Red pest is a disease that affects fish and that can cause bloody streaks on the fins, tail and body of the fish. Blood streaks do not have to appear in all these areas for it to be red pest; it will sometimes only affect the body or fins. The disease can in severe cases cause the fins and the tail to fall of. Red pest disease usually infects already weakened fish and is uncommon in healthy fish in well kept aquariums.
Red pest is an internal fish disease and external medications are therefore seldom effective. External remedies can sometimes be effective if the disease is caught very early but it is still recommended to use internal medication instead. The best way to treat red pest is to add antibiotic to the fish food. Mix antibiotics with flake food carefully. Adding about 1% antibiotics to the food is ideal but a slightly higher dosage can be required in severe cases. Avoid using stronger doses if the case isn't severe as it can have unwanted side effects. It can be good to starve the fish a little before feeding them the medicated flake food to make sure that they eat it. There are a variety of different antibiotics that can be used, e.g. tetracycline and chloromycetin (chloramphenicol). Antibiotics can be added to other foods like frozen food as well in the same concentration. If you for some reason can't get the fish to ingest the antibiotics you can try to add no more than 10 mg of antibiotics per litre water. This will however not be as effective and might not cure the disease.
It is also recommended to clean the aquarium and adding a fish safe disinfectant such as acriflavine (trypaflavine) or monacrin (monoaminoacridine) to the aquarium if red pest is present. Use 1 ml disinfectant per litre water. Stop using the disinfectant if the fish seem to experience discomfort by its presence. The abovementioned disinfectants will color the water. Disinfectants can be enough to treat the fish in mild cases of red pest but I strongly recommend that you don't rely on that.
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