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  L# Can I buy Waterlife products like the "Protozin" in the US anywhere online...Please??
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SubscribeCan I buy Waterlife products like the "Protozin" in the US anywhere online...Please??
daddySEAL
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EditedEdited by daddySEAL
Please?

I don't think my credit card will buy things overseas in pounds.
I quit using PayPal years ago for security reasons.
And the shipping to Texas, US would be Very high.

Can I get it over here, please?
(my Google search comes up with only overseas company outlets)

Do neons Only get it from new fish entering the tank?
Can they get it and other ways spontaneously, please?
Post InfoPosted 18-Jul-2008 20:15Profile Homepage PM Edit Report 
longhairedgit
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EditedEdited by longhairedgit
Protozin isnt a cure for NTD, NTD is currently incurable. It might clear the water of infection, but thats it, so if you were hoping to use it to protect a colony against NTD youd be wasting your time, any formalin/organic dye med wil do exactly the same job, and it isnt cure so much as sterilisation.

NTD has a direct path of transmission, its usually ingested , picked off from the surroundings where other infected fish have been. Your only defence is about a 3 month quarantine with close observation, and a UV steriliser may limit the odds of transmission, but thats about it. There really isnt anything you can do to protect your fish from it except choose specimens that never had it in the first place, and keep them isolated from repeat purchases that havent been through a full quarantine period.

Your best chance will be to buy fry from a private breeder who's fish have not in recent history ever been on or exposed to fish from all in one shop systems. In the UK its been proven to be evident in wholesalers facilities, and I suppose much the same is true in the rest of the world. Weve been through the whole lot, between bruce moomaw and I , I think weve tried just about every commercially available med, and antibiotic and antiprotozoan, and a few that arent on the books too, acids, quinolones, blackwater extracts for immunity improvement, dietary control, antiparasitics, the lot.

Nothing works. Only long term QT, and euthanisation of infected specimens works. All you can do with current technology is cut the chain of transmission. Healthy fish must simply never be exposed, or they die. Theres no saving them, and no cure. Some might advocate a 6 month qt to be absolutely sure. Its that serious.

Nobody has a cure, there is only those who erroneously believe they have one, who are selling fish with masked symptoms. They either have it or they dont, and if they have it, they are as good as dead. The longest I got one to last was about 18 months, and eventually the medication was too much for it to take. The other 40 died a year earlier, within 6 months of purchase. I genuinely tried everything, the best I could manage was a longer survival time, nothing more.



Post InfoPosted 19-Jul-2008 00:00Profile MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
Callatya
 
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No, I don't believe it is currently available in the US.

If you want it and you are able to get it through with no hassles then you should be able to buy it from the UK with your card, but you are right in that the shipping would be a bit on the pricey side.

If it has been suggested that Protozin could fix NTD, then I'd bet that NTD was not involved and it was a misdiagnosis from the get go, in which case it may have worked perfectly fine on whatever the fish had. I've never seen it fixed, but I have seen neons with some vaguely NTD-like behaviours and appearance (and well, isn't NTD a lovely convenient name for anything to do with sick neons? It gets thrown about a lot) that turned out to have a gill/skin issue which cleared up brilliantly in some double-dosed dye meds.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Post InfoPosted 19-Jul-2008 05:10Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
daddySEAL
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EditedEdited by daddySEAL
thanks longhairedgit and Callatya.
I appreciate your experienced help and replies.

Hey, just thought of something...would the UV growlights in that tank (for my few live plants) help with this?
What is a "UV Steriliser", please?

dS
Post InfoPosted 19-Jul-2008 15:40Profile Homepage PM Edit Delete Report 
longhairedgit
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EditedEdited by longhairedgit
Nope, they would have no effect, the range of UV they give out is far too mild and weak to kill bacteria and sporozoans, and anti-algae Uv units are generelly too weak too, when I say UV steriliser I mean something like this..

http://www.reefstore.co.uk/cart/Vecton-p-8.html?gclid=CJ6Wk8HEzJQCFQNHFQodOUrZkg

You'd run them inline with an external filter or off a pump, it has a high rated bulb with the water squeezed between plates only fractions of an inch across, hence provides total UV burn to any small organism passing between the plates, sterilising free ambient parasites and bacteria. It tends to drop transmission rates in aquaria right down, not to absolute zero cos the fish will still eat poo and scavenge corpses, and certain parasites will inevitably get lodged in decor, but UV sterilisers do help a lot in dropping percentile risks of transmission of numerous diseases and parasites.

Post InfoPosted 19-Jul-2008 20:06Profile MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
daddySEAL
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EditedEdited by daddySEAL
thank you, longhairedgit
I went out and got a UV Steriliser yesterday.
(and installed it)

Now I feel much safer about my many, many neons in that tank. wouldn't want to have anything decimate them and the beautiul cloud of moving color they show me.

Thank you for the tip!
dS
Post InfoPosted 21-Jul-2008 16:26Profile Homepage PM Edit Delete Report 
daddySEAL
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EditedEdited by daddySEAL
And I bought another bigger one (18Watts with bigger capacity pump) for my soon to be setup 125 gallon tank.

Thank you for telling me about them!
I hadn't known about them until you replied, longhairedgit!!

Thank You Very Much!
(please give him a "kudo"
dS
Post InfoPosted 23-Jul-2008 01:19Profile Homepage PM Edit Delete Report 
longhairedgit
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No problem, glad I could help. Perhaps they are more popular with the marine guys, but they work great on freshwater too. Very handy if you ever keep med sensitive fish like clown loaches, rays, mormyrids, some of the bagrid catfish etc. Nice to be able to keep even common infections like whitespot under control without having to use repeat doses of meds during the lifetime of a fish. Most of the organic dye/formalin treatments can cause respiritory damage, and cancer in fish if overused. A lot of people who dont practise quarantine much or who dont have the space for more than one aquarium should consider having one, especially in these days of shops having linked systems where fish from all over the globe share water and can easily catch infections from one another. Handy bit of kit.

Sure they dont stop everything, but they stop a lot of diseases and parasites.

Post InfoPosted 25-Jul-2008 09:47Profile MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
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