Combining Erythromycin Antibiotic With Amquel Plus?

[Jackiee]

My fish is extremely sick right now. I am currently using E.M. Erythromycin anti-bacterial fish medication in my tank. Today, I did a 50% water change before adding the medication. I just tested my water and it seems that my tap water gave my tank a slight hint of nitrites. And I know this wouldn't be good for her in the kind of state she's in. Can I also put Amquel Plus in the tank to reduce my nitrites ? Or would they have bad effects used together?

Please and thanks,
Jackie

 

[Primous]

Never add chemicals to fix an ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate problem. Those should be taken care of naturally via the nitrogen cycle.

Perhaps your high nitrites from the tap is just a "blip" which is not uncommon but I would test the parameters of your tap water first and go from there. Just out of interest what meds are you using and also have you cycled your filter yet?

 

[Bignose]

While using antibacterial medicine it is not uncommon to kill off your filter bacteria too. Large and frequent water changes are your best bet here. Match the temperature as best you can -- the pH and hardness should be a match if the water all comes from the same source (i.e. your tap). And just do your best to dilute out the pollutants. Fresh water should help your fish, too. I would not add a chemical to try to take care of what you describe as "slight" nitrites (you may want to post the actual number -- what I think of as slight may not be slight to you at all). It is a crapshoot how two chemicals will react together, so mixing is rarely a good idea. Again, water changes, large in percent and as often as you can manage them.

 

[Jackiee]

My tap water does have nitrites in it. That's how they got into my tank, as I used to always do water changes with distilled water. But with having a 30 gallon tank, and my fish being sick and needing so many frequent water changes, it was impossible to buy keep that big of a stock of distilled water in my house for all the water changes, so i had to start using tap.

my p.h. used to be 6.4 because i always used distilled water, now that i've been using tap, my p.h. has gone from 6.4 to 7.6 in a week. and I now have 1.0ppm of nitrite.

I'm using API Erythromycin antibacterial medication with API Pimafix antifungal medication. Does the type of antibacterial antibiotic im using, Erythryomycin kill my biological filter? I know the Pimafix doesn't, as it's a natural antibiotic, i've used it before, and it also says on the bottle it won't mess with your biological filter.

If it does, I have plenty of API Stress Zyme.. should i start adding that?

And what do you mean by have I cycled my filter yet,

 

[Bignose]

My tap water does have nitrites in it.

What amount is in the tap? There is quite a difference between 0.15 and 1.5. If it is low, doing frequent water changes even with a little bit of nitrite is probably better than just letting it build up from fish waste. Erythryomycin in all likelihood kills filter bacteria.

I would not add other chemicals because it is difficult to predict if the StressZyme could interfere with the medication. Again, if the tap levels are low, I'd just do waterchanges to keep the pollution levels low.

 

[Jackiee]

My tap water does have nitrites in it.

What amount is in the tap? There is quite a difference between 0.15 and 1.5. If it is low, doing frequent water changes even with a little bit of nitrite is probably better than just letting it build up from fish waste. Erythryomycin in all likelihood kills filter bacteria.

I would not add other chemicals because it is difficult to predict if the StressZyme could interfere with the medication. Again, if the tap levels are low, I'd just do waterchanges to keep the pollution levels low.

Darn.. I have a carbon filter on my tank as well as a filter just specifically for biological bacteria with bio-rock in it. Do you think this filter will keep biological bacteria in my tank? or will the medicine have wiped out everything in that filter also?

The tap water levels of nitrite are 1.0 ppm. not 0.15 or 1.5, but 1.0 is what is coming up on my test strip.

The first water change I did to my tank, it raised my nitrites to 0.5 ppm.
After the second, it further rose it to 1.0 ppm
I'm afraid to raise it further with more water changes?

My parrot fish is beginning to get a blackness "dirt" appearance to her orange scales and that's usually a sign of bad water conditions/stress so i figured it was from the nitrite spike.

 

[Bignose]

Your carbon filter is in all likelihood adsorbing your medication and rendering it useless. You need to take carbon and zeolite out when you medicate.

Instead of testing your tank, take out a glass of tap water and test that for nitrites. That will give what the level coming from your tap is.

 

[Jackiee]

Your carbon filter is in all likelihood adsorbing your medication and rendering it useless. You need to take carbon and zeolite out when you medicate.

Instead of testing your tank, take out a glass of tap water and test that for nitrites. That will give what the level coming from your tap is.

Sorry, I forgot to say that I had taken the carbon out, it is running empty right now since the medication instructions told me to do so.

And I just tested a glass of my tap water, the nitrites in my tap water are 1.0 ppm


I also just looked up and read about API's erythromycin medication, it says it's safe on your biological filter and doesn't harm it.
*phew*

So, i'm guessing the culprit is my tap water?
Maybe I need to start going and getting distilled water to do my water changes once again..

 

[Tolak]

A cycled & mature biological filter should have no problem converting that amount of nitrite to nitrate in short order. If your tap water has 1.0ppm nitrite that is 0.25ppm in your tank after a 25% water change. This is really not much different that cheaper dechlorinators that split the chlorine/ammonia bond in chloramine, leaving a trace of ammonia that is quickly dealt with due to biological filtration.

Amaquel Plus is a dechlorinator, not a medication of any sort. Erythromycin is a common antibiotic. Using them together will have no affect at all on the other, or the fish. Many of you better dechlorinators contain what amounts to trade secret ingredients, which lessen or eliminate the effects of nitrite & nitrate. These are not medications.

 

[Jackiee]

A cycled & mature biological filter should have no problem converting that amount of nitrite to nitrate in short order. If your tap water has 1.0ppm nitrite that is 0.25ppm in your tank after a 25% water change. This is really not much different that cheaper dechlorinators that split the chlorine/ammonia bond in chloramine, leaving a trace of ammonia that is quickly dealt with due to biological filtration.

Amaquel Plus is a dechlorinator, not a medication of any sort. Erythromycin is a common antibiotic. Using them together will have no affect at all on the other, or the fish. Many of you better dechlorinators contain what amounts to trade secret ingredients, which lessen or eliminate the effects of nitrite & nitrate. These are not medications.

Thank you SO much.
Very much appreciated.

I did do a 50% water change with tap water before I started the antibiotic, then two 25% water changes after that. That must be why my tank even got up to 1.0 ppm of Nitrite. I'll wait for it to resolve itself.

 

[anon02]

If you are using the test strips be aware that they can be inaccurate, most experienced fishkeepers prefer the liquid reagent tests

 

[Jackiee]

Thanks, I know, I'm going to be buying a liquid test kit again after these strips are gone, which will be very soon with all the testing i've been having to do.

I had one before and it quit giving me accurate readings, it was telling me everything in my tank was fine, but then fish would start dying and I would take the fish and the water to the pet store, they would test it and say I had high levels of certain things in my tank.. and told me they recommended I get the test strips since my liquid kit wasn't working.

So, i dont know if maybe my liquid kit expired? can they do that?

I looked all over the box and papers, no expiration date on it, so I was kind of stumped.