Re: Dead fish in a clean tank. (my take on Melafix...long)

There is a mixed school on the benefits or lack there of on MelaFix.
Anti biotics work, thats a given, but its hard to say MF does/would
/won't. NOt to make a long post out of this reply but I am into Koi
and ornamental goldfish, and belong to a few other web forums...Fin
and tail and mouth rot are a big concern and there is a ton of
various meds out there thats sold and claims to be the preferred
treatment. I was given all kinds of info on various treatments, such
as adding salt, (talking freshwater here now) malachite green
w/formalin, antibiotics, Potassium Permangante dip, or just water
changes, and a few other well know but variant of one of the above
meds.

I went and set up 6 10, gal tanks all equipped identical filtration
etc and filled with water made up as a large single 500 gal batch.
Then I went to town and started to try and find 200 decrepit eat up
bacterial infested feeder type goldfish...was not hard to find, as all
I had to do was visit Wal MArt or Petco. Wal MArt was higher in price
and did not have anywhere near enough so off to Petco...where I
scored.....and bought 200+ pityfully inflicted feeders...

I put 15 fish in each tank, and each tank was treated with a med.
Tank #1 I used nothing but water changes for one tank, absolutely no
meds, #2 tank had salt added, Tank #3 used antibiotics in it, Tank #4
I used Potassium permanganate (2 full long term treatments) Tank#5 I
used Melafix in #6 I dosed with malachite green/formalin
treatment.....To make a long story short, the fish treated with
Potassium Permanganate healed up and were cured the fastest, and their
treatment was over within 24 hours and showed signs of heaing within 3
days, followed by antibiotics which took better than 2 weeks for
full recomended treatment and to see noticeable impvement, and then
the tank with nothing but water changes(50% daily). Malachite Green
and formalin treatment came in next but took close to 3 weeks total
and melafix treatment was dead last. I had mortalities in all tanks
and the M/G, salt, and Melafix had the most casualties.......After it
was all over with, I again separated the fish into good healthy fish
and still sick fish and placed them in 2, 55 gal tanks. I just allowed
the good ones to get fat and nice, and treated the balance in the
still sick tank with PP, and got them all on the road to good health.
IIRC I had a total of 62 fatalities out of 200+ feeders that I bought,
and all were treated in the end and those that survived were released
in an enclosure in my large natural pond and best I can tell have been
doing just fine short of natural predation occurances.

I then decided to see what it took to clean up the tanks I had used
for my experiment. I am a firm believer in Potassium Permanganate, at
least for fresh water, and dosed all 6 tanks with the usual cleanup
dose of PP. All tanks but the melafix tank cleaned right up and I
would not be afraid to use that water in the other 5 tanks if I had
to. But I had to hit that melafix treated tank 2 more times until I
was able to get the PP to retain its color for more than the usual 6
to 8 hour timeframe. Melafix just adds so much junk to a tanks water
its hard to eliminate it, so I definately would not ever want to see
it put in a display tank. ABout all I can say from my experiment and a
lot of well known individuals in the koi world is melafix is snake oil
as is pima fix. Its good to mask a foul smelling tank if you like the
vicks vapor rub type smell, but for curing fish, I have my doubts, and
believe if your also doing the associated water changes, its those
water changes that gave the fish a chance and helped heal it not the
melafix.....End of rant on the snakeoil xxxxFIX's...
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The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....
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