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Humblefish

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@Steve1500 You can feed metro soaked food in conjunction with Prazipro. Just be sure to also use Seachem Focus, to bind the medication to the food and prevent it from leaching out into the water column.
 

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Ok stringy poop is no longer there. I assume to treat anyway as a precaution?
 

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Question @Humblefish on feeding the metro. I feed several times a day so should the meds be in all feedings or just once a day?
 

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I am confused on Metro+ as Hikari's description indicates for use against hole in head/lateral line disease/microbial diseases. Is Metro+ a reef safe med or just for QT?
 
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I am confused on Metro+ as Hikari's description indicates for use against hole in head/lateral line disease/microbial diseases. Is Metro+ a reef safe med or just for QT?

Reef safe if you soak it in food and use a binder such as Seachem Focus to prevent it from leaching out.

But I wouldn't dose it directly into a reef tank.
 

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I like to wait 30 mins before feeding and be sure you use a binder to prevent the med from leaching out into the water column. Also, running carbon isn't a bad insurance policy just in case a little does leach out. ;)

Exactly

@Humblefish If one fish has a parasite and eats only pellets, obviously I'd have to medicate the pellets. If there are other fish in the tank that eat mysis shrimp, would I have to medicate that food also? How do we know if other fish are infected?
 

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Well, looks like one Purple Tang made it through QT with some intestinal parasites still living. It was skinny on arrival but otherwise enthusiastic about everything. Gave it two doses of GC in QT, and then CP, but now in the display it's still very thin despite a ravenous appetite, and yes it is displaying intermittent WSP. (Doncha love all these acronyms?) Which isn't a huge surprise as I didn't use medicated food, just the metro in the water.

Aside: I've also noticed defects in its dorsal and anal fins which could be nips although it seems I've read somewhere that nutritional deficiencies (like you get with parasites) can also cause this, although I can't find the source now. Anyone else know of something like this?

Anyway, so now I'm going to use either metro or GC, mixed with Focus and frozen food, to try and eliminate this. Should be pretty easy, with time, as this fish is very hungry and loves meaty foods as well as algae. I was going to follow @Humblefish's recommendation (thank you sir!), but before doing that, I wanted to consider GC a bit more.

First, what are the actual concentrations of metro in the two products? -

Metroplex is 70% metro, or 700 mg metro per gram of powder. 1 scoop of Metroplex is 0.22 grams of powder, or 154 mg metronidazole.

GC has 250 mg metro per packet. Each packet is 2.1 g of powder. Concentration of metro in GC is therefore 119 mg per gram powder. Much lower than with Metroplex. To get the same amount of medication in your food mix, you would need to use 5.9 times as much GC as Metroplex. But how much is actually needed to be effective? Could you use a similar amount of GC, resulting in much less metro in the food, but have it still work and also be less hazardous for inverts? I don't know, but I don't think I'll try it this time, I'll just go with Metroplex as recommended.

Another question about GC when used this way: Praziquantel is pretty much safe for fish externally. Is it known to be safe when ingested with food?
 
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@rkpetersen Seachem will not disclose the actual concentration of metronidazole contained in Metroplex. At least not to me. ;) API is a lot more transparent about the metro found in GC: 25mg/gal. That's right at the high end of the recommended dosage. Now, whether or not the metronidazole found in any of these products is pharmaceutical grade is highly dubious. o_O I buy generic meds from Diamondback Drugs, Fishman Chemical, National Fish Pharmaceutical and Fish Remedies LLC, and they all stress to me that their products are pharmaceutical grade and purity is close to 100%. But unless I am willing to pay for an expensive chemical analysis, how do I really know?? :confused:

I doubt any studies have been done to determine how safe it is to use medications (or med laced food) on ornamental fish. (Using medications on fish meant for human consumption is a no-go.) However, this study (for example) mentions using praziquantel administered orally to help treat a monogenean infestation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23488766
 

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@rkpetersen Seachem will not disclose the actual concentration of metronidazole contained in Metroplex. At least not to me. ;)

Thanks Humblefish. Sounds like prazi is relatively safe to give orally.

On the Metroplex container, it says that is 70% metronidazole, and 30% excipients. I based my calculations on those numbers.
 

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Something just occurred to me: If an ornamental shrimp gets a hold of and eats a piece of medicated food, will it cause it harm? Is metro toxic to shrimp? If so, that somewhat complicates feeding in the DT; I have a sizable number of shrimp and crabs.
 
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Something just occurred to me: If an ornamental shrimp gets a hold of and eats a piece of medicated food, will it cause it harm? Is metro toxic to shrimp? If so, that somewhat complicates feeding in the DT; I have a sizable number of shrimp and crabs.

I’ve had cleaner shrimp & fire shrimp grab ahold of Metro + Focus laced food. They take a bite, spit it out, and then let go of the food. But no ill effects.
 

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I have a clownfish with white stringy poop. Noticed it yesterday and again today. Very thin, like hair, about an inch long. Only noticed it on one of the two clowns. They are in a qt tank.

I don't have Focus but should have it tomorrow along with Metroplex.

I do have General Cure on hand. Should I soak the food in GC and just treat with that? Or dose the qt tank with GC? Should I wait for the Focus? Treating fish is new to me and I don't want to mess up.
 
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I do have General Cure on hand. Should I soak the food in GC and just treat with that? Or dose the qt tank with GC? Should I wait for the Focus? Treating fish is new to me and I don't want to mess up.

You can food soak either General Cure or Metroplex. But do be sure to use Focus so none of the medication leaches out and damages your corals/inverts.

Ratio is: 1 scoop of Focus & 1 scoop of medication per 1 tablespoon of frozen or pellets.
 

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I’ve had cleaner shrimp & fire shrimp grab ahold of Metro + Focus laced food. They take a bite, spit it out, and then let go of the food. But no ill effects.

FOLLOWUP:

So, I went ahead and treated the Purple Tang with obvious intestinal parasites (see previous posts), as well as the other 4 fish in the 100g tank, with medicated food for 14 days.

Frozen food was used (LRS and Rod's), thoroughly mixed with unexpired Focus and either General Cure (in AM) or Metroplex (in PM) per above instructions, allowed to sit for 30 minutes, and then fed to the tank a few small pieces at a time. I would observe who actually consumed each piece of medicated food. All food fragments were in the 2-5 mm size range.

The Purple Tang ravenously consumed the most food, consistently, over the 2 weeks. This tang was very thin with signs of nutritional deficiency before treatment. In addition to the medicated food, I also gave him dried seaweed moistened with Selcon midday. I haven't seen any white stringy feces since just before the start of treatment. Also, over the last week, I've seen dramatic weight gain with this guy, with bulking up of dorsal muscle mass such that I can no longer see his spine. Very happy about this.

The real reason for this followup post, though, is this: Despite my best efforts, over the two weeks, other animals besides fish would capture and consume pieces of medicated food. The first time this happened, I was very apprehensive. All told, 3 different skunk cleaner shrimp ate medicated food on 6 occasions, a blood red fire shrimp once, different bubble tip anemones on 4 occasions, and a rock flower anemone once. All of them are still alive and none showed any evidence of distress after these meals. One of the skunks even molted a few days later (it was due), and came through it fine.

So, anecdotally, it appears that ingesting food laced with metronidazole or praziquantel is not acutely harmful to at least some inverts we commonly keep, when taken in small quantities. :)
 
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Thank you @Humblefish . This is very helpful, and I am clear on instructions using Prazipro, Metroplex and Focus.

I have a clownfish that has had white stringy poop. My concern is that he is housed with a yellow watchman goby that is paired with a small pistol shrimp. The clown does not always have white stringy poop, but I've seen it twice. Both fish must be treated though, yes? I just don't see how I can feed the goby while keeping laced food away from the shrimp without splitting the pair, which I don't want to do.

I suppose I will drop laced food as far from their burrow as I can, (the goby doesn't venture very far and they're all in a small QT), and target the burrow with unlaced food a couple of times per week to feed the shrimp something safe. Is there anything you would do differently?
 
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Both fish must be treated though, yes? I just don't see how I can feed the goby while keeping laced food away from the shrimp without splitting the pair, which I don't want to do.

Yes; internal parasites are usually spread when one fish eats some of the white stringy poo of an infected specimen. So, it's best to assume any tank mates are also infected.

I suppose I will drop laced food as far from their burrow as I can, (the goby doesn't venture very far and they're all in a small QT), and target the burrow with unlaced food a couple of times per week to feed the shrimp something safe. Is there anything you would do differently?

I wouldn't worry too much if the pistol shrimp gets a hold of a small piece of medicated food; as attested to by @rkpetersen in the post right above yours. ;) That being said, I do believe @Bob Loblaw had a bad experience when some metro laced food came into contact with an anemone he had. :eek:
 

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