I was asked yesterday if there were any people in the aquarist community who have done any work on alternative medicines for fish. I didn't have a good answer, and a quick online search finds me nothing.
Have any of you fish-keepers here ever used any 'alternative' medications or herbs in your tanks?
I have personally used small amounts of coilloidal silver with no apparent problems (to the fish or to the nitrifying bacteria, suprisingly enough), and once or twice used "Melafix" (tea tree oil blend), but didn't notice any change from the Melafix.
Anybody working with water extracts of herbs for aquarium maintenance? If not for the fish, for the planted tank?
(I'm dealing with a beautiful dwarf gourami that has become extremely bloated. No luck feeding peas for constipation, no luck from Jungle's anti-bacterial pellet food or Gel-Tek tetracycline... poor thing's been like this for weeks with the only change being after the anti-bacterial food the fish doesn't spend as much time hanging out on the bottom looking spaced-out. It's not egg-bound as I think it's a male and the only other gourami in the tank is a female. Sigh. At least the 5" chocolate cichlid that cycled a 75g is doing ok!)
Have any of you fish-keepers here ever used any 'alternative' medications or herbs in your tanks?
I have personally used small amounts of coilloidal silver with no apparent problems (to the fish or to the nitrifying bacteria, suprisingly enough), and once or twice used "Melafix" (tea tree oil blend), but didn't notice any change from the Melafix.
Anybody working with water extracts of herbs for aquarium maintenance? If not for the fish, for the planted tank?
(I'm dealing with a beautiful dwarf gourami that has become extremely bloated. No luck feeding peas for constipation, no luck from Jungle's anti-bacterial pellet food or Gel-Tek tetracycline... poor thing's been like this for weeks with the only change being after the anti-bacterial food the fish doesn't spend as much time hanging out on the bottom looking spaced-out. It's not egg-bound as I think it's a male and the only other gourami in the tank is a female. Sigh. At least the 5" chocolate cichlid that cycled a 75g is doing ok!)