Advice on a treatment product...

[nuckfluckchuckbuck]

Hi everyone,

I've recently posted in the oddballs forum about a problem I have.... Some of my fish have a little outbreak of white spot, but I have a mormyrid Double-trunk Elephantnose - a Campylomormyrus Cassaicus -

and have been told to be wary of whitespot treatments.

I have been advised to slowly raise the tank temp to 30 degrees C and add some Aquaria salts whilst doing a small water change... I've been doing that, and I hope it's having some effect. However, whilst in my LFS today, I posed the question to the LFS owner just to see if there was anything he thought I could do in addition. He said I could use Protozin safely, so I bought some on his advice.

I've just come to add the treatment, and upon reading the bottle, it clearly says "Do not use when Mormyrids (E.G. Elephantnoses) are present"

So, should I trust the LFS owner, or should I trust the bottle? My head tells me bottle everytime, but I can't help but think just for a second that maybe if he has experience (normally, this chap is very good and gives good advice... he keeps many himself so is a hobbyist as well as a salesman...) that perhaps he could be correct....

Could anyone offer their opinions?

 

[WILDER]

Don't use the product if it has stated in the instructions not to use on certain fish, don't no anything on the fish you keep, if they are not scaless go with the salt and high temp, once the spots go off the fish start to do gravel vacs to get the parasite out of the gravel, also cover the tank with a blanket, and turn temp up gradually to 30, good luck.

 

[nuckfluckchuckbuck]

Hi Wilder,

Actually - my mormyrid - he is scaleless... should I avoid the salt if he's scaleless?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I would avoid the salt and the med and go for a different brand of whitespot med altogether...
Maybe you may have more luck with this thread in the oddballs section of the site?

 

[WILDER]

Some scaless fish can tolerate small amounts of salt in the tank, just add abit and see how he goes.

 

[sinistral]

Interesting...

My first step would be to call your LFS owner and say something like "You mentioned Protozin might be safe to use with my elephantfish, but it's clearly labelled on the bottle not to use it with mormyrids. Do you know something they don't?"

Then you could get a clear answer from him one way or another (i.e. "whoops, my mistake", or "in my 30 years of mormyrid-keeping experience, Protozin is fine". )

It is clearly posted in tons of different locations on the web not to use Protozin with mormyrids. I can't find what the ingredients of Protozin are (trade secret) to confirm this.

Here's something from Bob Fenner's website about mormyrids, very informative, discusses ich treatment and salt (recommends not to use either, raising temp alone can be effective).

Hope that's helpful. Thanks for expanding my knowledge about aquaria.

 

[nuckfluckchuckbuck]

Thanks for your advice so far everyone

How long should I sustain a temperature of 30 degrees C?

 

[WILDER]

How long would you of used the med for as i would leave the temp up to 30 till then.