Metro Doesn't Work! PLEASE HELP!!

[Gooose]

HI everyone, i would greatly appreciate any help anyone can give me. About two weeks ago i realized one of my discus was really sick, and when i saw white poop(long and stringy) coming out, and a hole in the head, i decided to quarentine him. i treated him with metronidazole for about a week, (250/10 gal) every 8 hours and unfortunately i have seen no improvement. he still doesnt eat and isnt looking any better. is there anything last resort measure i can do to save him, i really would hate to lose him considering he is, or was, my most beautiful fish. thank you so much for any help and hopefully we can save this guy. ANY suggestions would be appreciated(even crazy ones), thanks:(

[dntx5b9]

I heard Jungle Parasite Clear works well. I never had luck treating discus with Metro, so I am going to buy some JPC to have it handy just in case.

[fishgeek]

i would suggest the dose should be about 5 times that
i use 25mgs/litre though it is not applied as often as you are doing

metronidazol is not particularly water soluble and it may be that at the lower levels there is never a high enough plasma level in the fish

if the fish is eating try to get it internally
crushing metronidazol and allowing filter feeders like daphnia to swim in it and ingest it can be a nice way if you are happy feeding live foods

andrew

[j.c fishfan]

How are you treating it with metro?

Try getting the discus out and squirting the medication into its mouth.

HTH

Jamie :D

[Pauluk]

Tetra (the fish experts) have published an article and state using metro at more than 10mg per litre is both unecessary and can cause side effects like cancer to fish.......

If you're in a country where Emtryl (dimetridazole) is available, then this would be the drug of choice used at 5mgs per litre with the fish being left in it for 3 days, Tetra tested both substances and proved metro is just a flagellate suppressor, whereas Emtryl was proven to destroy them.

Also please bear in mind if the fish is eating and not going dark or showing signs of fin erosion, then it probably has a digestive dissorder rather than a flagellate problem.

If this is the case a combination treatment of interpet no.9 combined with flubenol 15 has proven to sort this, and this would be the obvious way forward if there are no proven flagellate symptoms, increasing the metro dose to a level above 10mg per litre would be foolhardy and possibly dangerous, according to the experts, so please don't go there...........................

[Pauluk]

Tetra (the fish experts) have published an article and state using metro at more than 10mg per litre is both unecessary and can cause side effects like cancer to fish.......

If you're in a country where Emtryl (dimetridazole) is available, then this would be the drug of choice used at 5mgs per litre with the fish being left in it for 3 days, Tetra tested both substances and proved metro is just a flagellate suppressor, whereas Emtryl was proven to destroy them.

Also please bear in mind if the fish is eating and not going dark or showing signs of fin erosion, then it probably has a digestive dissorder rather than a flagellate problem.

If this is the case a combination treatment of interpet no.9 combined with flubenol 15 has proven to sort this, and this would be the obvious way forward if there are no proven flagellate symptoms, increasing the metro dose to a level above 10mg per litre would be foolhardy and possibly dangerous, according to the experts, so please don't go there...........................

[fishgeek]

can you post a link to the tetra article please paul?


refrence for dose listed in my post is BSAVA manual of ornamental fish 1996


If you're in a country where Emtryl (dimetridazole) is available, then this would be the drug of choice used at 5mgs per litre with the fish being left in it for 3 days.

here is a scientific paper with dose's for dimetridazol of 80mgs/l in discus affected with cryptobia(a flaggellated parasite) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=15154736&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

just to show that dose's for different infections/situations can vary widely




Tetra tested both substances and proved metro is just a flagellate suppressor, whereas Emtryl was proven to destroy them.

another link showing that both medications have a similar efficacy against spironucleus as a flagellated parasite, both are called inhibitors
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10590928&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum




Also please bear in mind if the fish is eating and not going dark or showing signs of fin erosion, then it probably has a digestive dissorder rather than a flagellate problem.

i may be misunderstanding this statement, are you suggesting that a flagellate problem can not be a digestive problems aswell?

obviously the correct thing to do is make a firm diagnosis
then establish the correct treatment and the most efficacious method of administration
unfortunately in the aquatic hobby that rarely happens

andrew

[samir]

Here's an entire paper supporting Andrew's point of view.
http://www.int-res.com/articles/dao/38/d038p047.pdf

Goose, maybe you should up dosage to 500/10 gal or try an alternate like dimetridazole. Have you used metro before. Generally anything available over the counter is abused and is not very effective.
if the fish starts eating feed him 1.5g metro per 100 gram food till the poo is solid for 3 or 4 days.

[j.c fishfan]

DO NOT USE DIMETRONIDAZOLE!!!

I know someone who keeps tropheus (they are prone to bloat) and he treated with dimetronidazole he then figured out that dimetro kills all benificial bacteria.Not only did he have a case of bloat on his hands he had a nasty case of ammonia poisoning!!

Please dont use dimetro for yours and your fishes sake.

Jamie :D

[samir]

he could have put them in a hospital tank ???

[fishgeek]

any antibiotic used in a filter of a tank will have a very variable response

many scientific studies have been done with variable results , the general conclusion being that dependant on the fish load, biobacterial load,filter maturity and probably many other things the result is different

for example if antibiotic is 50% effective over the course(many medications are bacteriostatic ie stop reproduction and rely on the host to clear the living bacterial infection)
and we have a filter bacterial population of 1000 bacterial units

10 fish
each fishes total waste waste production can be handle by 50 bacterial units then
we would have 500 bacterial units left and be producing the same amount of watse
in this case no problems with ammonia

add 2 more fish and there would be a temporary problem

fully stock for bacterial caacity and major problem
have a new filter with only a atarting point of 450 bacterial units and again a mjor problem

there is hardly ever only one answer
andrew

[Pauluk]

The citation came from the Tetra aquatic library published in Germany, it is in booklet form, which is in hard copy here. Whats below is from a mate.


Although I see the test results they are cited in vitro, and as we all know that doesn't mean at the concentrations cited fish aren't killed also!!!!!

What works in a plastic container doesn't often work in a live animal, and from practical experience doses of more than 20mg per litre of Emtryl, kill discus within 48 hours in soft acidic water, and as is stated by Tetra, metro is only a suppressant, it may work differently in vitro, I'm talking in practical terms with live fish, and not a one off experiment in a lab without livestock, perhaps the substance is destroyed more easily in a living creature than Emtryl, I don't know, I keep fish, not plastic culture samples, so it's experience v plastic cultures.................................

Again from experience, if a fish is eating, the levels of possible flagellate attack are low enough to be eliminated with no.9 and flubenol 15, thus also eliminating digestive dissorders that can also be the causitive factor, which aren't eliminated with flagyl.

I don't want this to get into a war of words with scientific papers being cited with in vitro tests, they really are irrelevant here, I'm just trying to help from an experience point of view, not from the studies done by someone who probably hasn't had much hands on experience with discus, compared to someone who's whole business relies upon first hand experience, not anecdotal lab, non animal experiments, hence the longer dose period at lower dose levels to ensure the safety of the animal concerned, and surely as vets you can appreciate that??

[fishgeek]

paul is the quote you supplied published by tetra? or is that a single keepers experience ?
can you list the title of this tetra publication

experience is nice and ancedotal evidence is good , published controlled scientific peer reviewed is better and randomised controlled double blind study's are better again, though we have very littel of this available to us

basically i dont think we know much about the pharmacodynamics of any of these medications in an aquatic situation

from the top article i linked you can see there is a contradiction in what your friend feels and what that study saw , the dimetridazol was used at 4 times the dose that he believes is lethal to fish and it was used on living discus

andrew

i still stand by the making a faecal examination and treating what is there

[Pauluk]

The Tetra publication is part of the Tetra library, (small booklets) and the anglefish publication is the one that talks about metronidazole and dimetridazole. The recommended level cited for metro is 7mg per litre.

I agree with peer papers, as long as they aren't part of a sponsored research where the pressure is often on to get some results, and are only trialed once, I would be pleased to see any other paper where levels above 10mg per litre have been shown to be safe on fish, as oxygen depletion using Emtryl above that level, is deemed to be lethal within the discus trade, and within wholesaler results in general, rams will not even tolerate 10mgs per litre, but from my point of view these can never compare to what happens in a long established business situation, where results have to be right and aren't sponsored except for the results being the difference between the success or failure of the business. I think if you search you will find the help from my mate has been cited in at least one paper from Plymouth University in the process of destroying flagellated attacks which cause hole in the head etc. and where the paper is published, and again levels of Emtryl were contained well below 80mgs per litre, so as with everything in life we can all cite other peoples work, but experience counts for far more than one incident, and my peers happen to be successful people with discus.

I agree with faecal checks, as long as time permits for the results to be quantified, but with experience this tends not to be necessary.

Emtryl above 5mg per litre also stop/suppress discus from spawning, this is touched upon in the Tetra publication also, and from a hobbyist/business perspective, this is very important, and hints suggest that Emtryl may well cause other problems including cancer also, hence its non allowed useage within the EU, infact it is not legal to buy sell or prescribe the substance within the EU which intensifies my point for only using at very low doses if to be used at all, and at 80mg per litre I again point out in all but the one citation you use, it has proved lethal in practice.

Lets please put the safety of our fish to the forefront here, some or possibly most of the people here don't have access to lab equipment, and although it would be nice to be able to analyse things, in most instances within the hobby results depend on experience passed on from successful aquarists and not the odd publication never repeated, or used on any large scale within the hobby.