Fish Diseases | How to Treat Sick Fish
Carlrs
I cannot emphasize more that many if not most fish diseases, especially
bacterial or fungal in nature (including secondary infections to
parasitic infestations) have a background issue. Failure to eliminate
this background issue will often result in failure of treatment.
Often the "background issue" is more than half the problem, so a good
part of the treatment plan is REMOVING this background issue!!
A good analogy I like to use as to why it is so important to eliminate these issues is this:
"Not correcting causes or background issues is akin
to standing in a burning building asking for a treatment for burns,
while not leaving the burning building"
Unfortunately in my dealing with questions of what one should treat for a
given set of symptoms, I have found that for the majority of these
questions, the person asking the question either only addresses
underlying issues in part or not at all.
Often this is not because the person does not want to, but they simply
do not have the means or the availability for whatever reason to do so.
I would also point out, and while this may seem a bit harsh, it is still
the reality, and that is this is still not a valid excuse to continue
to ask for alternative treatments or complain to persons such as myself
that the treatment failed when proper procedures have not been
completely followed.
I personally spend a copious amount of time writing articles, answering questions, or even paying staff to help for free, but please remember that one needs to obviously follow the medication course prescribed, but just as importantly if not more so, deal with ALL underlying causes to a given fish illness problem. So repeatedly going in circles when not following exactly advice given is in my opinion disrespectful to the person who is trying to help you with your fish illness issue.
When you are asking others for help, whether it be online or at your
local fish store, make sure you ALWAYS provide background first;
including ALL water parameters (mineral Cations too), filtration,
maintenance, feeding, & fish kept. Past fish treatment history is
important too.
As an analogy; your personal Doctor always has your history, takes your
vital statistics, etc., so why should we expect those we are asking to
help us with our sick fish to guess, especially when one considers we
often are asking others to help us sight unseen and with far less tools
at our disposal than a Doctor would have?
Here first are basic procedures to check off before treating any fish sickness issue: