debate on when to medicate and preventive medicating

[Jaster]

So I got in a debate with a buddy of mine about medication. When ever he gets a new fish he QT's the fish and medicates with an antibiotic, melafix, and primafix. Which all in all doesn't seem like too much of a bad idea. But on top of this he also medicates his tanks once a week the same way. It's a low dose but still seems overkill and not really needed and a waste of money. While I can kind of get medicating a QT tank, but if the main tanks are healthy I'm not seeing a point to preventive medicating for a "just in case". The meds wont hurt the fish and if something does pop up for whatever reason he's ahead of the game. The cost of meds is still less than the cost of replacing fish.

Though I do have to admit it's rare I ever see him with a dead fish. unless its from a fight... and I'm forced to admit he's never had a tank illness. But I still lean more to thats because he takes very good care of his tanks then it is the meds. I've also bet him that if he stopped the meds he'd have the same result.

So I'm curious what you all think of QT medicating and preventive medicating?

[Slaphppy7]

I treat my tanks with Prazipro when I add new fish, that's it.

I don't have a QT tank.

[Brhino]

melafix and pimafix are pretty harmless. I doubt those are doing much one way or the other the way he's using them. The antibiotics, though... seems to me like that's just asking for a resistant strain of something to come in.

[Rocksor]

Never low dose on a regular basis. The pathogens will become immune to the antibiotics/medication. When using antibiotics, what ever fish it is, it needs to use the full dose. Both pimafix and melafix are really weak preventatives, and I find no use for either one quarantine.

You can medicate for parasites in QT. Parasites can live in a host for months, showing no ill effect to the fish. Parasites can infect other fish while the original host is still healthy and not showing symptoms.

In QT, the fish are stressed out due to being in a new environment. I generally treat for parasites in QT. It's during this stress period that ich can break out and I proactively treat for ich, by raising the temperature to 82-84F, and treat the tank with 2 tablespoon of salt per 5 gallons. I feed the fish epsom salt soaked food to deal with any nematodes in the digestive system. I treat with prazipro for some parasites. I will start to treat new fish for camallanus worms with levamisole since it's shown itself in my areaover the last couple of years, and no fish store has proven to be immune to these nasty worms in the last couple of years since a lot of the worms I go to take in donated fish.

The main tank never gets any medication unless I suspect parasites or infection.

[Boundava]

:+1: :yeahthat: Agree 100% and thanks as I learned a lot.

[Jaster]

That's pretty much what my argument was. I was always taught it would destroy their immune system. Personally I dont medicate anything unless I see a reason to. I've never had a problem... any problem that does ever pop up is normally confined to the QT tank. Kind of the point of it... lol