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I've recently treated my tank for internal parasites with Waterlife's Sterazin. The infected fish were some tiger barbs and a chocolate gourami. All the fish seem much better and thankfully I had no losses. Treatment finished at the beginning of the week, and a water change was done on wednesday.
The gourami, while looking better than it did, I still dont think is fully cured. He occasionally has clamped fins that have a little bit of red on tailfin edges and just doesnt act normally.
Would you guys re-treat this fish to make sure or wait a while?

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Id wait at least a week before starting again, the treatment is supposed to be at least 10 days long.What did you suspect was the original cause of the problem?

I got the barbs and the gouramis from the same shop. I have since started working at this shop and I think that alot of the fish come from the wholesaler already infected with internal parasites of some sort. They had white stringy poop, not much interest in food and were loosing weight before treatment. I noticed this behavior soon after putting them in the tank.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Lindy,

Read my post at this link and let me know your thoughts on your diagnosis.

http://fishprofiles.com/files/threads/28099.1.htm?1#



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Sounds exactly like it. I will be working in the shop today, I may try and find some medication with metro in it. I will wait a few more days to see if the gourami improves before I retreat. I really dont want to lose this fish, they are extremely rare in my neck of the woods.

Thanks for the link Bob.

Lindy

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

I got my meds mixed up, cant get metro from the lfs here in Aus. Would a medication with levamisole or praziquantel be effective? I wish Waterlife would tell us a little bit about what is in their meds. I dont know if Sterazin has what I need in it or not.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

On the effective treatment front, there's quite a few to choose, from, but metronidazole is the only one proven safe for most fish.

Other effective treatment include albendazole,benznidazole, ronidazole,secnidazole, aminosidine, diethylcarbamazine and nitroscanate although I dont know the safety margin or the dosages.

Commonly tried and innefective drugs include amprolium, bithionol, febantel, flubendazole, levamisole, netobimin, niclosamide, nitroxynil, oxibendazole, parbendazole, piperazine, praziquentel, tetramisole, thiophanate, toltrazuril, trichlorfon and triclabendazole.

If you want to stick with the waterlife products I believe the one to use would be Octozin. Sterazin is really for flukes, ectoparasites and worms.

Octozin is not available here.
I rang the two vets that I know of in my state to find out if I can get something to treat hexamita from them. I have to bring the fish in, pay $90 for him to look at it and then maybe i will get something to treat the fish with. Thats more than what it costs for all 3 of my cats to visit the vet at one time!

Maybe I should go study to be a vet, specialising in fish.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Can you get jungle labs antiparasite formula? That would probably do.

Not that I have ever seen. We have an extremely poor selection of over the counter medications for fish. Apparently aussies are really dumb and will go to a lfs instead of a doctor for medication if they are sick.

Meds I have on hand...
Sterazin
Worm-Rid (praziquantel 100mg/tab)
Anti-Parasite Remedy (Trichlorfon 20mg/tab)

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

mmm! Nothing like a pint of sterazin when your feeling off colour I wonder what the official stats for formaldehyde poisoning are in Oz

Seriously though if it is hexamita, those meds unfortunately wont do the job.Some avian care products designed to cure canker will also kill hexamita, it may be worth looking for some of these products. It might be a neat way round the difficulties of getting hold of these meds in Oz. I believe theres a product called ronivet S you should be able to get.

In fact , found a link.

http://www.vetafarm.com.au/print_all_products.asp

Hi Lindy

I wish Waterlife would tell us a little bit about what is in their meds.

I had a question for Waterlife about one of their other products, regarding extending treatment & getting advice. I sent them an email in the morning (address was on the bottle). By late afternoon, early evening of the same day, waterlife had emailed me back with advice. This was just a week ago, so if you're lucky you might strike the same quick & helpful service. I was very impressed they got back to me so quickly.

I know this won't help you in this case, as it's not the med you need right now. But thought it was good to know.

I hope you can find the right med to fix your fish.

Cheers
TW

Thank you so much git! I would never of thought of that.

I looked up the petshops that keep vetafarm products and there is one just around the corner. I will have a peek tomorrow. Fingers crossed they have some.

Next challenge will be to work out dosage.

Robyn, I have been in contact with Waterlife before aswell. I found them prompt but they were tight lipped on what their active ingredients were. Thanks for the thought though.


EDIT. on re-reading of blurb about the med "Available in Australia through prescription" so i wont be going to the shop for it. I wonder how fancy I can get with a story to a vet on the phone.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Yeah they do flagyl for curing amoebic dysentary etc, it could be worth a go.

Had no luck with the vets.

Looks like its Sterazin or nothing.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Re the Metro, check with Jester Fu.
He may have located some recently. Failing that, do you know any discus breeders in your area ? Good luck

There's also a website that sells it, hunting for that now.

The Amazon Nut...

PM sent.

The Amazon Nut...

I'll try and chase up Jester Fu. Thanks for the idea. I do know some discus breeders but they unfortunately dont have any meds on hand that would help. Meds without seeing a vet seems just about impossible around here.

I replied to your PM aswell DaMossMan.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Don't know if you still having problems and/or still hunting down meds, but just thought i'd say that we use praziquentel and trichlorfon at work, so they're 2 that are definitly available over here.... if you can get hold of them. (damn that 'if' ) .... I'd offer to send you down some, but sending funny white powders through the mail tends to be frowned upon these days

Hope the fishies are doin well,
Sin

Hi Sin! I have been wondering what you were up to/where you were. Do you get praziquentel and trichlorfon in its 'not made into a tablet with other junk added' state? I can find meds that have these ingredients but they have never done much for sick fish in the past for me.


A nice girlie from Sydney is sending me some metro.
Thanks Abs if you read this.
Have to work out doses now.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.