Epsom Salts Dosage To Help Popeye?

[N0body Of The Goat]

Wondered if anyone can advise about how much the level of Epsom Salts can be safely raised (as in grams per litre of tank volume) per day and what a safe maximum concentration is?
 
One of my female Ilyodon xantusi livebearers has "double eye" Popeye, one eye being much worse (big red ring around protrusion) than the other. Combined with an anti-bacterial med (Esha 2000), Epsom Salts can be used to reduce the osmotic pressure in the fish, enabling the popeye tissue to heal quicker, but I have a vague memory about dosage being ~0.5g/l to a maximum of 3g/l.

 

[coolie]

For use in the main tank and not a hospital tank, I figured that I would go up to the dose that is given to planted tanks as a fertiliser,
although in doing so, understand that if it's not a planted tank, it will only be removed by water changes.
 
I can't remember the exact figure, but it worked out for my 240 litre to 3 lots of "half teaspoon" in a week, followed by a 50% water change at the end of the weekend before you could start re-dosing again.
 
On my 300 litre tank, I just added 1 heaped teaspoon to help a lot of mixed fish who all came in together, as the fear was "new tank syndrome" for fish which had been in very dirty (although cycled) water. Not one died.
 
Your does sounds a LOT stronger. Are you sure you are not talking about a hospital tank "DIP"?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

This is the best I could find so far:
 

Swelling of the fish’s eye will diminish with time, assuming the fish is healthy in other regards, and is provided with optimal water conditions and a healthy diet. Epsom salt helps to reduce swelling when used at a dose of 1 to 3 teaspoons per 5 gallons. While Epsom salt can be used in both freshwater and saltwater aquariums, fish are best treated this way in a quarantine tank rather than the main display aquarium.

from http/www.fishchannel.com/fish-health/disease-prevention/popeye.aspx
 
However, popeye is a symptom not a disease and the causes are wide and varied. Here is a brief piece on it:
 

 
Popeye or exophthalmia is a symptom, not a disease in itself and it can have a large number of potential causes. Some of these causes are incurable while others can potentially be cured on a sporadic basis. The bulging or protruding
eye(s), as the name 'popeye' implies, is symptomatic of this condition. Potential causes include --- infrequent water changes which results in a buildup of dissolved waste products in the water, Ichthyosporidium -- a parasitic fungus, Ichthyophonus, 'worm cataract disease'-- a function of the invasion of parasitic trematodes or flukes, bacterial infection, parasite infestation -- eye flukes and internal metabolic disorders.

Since the causes of popeye are so varied, the treatment is difficult. Some success has been noted in treatment of Ichthyosporidium using one percent phenoxyethanol at about 50gm per gallon of water.

Treatment for bacterial disease would best be accomplished using Tetracycline or Terramycin added to aquarium water every other day or mixing food at the rate of 100 mg of antibiotic to 4 oz. of food. Feeding should continue 10 days.

Fish tuberculosis can also be responsible for pop-eye. Since fish tuberculosis is a bacterial disease caused by such as Mycobacterium the same antibiotics can be used in the same manner for treatment if this is the suspected cause. Other effective treatments for bacterial exophthalia may include Chlortetracycline, Furazolidone, Nifurpirinol, Oxolinic acid, Oxytetracycline or potentiated sulphonamide.

Unfortunately these treatments are most effective when injected into the eye socket and less so when used as a bath.

If the fish has eye flukes, malachite green with formalin, metriphonate or copper are good, as are most of the commercial preps for flukes and external parasites.

This disease is rarely fatal and not particularly infectious. It often disappears on it's own in 2-3 weeks leaving no residual trace or may disappear leaving a cloudy eye and worst case, a missing eye.

Bear in mind that many of these treatments will negatively impact your biological filter so treatment in an isolation tank is best.

from http/badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article26.html

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

OK, thanks for the responses so far, I earlier added a conservative 0.25g/l to the 620T quarantine tank and the first day dose of Esha2000.