Broad Spectrum Antibiotics For Fish

This Is Why Taking Fish Medicine Is Truly A Bad Idea

Those who misuse aquatic antibiotics are playing a dangerous game with their health, doctors and veterinarians say

Earlier this month, a from author Rachel Sharp alerted the Internet to a disturbing trend: Some people were resorting to taking fish antibiotics to cure their ailments. Yes, fish antibiotics. Sharps Tweet, which quickly went viral, included a screenshot of several thinly veiled Amazon reviews left by humans who were clearly using the aquatic pet medicine Moxifish on themselves.

Naturally, the Internet was appalled. But few stopped to ask: whats actually so wrong with taking fish antibiotics?

How bad is American healthcare?Read the reviews for aquarium antibiotics and decide for yourself.

Rachel Sharp

Its not quite as crazy as it sounds. Fish are given many of the same antibiotics as humansamoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, penicillin and moresometimes even in the same doses. These pills, which are intended to be dissolved in fish tanks and be absorbed through fishes’ skin, can also look extremely similar to the human versions. And while a trip to the doctor can rack up hundreds of dollars for someone who doesn’t have insurance, a bottle of 30 500mg capsules of Moxifish costs just $29.95 from the supplier, Fishceuticals.

But there are a few key reasons why taking your fishs drugs is a very bad, no good idea. Lets start at the top.

But even if fish meds were labeled as human-grade medicines, using them to self-medicate would still be a bad idea.

Opting The Best Option:

Take your cat to the veterinarian immediately any time it appears ill or injured. However, there are holistic approaches that can be effective in keeping your cat healthy in the first place.

While it is not advocated using natural alternatives over traditional medications, learning more about supporting your cats immune system can help devise a lifelong healthy strategy.

Because an antibiotic is AN ANTIBIOTIC and can not be played with unless or until emergency and well know-how.

Fish Mox for cats has many benefits, some side effects and should always be taken as directed by a professional vet.

Communicating closely with your veterinarian is the best way to ensure your cats amoxicillin treatment is doing the trick to ensure its path to health and well-being.

Doxycycline Hyclate Fish Aquarium Treatment Fish Health Antibiotics

$80.00$51.00

DOXYCYCLINES

Description: Doxycycline 100 mg is a broad spectrum antibiotic that belongs to the family of oxytetracyclines. I can act against gram negative and gram positive bacteria that commonly infect aquarium fish. It is particularly useful in treating different bacterial diseases like ulcers, sores, fin rot, mouth rot and tail rot. To some extent, it can also be used in treating fish diseases caused by fungi. Compared to other antibiotics, doxycycline is said to cause less stress in fish and other aquarium inhabitants. It can also be used in any water regardless of its pH levels, and it not affected by light.

DOSAGE:

The treatment is usually done by incorporating doxycycline into the tank water. Add 1 tablet per 10 gallon of water. Application is repeated every 24 hours for 10 consecutive days. Before placing medications in the tank water, aquarium keepers are also advised to first change 25% of the water inside the tank.

34 in stock

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Consequences Of Improper Dosage And Treatment Time

If the dose is too high or treatment times are too long, there is a danger of toxicity to the fish, frequently causing liver, kidney, or other organ damage that may or may not be reversible.

On the other hand, if the dose of antibiotic is too low or treatment time is too short, the bacteria will not be killed or weakened enough for the immune system of the fish to remove them, and this greatly increases the risk of the bacteria developing resistance to the antibiotic. When bacteria become resistant to a specific antibiotic, even high concentrations of that drug will not be effective.

Antibiotic resistance can also occur when antibiotics are used improperly, such as the ‘shot-gunning’ method. ‘Shot-gunning’ involves administering one antibiotic after another to a population of fish, frequently at improper dosages, for shortened treatment times, and without the aid of proper diagnosis . If shot-gunning is used frequently at a facility, resistance is almost certain to occur. In some cases, the problem may not be due to bacteria, but rather poor water quality or other management issues that have not been properly investigated.

Like Little Chemical Factories

Bacteria are minute organisms invisible to the naked eye. There are many different types of bacteria and they are probably the most diverse group of organisms on the planet each like a little chemical factory. Very few species are pathogenic . Those that are harmful can be divided into two basic types Gram-negative and Gram-positive. This simple grouping is based on a staining technique in which Gram-negative bacteria stain red, while the Gram-positives stain blue because of differences in the cell-wall structure.

Most bacterial fish pathogens, such as Aeromonas, Pseudomonas, Vibrio, Flavobacterium and Cytophaga are Gram-negative bacteria. These are the bacteria that are usually involved with bacterial disease such as ulcers, fin rot, acute septicaemia and bacterial gill disease. Less common pathogens are Mycobacterium and Norcardia sp. which cause chronic granulomas .

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Proper Dosages And Treatment Regimens: Pharmacokinetics

Although selecting the correct antibiotic is an important first step in controlling bacterial disease, proper administration of any antibiotic for the recommended number of days is equally important. Your fish health specialist should provide you with instructions on the dose , the frequency and duration it should be administered , withdrawal time and any other relevant information. The technical term for the branch of medical science that determines all of these variables is ‘pharmacokinetics’ defined as the study of how drugs are absorbed by, distributed within, chemically altered within, and eventually excreted by the body .

How are the pharmacokinetics of a specific antibiotic scientifically determined? Firstly, different concentrations of the selected antibiotic are tested against various bacteria in order to determine what concentration will work best against these bacteria. Next, the antibiotic is administered in one of three ways: 1) by injection, 2) mixed in feed, or 3) in a bath treatment. Then, antibiotic levels in the body are measured at different time intervals after treatment. The purpose of these measurements is to determine how long the antibiotic stays active in the body of the fish and whether or not the concentration in the body is high enough to kill or inhibit bacteria.

Api Melafix Freshwater Fish Bacterial Infection Remedy 4

• Contains one API MELAFIX Freshwater Fish Bacterial Infection Remedy 4-Ounce Bottle
• Heals bacterial infections and repairs damaged fins, ulcers and open wounds
• Contains natural, botanical tea tree extract to quickly and rapidly help fish
• Helps treat newly-introduced fish to reduce risk of disease outbreak in freshwater aquariums
• Use daily for a week when treating infections and for 3 days as a preventive when adding new fish

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Triple Sulfa & Other Sulfa Based Medications:

Sulfas are considered all anti-bacterials .These drugs are bacteriostatic, meaning they inhibit the growth of the bacteria but do not kill them.Sulfas are generally most effective against aerobic gram-negative organisms, and occasionally effective against anaerobic gram negative bacteria, but are not reliable against aerobic gram-positive bacterium such as StreptococcusMore on: Streptococcus Eye Infection

Sulfa drugs arrest cell growth by inhibiting the synthesis of folic acid, a component required for growth by bacteria. Folic acid is a large molecule and is unable to enter bacterial cells, so the bacteria must synthesize the compound intracellularly.Animal cells are unable to synthesize folic acid and it must be provided in the diet. For this reason sulfa drugs are not toxic to animal cells.

Sulfa drugs are among the oldest in the medicine, the first being a sulfonamide was trade named Prontosil dating back to experiments by Bayer in 1932.For aquatic use Sulfas are often maligned by many aquarists as not effective or out of date, yet in reality Sulfathiazole often will work where other antibiotics fail and sometimes with less side effects as well .Sulfas also do not tend to be as sensitive to poor use .

It is noteworthy that Sulfas are more effective at higher pH levels which is an important point for many fishkepers.

DOSAGE: 250 mg per 10 gallons every 48 hours with a 25% water change before each treatment. Treat for a minimum of 10 days.

Contraindications

Maintain The Perfect Setup

Fishkeeping is a much easier task with API, because they’ve taken all the guesswork out of setting up a tank and maintaining it. Their proven treatments include water conditioners and clarifiers, fish medications, pH adjusters, algaecides and quick-start solutionsall designed to keep your aquarium crystal clear and your fish happy and healthy.

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Capsule 250mg In Water:

• Take one 500mg Fish Mox, crush it to powder, then add in a medicine cup, add 10ml of water, shake well before each use, and keep in the fridge.
• One way is that take one 250mg capsule and put it into a water gallon, shake it well and then make use of this as your felines only water supply for 7-10 days.

Fish Care Made Easier

API is a name you can trust when it comes to taking care of fish. Not only are they passionate about fishkeeping, but they’re dedicated to improving the hobby and making it easier to maintain the ideal aquatic environment. From helping the novice set up a new tank to providing state-of-the-art filters for advanced systems, you can rely on API’s dedication to quality.

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Add Them To The Cats Food:

• The Fish-Mox capsules are 250 mg. amoxicillin, recommended dosage one capsule twice per day, in food.
• You can give your cat Fish Mox . If not 50mg available, open the 250 mg capsule and divide it into fifths. Then, put one-fifth in the cats food.
• One 500mg capsule should be dissolved in a one-ounce bottle with a dropper. One dropper fulls a day for 10 days for any sized cat.

If the condition is bad, twice a day. You can also make a cat food soup to keep them hydrated.

Fish Mox As A General Term:

Fish Mox and Fish Mox Forte are broad-spectrum antibiotics. They are efficient against a wide-ranging gram-negative and gram-positive bacterium in both types of waters as aquarium fishes and saltwater.

It helps in controlling gill disease, pop-eye, eye infections, and skin ulcerations.

It is one of the kinds of penicillin that is involved in targeting the bacteria causing disease and terminates their growth by preventing them from creating cell walls.

Thus, the drug halts the bacteria from reproducing and finally helps in getting relieved of the infection.

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Understanding The Active Ingredients In Antibacterial Aquarium Medications

Posted by: Eileen Daub in Fish HealthDecember 16, 201328128 Views

Understanding what a medication contains can often be as or more important than understanding what it treats. Ive compiled just a few of the most common active ingredients found in many of the most popular aquarium medications. This list is not all-inclusive but may hopefully help to unravel the whys and hows of some medications.

Remember, some of these active ingredients have more than one use and the medications they are in may be marketed for different uses. Antibacterial medications may be included in anti-parasitic medications and some anti-parasitic ingredients may also be useful in fungal infections but the uses Ive listed are the most common or most effective in the aquarium trade. Always remember to properly diagnose conditions and diseases before medicating and follow the manufacturers instructions for any medications.

Optimal Approach To Fighting Bacterial Infections

Most bacteria that cause diseases in fish are normal inhabitants of aquatic systems and, ordinarily, they do not cause a problem. However, fish that are stressed by one or more factors , may have compromised immune systems, making them more susceptible to bacterial infections. In addition, stress factors that compromise the immune system of fish may actually favor bacterial growth, further increasing the risk of a disease outbreak.

The ideal solution to bacterial diseases involves working with a fish health specialist to culture the organism and to run sensitivity tests. ‘Culture’ refers to growing the infective bacteria on a special type of media , and ‘sensitivity’ refers to treating the bacteria with a series of antibiotics to determine which one will work best. Although culture and sensitivity tests generally take two or three days, they are, by far, the best methods for selecting an antibiotic that will successfully and economically treat an infection.

A fish health specialist should be contacted and given a complete history of the problem during the initial stages of the disease. The specialist will provide instructions on submitting samples to a diagnostic laboratory .

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How Do Antibiotics Work

Antibiotics are chemical substances produced by microorganisms that either destroy or inhibit the growth of other microorganisms . Antibiotics can be either broad spectrum, which means that they are active against a wide range of microorganisms both good and bad. Narrow spectrum drugs target a specific group of microorganisms and are able to interfere with a metabolic process specific to those organisms. In general antibiotics work by

However, the microorganisms under attack dont take all this sitting down. Many are able to produce enzymes that neutralise antimicrobial compounds. Others can acquire resistance to weak, short-term or repeated exposure to antibiotics. For example there are now high levels of resistance to oxolinic acid and oxytetracycline because of overuse and misuse.

Proper Handling Of Antibiotics

When preparing or administering any type of medication, it is always a good idea to wear gloves in order to avoid unnecessary exposure to the user.

It is important to use antibiotics that are as fresh as possible and that have been stored properly. Antibiotics used after their expiration date or after being stored in hot and humid conditions will have greatly reduced efficacy at best and, at worst, they may be toxic.

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Potential Side Effects Of Amoxicillin For Cats:

Notes On Specific Antibiotics

The following are some notes on specific antibiotics used in the ornamental fish trade. Many of them are strictly forbidden for use by food fish producers or are otherwise of concern to the Food and Drug Administration . The FDA has elected to use regulatory discretion to keep products intended for the treatment of aquarium fish available. Officially there are no FDA-approved antibiotics for treating “ornamental fish.” Therefore, should you have any questions regarding the legalities of using any antibiotics, consult a fish health specialist.

Erythromycin is most effective against gram-positive bacteria, such as Streptococcus species. The vast majority of bacteria that cause disease in fish are gram-negative, so erythromycin should only be used after culture and sensitivity test results confirm it will be effective. Also, erythromycin is not very effective in a bath treatment, and it should only be administered by injection or in feed. Erythromycin is not FDA-approved for use with food fish.

The penicillins, including penicillin, amoxicillin, and ampicillin, are most effective against gram-positive bacteria such as Streptococcus species therefore, for the same reasons as those given above, these antibiotics are not a good first choice for most bacterial infections in fish. None of the penicillins are FDA-approved for use in food fish.

None of the aminoglycosides are approved by the FDA for use with food fish.

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Cat With A Swollen Jaw:

It could have been bitten or scratched which has resulted in bacteria deposited under the skin which has festered into the swelling that you may have noticed.

Cat teeth and nails are curved and do not often result in an obvious wound, but infections will often develop if they have been attacked by another cat.

What to do?

Purchase Fish Mox, which is Amoxicillin, sold for use in fish however, it is the exact same antibiotic that is fine for cats.

Safer Dosage:

The dose for the average-sized 1012-pound cat will be 1/2 of a 250 mg capsule twice a day. You will want to pull the capsule apart and divide the granules in half its dose will be one-half in the am and the other 1/2 in the pm.

Hopefully, it will eat the granules mixed in a small amount of canned food but if it does not, then mix the granules with a small amount of water and use a syringe or eye dropper to dribble the mixture into the side of its mouth where there is a gap.

This drug should be administrated with food to avoid stomach disturbance. You need to treat the infection for 7-10 days.