[philipraposo1982]

How long does it take to take the avg pet shop fish to full health?

Before I move the group of new lemon tetras (40 fish) to my main tank I want to get them as healthy as I can. How long would it take ? Months? Weeks? Days?

I am feeding 3-4 feeding per day (small ones), mix variety of premium foods, biweekly large water changes.

Thoughts??

 

[WaterLife]

A week of good feeding would be enough to have them well fed/nourished.

I typically give fish at least 3-4 days to settle in before I re-locating them again (simply due to fish stress).

For quarantining to make sure they are not infected with anything, I quarantine for at least 1 month, as some infections can take a month to really show (particularly internal parasites).

 

[philipraposo1982]

Wouldn't an internal parasite show sooner because the infected fish woukd likely not be eating. Or would probably not be nice and fat, show poor color etc right?

 

[AquaAurora]

Some diseases/bacteria/etc can take up to 3+ weeks to show, which is why many people quarantine new first for a month before putting them into existing communities/planted tanks to avoid contamination risks.

 

[Nordic]

Nope, Some of my fish took 3 months to start showing signs, I know when the worms got into the system...
Just got back from buying Levamisole this morning.

If you want my opinion, and there will be people who will disagree, rather than doing a passive quarantine, deworm your fish (treatment is typically 24 hours, repeated after 2-3 weeks), then treat the outside of the fish, with one of the milder anti bacterial/fungus type medicines (5 days). Everything at half dose as tetras can be sensitive. This way by the time you transfer the fish into your system, they will pretty much be clean inside and out. Guess you could hit them with some kanamycin too just incase they harbour bacterial infections.

I bought some potassium permanganate yesterday to clean some plants with. That too can be used to disinfect the outside of a fish (it basically oxidises the slime coat off the fish), so it is pretty dangerous, especially considering how close a therapeutic dose is to a lethal one... i.e. you need a good scale and some deformed fish to practice on, check. I would follow it up with salt to rebuild the slimecoat.

 

[philipraposo1982]

I believe this whole thing about taking time to show is not entirely accurate. Post some scientific paper or something solid to back this up.

It's far more likely that the fish is already infected but due to the move / transport or stresses from other factors the fish immune is weakened and then the parasite then takes over.

I don't think it has anything to do with a certain time frame.

Nope, Some of my fish took 3 months to start showing signs, I know when the worms got into the system...
Just got back from buying Levamisole this morning.

If you want my opinion, and there will be people who will disagree, rather than doing a passive quarantine, deworm your fish (treatment is typically 24 hours, repeated after 2-3 weeks), then treat the outside of the fish, with one of the milder anti bacterial/fungus type medicines (5 days). Everything at half dose as tetras can be sensitive. This way by the time you transfer the fish into your system, they will pretty much be clean inside and out. Guess you could hit them with some kanamycin too just incase they harbour bacterial infections.

I find flaws with this. Sure you may of taken care of the fish and removed potential parasites or infections. But now you stressed the fish with med. Then you move the fish to the new tank and care more stress do to handling and adjusting to a new home.

But this new home is not sterile.. It's full of pathogens and other fish, the new arrivals come in clean but get sick because they immune is weak.

 

[Nordic]

Yep, you need to approach it with some care, I agree just ramming them through that process as fast as possible and then dumping them in a new tank would be risky and surely unpleasant.
I would still take as long as those keeping the fish a month in quarantine, and try to get the fish in top condition by feeding quality food. Their resistance is going to depend on their immune system and condition.
The amount of effort is directly relatable to how many fish you are protecting.
As a live bearer breeder, I have hundreds of fry in different stages. It is of the greatest importance to keep things clean, suffering a small percentage of losses in treatment is preferable to system-wide wipe out.

I'm starting all my tanks on de-wormer tomorrow. Trying to feed them well now as they wont be eating (kinda drunk) for the 24 hours they have the medicine.

I forgot to add that levamisole is an immune booster.

How does[censored]Levamisole[censored]HCL work as an immunomodulator?

The mechanism of action for its immunostimulating effects are not well understood. It is believed that it restores cell-mediated immune function in peripheral T-lymphocytes and stimulates phagocytosis by monocytes. The drug appears to[censored]restore[censored]depressed immune function rather than to stimulate response to above-normal levels. There are multitudes of medical studies being done with its use in humans and animals, the goal being to attain understanding of its immunomodulating mechanism. The mechanism will be defined, with time. However, at the time of the writing of this article, there is no complete answer to this question. For us, it is enough to know that it does stimulate immune function in fish that are suffering due to parasites or disease.

http://www.loaches.com/disease-treatment/levamisole-hydrochloride-1/?searchterm=levamisole

 

[philipraposo1982]

Well all I have been doing is feeding alot of small meals and keeping up with water changes often. They are doing extremely well so far. Not one sick looking fish, this is by far the best group of fish I have ever bought.

 

[Nordic]

So far the deworming is going well. The fish do not seem in the least negatively affected.
They look rejuvenated if anything. Some of the fish that started self isolating, seem a lot better allready.
oh and everyone is pooping like there is no tommorrow. Great laxative

A small note on dosing levamisole hydrochloride. Recommended dose is 2mg /L (8mg/g) (you can just type x gallon in litre in Google for a conversion).
Anyway, this 2mg is for the levamisole part, and obviously the hydrochloride part of the molecule also weighs something, so doing 2mg hydrochloride would be under dosing by almost a 5th.
I'll save you the long explanation and just show you how to calculate.

Let's say you have a 55gal on bare bottom like mine, the measured water was 189.25L (50gal).
Rounding up. 2mg *190 = 380mg or 0.38g
0.38/204.32=y
0.38/204.32=.0018598277
Now
y *240.78 =dose
0018598277*240.78= 0.448g