Colloidal silver for cichlid

[powerjen]

Hi

I have a cobalt cichlid who started off with a small open wound on one side of his body and some slightly fluffy spots on his tail and top lip. I had a lemon cichlid who was sucked on the side by the loach, it healed but developed a puffy eye so put some internal bacteria treatment (interpet) in the tank 4 days ago. The lemon is now ok and the wound on the cobalt is healing but on the other side of him some scales are looking pale, inflamed and are sticking out slightly, but the stuff round his mouth has gone. I think this is a fungal infection he has?

As I've already put some treatment in the tank for the lemon cichlid I don't really want to put anymore in but want to use colloidal silver on him instead. I know some use it here but I only have access to stuff which is 5ppm so want to know how much I should be putting in the water (27g tank) and how often? I also have some Stresscoat which I guess I can treat him with too.

Now, be gentle with me, I'm a beginner The tank has only been stocked for two weeks now with 8 cichlids and a loach (which seems to have done the damage, but has calmed down now or it's back to the LFS). Water is ok and plan to do a water change today. Have tried to take a photo of him but can't get a decent one to show the problem with his scales, he's fine in himself though and want him to get better! Should I put the temp up in the tank?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks so much

PJ

 

[wuvmybetta]

I loooove colloidal silver! It's the only thing I use for treating ailing fish, which isn't often that they're sick because I use silver on a regular basis as a precaution.

5ppm isn't very strong at all, I actually prefer 500 ppm, so I can say without hesitance that you could use the whole bottle without causing any problems. Since your tank is so new, I'd remove the fish and treat him seperatly in order to not disturb your bacteria bed. A well established tank that is older than 6 months can handle silver directly (and also benefit from it!)

How big is the bottle?

 

[powerjen]

Hi Wuvmybetta

Thanks, I was hoping you would reply as I've seen your posts saying to use it for other illness problems... I bore everyone about CS, just about using it for everything else and not for treating fish! But now I need to learn about treating fish with it.

I have a machine to make my CS, so I have a relatively endless supply of it. I didn't think that the CS would effect the good bacteria in the tank. Most friendly organisms are aerobic (they do well in an oxygen rich environment), wherease unfriendly organisms are anaerobic (they don't like oxygen). CS attacks only anaerobic organisms so in theory if the good bacteria in the tank need oxygen to live then they shouldn't be effected by having CS in the tank. It should kill off the bad and keep the good?

What do you think?

Thanks so much

PJ