubt, medicate! I got the metro today. I believe it is stronger at 500mg than the Seachem variety. With my luck I'll probably find out sooner rather than later! This is really a must have item for anyone keeping cichlids IMO.

[chc]

Yep... Just as I suspected!

I've been feeding the fish in that tank medicated food (metro) for a couple of days, but the loner isn't interested....... Here comes the meds!!!

[Big_Kill]

I checked out those metro tablets on vetamerica and on amazon and unless my math is wrong it is a lot cheaper to get it from Jehmco. It costs $10 for 100 grams. 100 of those 500mg tabs only equals 50 grams and it is $25.

This post has been edited by Big_Kill: Feb 12 2007, 05:15 AM

[ttman]

I'm glad to say I am a SURVIVOR!!! well my fish is. 1 of my prized expensive female FHs got bloat. by the time I noticed it, she had a knot in the tummy. its funny but it happened at about the SAME TIME as the bloat thread. for the 1st 2 weeks I quarantined & treated her w/clout & salt. the last 2 weeks I treated her w/furanace + salt. her tail fin started to rot too. but she is 100% now, even her tail fin is 100% now (u can't tell any different). I did 30-40% water changes every 2-3 days, she was quarantined in a 29G tank.

she's back & active & laying eggs again & has a voracious appetite like before. hope to breed her soon

[fishnfst]

Hey norcali my Herichtys turquoise juvies made a comeback as well.. I originally thought it was aggression that was taking them out.. I went from 60 of them to about 40 of them in a week.. I started the treatment and 2 days into the treatment no more losses.. THey have been good for about 2 weeks now without anymore deaths.. I used metro at discus dosing levels...

[cougar007]

Couldn't you just use a UV sterilizer?

[luvemrare]

so in class today (nursing class)

we are learning how to treat patients with constipation and diarrheal.

and one of the saline cathartics, which are a form of drug used to treat constipation, is epsom salts.

epsom salts does a good job in cleaning out the patient's gut and previous food. Doctors usually order it for clearing out the patients' gut before x-rays or surgeries involving the patients guts. so in the case of fishes, if a fish has parasites or some kind of problem involving bacterias in the gut, epsom salts can clear it out. i guess thats why so many people use it. back then i use to just use it for replenishing electrolytes. anyways the next step i would assume would be, to dose the fish with antibiotics. feed the fish... cleanout the fishes gut again with epsom salts.... and then water change.... dose antibiotics....repeat until fish is health. i wouldnt' know which order would be the best but i'm guess they all help. i'm just incorporating what i had just learned. but i wonder what effect epsom salts have on fishes though. i mean, if i was a patient i wouldn't want to have my gut cleared out all the time. might be stressful. hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm????

This post has been edited by luvemrare: Apr 19 2007, 12:43 AM

[OPEN WATER PREDATOR]

I have a 75g that I’m currently treating what I presume to be an outbreak of Bloat. Affected fish include grammodes, umbriferus, festae, and Amphilophus ‘red Isletas’. Interestingly, the haitiensis seems unaffected. As of last night, I’ve lost two F1 festae (~2”). I attribute these (and any future) losses to the time it took to diagnose, and then, additionally, get meds to treat. One day I noticed a lot of uneaten food on the bottom but casually dismissed it as overfeeding on my part. A couple days later I noticed the grammodes definitely were not eating and the bellies were sunken in. Aside from this, however, there were no other indications of any problems; no flashing, no gasping, no hanging at the surface. I initially thought they were just acting spoiled in refusing flakes and pellets because I had just recently fed frozen (I’ve had that happen before…). Thinking they would eat when they got hungry enough, I waited to see what they did the next day. Next day- I fed a barrage of foods. I mean I through down the gauntlet: flakes, multiple types of pellets, several frozen foods. Nothing. Still not eating. I knew something was definitely wrong. But what? Was it bacterial, fungal, parasitic? So I sprang into action! I did a 1/3 water change, being sure to siphon all the uneaten food, raised the temp, salt, Melafix. Several more days went by without any noticeable improvement. Then, FINALLY, white stringy feces!! WOOHOO! At least now I knew what I was dealing with. But by this point it was Sunday evening, everything was closed. Monday morning- still no casualties… during lunch, I ran to the store, got some Clout, then ran home and treated the tank. Tuesday after work- STILL no casualties. Some ate. Did a 50% water change and treated again. Yesterday, sadly, casualties. Two festae. But the ‘red Isletas’ and others were eating heartily. I did notice some redness at the base of the fins- where they join the body- on the umbees and the ‘red Isletas’. So I did a 75% water change, more salt, Melafix. Hopefully, there are no more casualties tonight. If the rest of the tank does pull through, I’ll be very pleased. Two considerations when using Clout, however:

1. It stains your silicone (no big deal if you’ve got a hospital tank)
2. It kills your nitrifying bacteria. I measured a nitrite spike after the first treatment.

I know there are other treatments available but time was of the essence and this was all I could get my hands on. I couldn't afford to wait to for mail order.

I’ll try to give an update tonight…

[fantasticfins]

Usually this occurs when fish are fed the wrong foods. Study, do your research. Find out what is the proper food. Try not to house fish who can't share the same diet. I treat the internal with a mixture of furan 2 and oxytetracycline. As far as visible hole in the head, metrodiazonal and epsom salt, followed by furan 2.All these treatments with temp at about 85 F and daily 25% water changes. Cichlids are hardy fish who can take meds without much trouble. Catch diseases before they are too far gone to treat and save the fish.
Dale

[ScottGeeze]

Frankly I get very radical with this disease because I've lost my share of fish to it just like you guys. I put all of the sick fish in a hospital tank and do a huge water change on the main tank and I then medicate with Anti-Paristic medication and feed Anti-Parisitic but not medicated food for about 7 days. I then continue to do large water changes. If the sick fish in the hospital tank don't appear to be getting better and are suffering then I flush them. If some of them do look like they are getting better then I keep them in that hospital tank for a LOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGG time before I even think of putting them back in the main tank. It may suck to loose some of your fish this way but it sure beats looseing all of them.

[Gomer]

In the past i've found it very hard to watch my once healthy fish wither away and die because of this desease. I had tried different methods of treatment in the past with little success.
A little while back when my beloved male festae got sick and when i started seeing the white poo. I got desperate for somthing else i could try in the hopes of curing him.
I learned this from a very experienced fishkeeper in my area...
I took a quarter pill of "Hex-out" (metro) and dissolved it in a small bottle cap of water. I then took a 1/4" diameter airline (6 inches in length) and with a plastic syringe attached to one end of the hose, sucked up the solution from the bottle cap. I caught the fish and inserted the other end of the hose into its mouth and pushed it down all the way to its gut and released the soluton from the other end. I did this for 4 days (quater pill each time for a total of just one pill). I was told that it was "key" to get the meds down into the fishs gut where it can do its stuff, which kinda makes sence to me now that i think about it.

I pesonally found this very stressful to do since i dont like catching my fish too often, but i was desperate to save him. I'm sure he didnt like it much himself either.
I just thought i'd share what i learned and what worked for me...

[collegebeachguy19]

fish sick - 10 inch mbu

5 gal hospital tank

treated with sulfa, tetracycline, erythromyacine(sp). 2 days

82 degrees

aquarium salt 1 tbsp

water change

treated with metro 2 days

water change

salt again

clout....... 1 day



next day he started eating. the clout messed with his skin a little but he is now fine, attacking anything I put in the tank like he used to. Total cost 70$ but I have medicine left over. metro came in granule form and was only 8 bucks for a bottle. Basically what everyone is saying with maybe a little over-kill.

[pryder]

1) 50% water change
2) Raise water temperature
3) Add 1 Tablespoon aquarium salt for every 5 U.S. gallons water

Keep up with treatment until your fish improves and remember that the aquarium salt improves your fishes immune system. Don't add more aquarium salt unless performing a water change.
Paul

[darwinvsjesus]

Hey everyone. Since I started working at a respected LFS [really, it's an honor to work for the man I work for], I feel like I have learned far more than I could articulate here. Some of this might seem like common sense, but sometimes in the face of an illness that is both poorly understood and somewhat difficult for a novice aquarist to diagnose, the obvious, the standard, the common sense precautions all seem to take a back seat.

a few things about diagnostics in general, based on my experience as a [sort of] professional* in the hobby. In general, people become familiar with disease X, and suddenly every sign of ill health is actually a symptom of disease X, even when this is impossible. A good example is people saying

'my fish have stopped eating and are laying at the bottom, you think it's ich? what should I put in the water?'

well, have you added any new fish recently?

'not in months'

I see. Do you have other tanks. Is it possible some other tank water contaminated your tank?

"no"

When was your last water change?

"I don't know" or "my filter is so good I only top off the tank and I 'clean out the whole tank' every six months" [the latter is something I hear all the time. The lack of concern for the fishes' welfare is absolutely heartbreaking to me.

You have ammonia poisoning or nitrite toxicity, etc etc, etc ||||||| you guys get the point.

The point is, people look at a problem, jump immediately to the first disease they are personally familiar with, research be damned, and the first thought is 'what chemical additives can I dump in there?' This carelessness is usually not perpetrated by people intelligent enough to hold a competent conversation on a forum, but in either case, I stress: research, observe, research some more, observe some more!

You wouldn't just give your cat, dog, self, children, any random et cetera because of unknown illness. [at the very least, hopefully that will help you think, and you can help a novice you know somewhere. ignorance is the biggest problem with our hobby!]

second thing is medicating. Well, everyone on here is saying metronidazole is basically it for hexamita. This is pretty much true. The difficulty is in the route of administration. Hexamita intestinalis must be treated internally! medicating the water is probably not helpful. I cannot recall whether or not metronidazole is transdermally absorbed and active. [see!? research! I always double check when I medicate, even if it's something I have used before]. I didn't see anyone mention BiFuran+ powder. [this is a 80:20 mixture of Nitrofurazone and Furazolidone, very effective, but dangerous to inhale, leave on skin, keep where children might find it]

I would mix two separate batches of frozen foods as per the directions on the respective packages of the aforementioned medications [NOTE: if you can't get hikari's BiFuran+ powder, plain Nitrofurazone on it's own is probably fine. But I would not by two seperate meds and mix them, as the ratios will be wrong, and their synergistic effects could be disastrous.]

DO NOT use frozen blood worms except for a fish like discus. This food is far too rich and the medicine is hard enough on the fishes' stomachs. I would mix one from brine/mysis shrimp for smaller fish, Krill for bigger fish, and another from a veggie based food [good for the intestine], like pro salt's algae supreme, or ocean nutrition's Formula 2 [RDF formula, since it's already 'broken up' would work, the regular one won't]

Let the food sit out [all of it, you need to make a large batch, do not mix in a small amount of medicine at each feeding!] just until it gets soft enough to work with. malleable but still cold. Mix the powders in to the respective foods [seperate food = seperate medicine!!!] as per manufacturer's directions. Put back into a zip-lock type bag, and get all the air out/make it flat as can be, refreeze.

One last word of caution when medicating your fish [THIS GOES FOR YOU, LOACH KEEPERS, PUFFER KEEPERS, CHARACIN KEEPERS, ETC] Though some fish are sensitive to medications, they are also sensitive to disease. So, when you see things like 'half dose' on the back of qUICK Cure packages for tetras and scaleless fish, this is a nice word of caution in general; But it usually renders treatment useless. I'm not suggesting we all go into a disease situation with both guns blazing, fire-bombing the figurative elementary schools and churches of the parasite/fungi/protozoa world, so definitely use your best judgment. But please remember that if you pull back on the medicine because your fish may not tolerate it. I have personally lost a lot of fish because of this. Fish that didn't have to die; If I had been steadfast and consistent they would still be here. Whatever you choose to do, the most important thing is don't waffle. ever.
People tend to get anxiety when improvement doesn't come quickly, then they add more or different medicines, etc. This can kill the fish, obviously. So pick a treatment, make a treatment plan, and stick to it. Get a dry-erase board for your fish room. keep track there.

Oh, one last thing. Garlic Guard by seachem or a similar problem would probably be a helpful additive to boost the fishes immune systems. Sorry for the lengthiness. Some of this is not directly related to Hexamita, but I think the principles are. It's a disease that is slow to heal. really slow. So this advice, hopefully, is useful to someone out there.






*[size=2]I hate the term 'professional' because it is a conservative term that implies rigid orthodoxy and a spirit-crushing scale of domination/submission. The 'professional' world produces thoughtless repeaters. Uncreative, unanimous in opinion, no room for open-mindedness. How is this relevant? I use the term loosely, to get the point across; I work in the industry. No offense to any 'professional' types out there. The repeating you do is invaluable to your corporate/economic master.