Re: NANFA-L-- captive fish disease and cures?

Bonnie McNeely (bnmcneely-in-sbcglobal.net)
Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:49:03 -0700 (PDT)

Becky, a quarintine tank for new arrivals is a good idea, whether the new fish are from a store, or from the wild. After they prove themselves to be healthy, then they can be placed in a community tank. New fish can be given a prophylactic dip to cause external parasites to drop off. Any good aquarium book will have directions for this. Fish from a healthy ecosystem are less likely to bring infections to your home aquaria than fish from a pet store are. But you really should quarintine them in either case.

Tetracycline may help some infected fishes, but I don't recommend using it. It is a broad spectrum antibiotic that helps to promote antibiotic resistant strains of pathogens. That's really bad.

People generally want to treat sick fish. But sometimes, sacrificing the fish to protect the others you have is better. Of course, if it's a rare or expensive fish, then more expense and trouble might be taken. I don't mean this to be callous, but it is the approach that might be best sometimes.

Hook caught fish almost always have some trauma. It would be much better to catch the fish you want for your aquarium with a seine. If you don't have a partner, check out NANFA members near you. You can even use a seine by yourself. And its lots more fun to fish with a seine than it is with a hook and line! You can catch a whole bunch of fish at once!

Dave

Becky Kendell <appycowgirl34-in-yahoo.com> wrote:
But with native fish captured from the wild, no matter how careful you are to catch healthy fish, isn't it inevitable that the fish are going to have things in or on them that a healthy pet store fish wouldn't? Is there something extra you do to treat fish when you get them or something you do different with the tank?

Becky
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