Are we really accomplishing anything by treating the fish? Granted, simple
things like ick and so forth are worth treating and parasites are easy to
treat as well but with these other diseases aren't we just wasting our
time? External ulcers are only half of the manifestation of the disease.
Internal ulcers are just as common and in my opinion incurrable.
When it comes to the humane treatment of the animal (a subject a lot of you
believe in) what is best?? Swimming in a mildly toxic "ocean", getting you
side scraped and some stinging solution applied to the open wound or just
being put out of the misery and being saved of being our little project and
going through the torture we call treatment....
I will pass on the torture. No criticism intended.
Roy Hunter
Co-Chairman
ANGFA of North America
visit the ANGFA website at:
http://www.angfa.org
reach me at:
roy at angfa.org
----------
> From: Chen Leong <cleong at btr.com.au>
> To: rainbowfish at pcug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [RML] Ulcer disease
> Date: Sunday, May 18, 1997 5:10 PM
>
> At 11:59 PM 5/15/97 -0400, you wrote:
> >I know this subject has been gone over again and again, but I'm going to
> >ask anyways. I work at a shop and one of my customers is describing
what
> >sounds like the dreaded ulcer disease (tuberculosis, right?) on some
> >praecox. I won't know until she brings me one to look at. In short,
what
> >is the consensus: is there any effective treatment for this or do you
> >destroy the infected fish? Thanks for anything...
> >
> >
>
> Chris,
>
> In my experience, I have not found a complete cure for the dreaded ulcer
> disease. I lost about 10-12 adult bows from my community tank with the
> ulcer disease over a period of about 2 months last year. The best action
to
> take is to remove the affected fish from the community tank, as the
disease
> spreads quickly through the tank. I tried everything under the sun,
spoke
> to many other fishkeepers and stores, read the list archive, and spent a
> fortune on medications. Nothing succeeded and I ended up destroying the
> sick bows.
>
> As an experiment and I guess as a last resort, I "treated" a male
> trifasciata during the early stages of the ulcer, and the ulcer faded
into a
> little "scar" on the fish. When I say a scar, the white pimple of an
ulcer
> has been replaced by hardened tissue of a yellowish cream colour. That
was
> about 6 months ago, and the ulcer has not re-appeared. I have not and do
> not intend to re-introduce this fish back into the community tank for
fear
> that the ulcer may spread again. It is still on its own in a quarantine
> tank - as I am monitoring its progress.
>
> The treatment I applied was as follows :
>
> Increase the water hardness to around 200 - 300 ppm. I also added shell
> grit to maintain the hardness.
> Add acriflavin to the water - around 10 ml per 10 litres of water
> Swab the ulcer with mercurochrome.
> Keep the aeration on high.
> Change 20% of the water every two to three days, add appropriate amount
of
> acriflavin, and re-apply mercurochrome to ulcer daily for 1 week.
>
>
> I hope this of some help to you and your customer.
>
> I too would be interested in hearing other list members' views.
>
> Chen