Homemade Medicated Food?

[Assaye]

Just lost a large number of fish to columnaris. Disinfected the tank, moved the fish to a different tank, medicated the fish as a precaution and disinfected all nets and equipment. However, seems one of my two remaining female bettas is developing that tell-tale mouth rot. It's only minor at the moment but I'm already noticing a change in her behaviour. For some reason I'm getting small spikes in ammonia and nitrites. Doing water changes as necessary to keep levels at 0, but this obviously isn't helping the fish fight the infection.

She is being fed with brineshrimp soaked in garlic but I was wondering if there were any meds I could use to soak her food in? Would this be safe? I am treating with Myxazin. I also have some Melafix somewhere (I think) and some API Anti-Internal Bacteria stuff.

Suggestions? How should I be treating this?

 

[mbsqw1d]

If you've got Melafix lying around I'd definitley use a little! Why do you think you have had the spikes? Have you over-cleaned your filter media? The less stress your fish undergoes from now on will be it's success to recovery. I believe Columnaris is usually contracted by stressed fish. I have had a look for Tetracycline for which you can treat your fish food with however cannot find a version that doesn't require a prescription...! I'll keep looking! Have you added any salt this could help a little too. good look

 

[Tolak]

Being in the UK you will probably have to get any antibiotics for your fish through a vet. Medications such as Maracyn (Erythromycin) and Maracyn II (Tetracycline) are available over the counter in the US.

For mixing with food, you want to medicate with 100mg/kg of fish weight/day for 21 days with Erythromycin, 50-75mg/kg of fish weight per day for 14 days with Oxytetracycline. Erythromycin treats gram positive bacteria, Oxytetracycline treats gram negative, though there is some cross over with both.

Seeing as a kg is a big fish, you will have to do some math. Just for a quick reference, an angel that is dollar body size weights 8-9g per my scale. You will also need a scale that weighs grams to mix the medication with food, frozen brine shrimp is one of my favorite vehicles for meds.

One big difficulty with feeding medicated food to fish when there is more than one fish in the tank is the amount one eats, some fish eat faster, some slower. With an individual fish in a med tank this is not an issue.