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

That was a nice experiment. It's always good to see experiments like that. It's been *many* years since I've used pp in tanks. I'm not big on dumping medecins in the tank. One nice thing about pp is that you are left with just potasium, wich is quite natural and nontoxic, though it does stain brown. People often use a medicine, and the fish get better, but it's not known how much the medicine actualy worked. PP has been used in reef tanks in low doses to oxidize nutrients, but I don't recall anyone using it in reef tanks for medicinal purposes. One sorce for pp is the companies that sell whole house water purfification systems that use pp, such as Culligan.
The use of pp in aquariums has been around for many many years, but it's never realy become popular.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
Wayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Roy wrote on 1/24/2006 8:25 AM: 
I have never seen mention of PP in any of the saltwater forums. I
mention PP to my frieind that owns a LFS and he shudders. He has a lot
of experieince with livestock and has a natural pond that had
problems, and it was recomended by biologists to hit it with
PP.............and he messed up......needless to say what the outcome
was. I use PP 2 x a year on both my ponds as a prophylactic...I
oxidize them late fall, and early spring.......and I use it whenever
needed on most of my tropicals in tanks etc........So far knock on
wood have not had any saltwater health issues. Prophylactic doseing
with PP has made a big improvement in my natural ponds water quality
and fish health since I started doing it. Its good at reducing any
nutrients so it helps with algae blooms and rich water which also has
an effect overall on my ponds fish health caused by these conditions,
mainly ulcers, fungal and fin / tail/mouth rot etc... One pond is 1.68
million gallons and the other is a bit over 2.9 million gallons so I
do consume quite a few pounds of PP every year on just prophylactic
stuff. It may be hard top get in your country though as here in the
USA its watched by the DEA and BATF folks pretty close and you need a
permit and compliance papers to buy any large quanities. I use
Technical grade. PP is al;so in big demand by the back yard drug
makers, and it can also be used as an oxidizer in making homebrew
explosives so since 9/11 it gets pretty close scrutinization.  However
its stll available in small quanities at exhorborant prices. Doc
Johnson the world reknown koi vet gets $25  for a 3 ounce
container.....I buy 55 pound pails for $48..

To determine the amount I need I use the standard recomended dose, but
test a water sample first with a few different dosses. This is called
a demand test, which consists of a given amount of water with X amount
of PP added, and then wait and see how long the color lasts, and make
my final decision as to the dosage rate from the demand test results.
Object of the ordeal is to maintain the purple/pink color in the water
for a minimum of 6 hours and no more than 8. However its also possible
to give a fish a short term bath/dip in a somewhat stronger than
normal solution of PP as well.......But its use in SW has gone
unanswered for me to......I just may have to email a friend at the
University of Florida that works the fish biology section and see what
he can find out... If any place would know, thr U of F certainly will.
The damsels thelocal petco sells are infested with fin and tail rot
problems and various other diseases, and they are cheap enough to try
it on if its useable in SW......what I would do with damsels
afterwards would be my big problem........not a big fan of them by any
means.

You can use anything I post, its no problem with me.......I tried to
do my experiment as close and equal across the board as I could.
On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 19:19:55 +1000, miskairal <mehiding@Oz> wrote:

<>Awesome!
<>Thankyou for this info Roy as I have freshwater fish as well and in Oz <>we can't buy antibiotics for fish. When I was nursing we used it a lot <>in baths for kids with infected sores (usually from scabies). Personally <>I prefer to avoid antibiotics anyway.
<>
<>Would you allow me to reproduce this post of yours at guppylog.com which <>I visit frequently? We have often discussed the use of melafix and <>potassium permanganate but none of us have anything near as conclusive <>as your info.
<>
<>Could you also tell us how you used the pp? ie. what strength did you <>make it, how often did you add it etc. With the kids baths we used to <>make the water pink, not purple, and bathe them twice a day.
<>
<>Ditto to Mike's question - can it be used in a salt water setup?
<>
<>Thanks again
<>miskairal
<>
<>
<>Roy wrote:
<>> 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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