What the Beginning and Advancing Aquarist Absolutely Needs to Know and Do When Starting An Aquarium

What A Beginner Needs To Know About Fish Health and Medications

The water environment transports diseases much more rapidly and extensively than does the air environment.  This leaves no place to hide for the fishes and other organisms in the water to avoid exposure to diseases.  Therefore, disease control is considerably harder to accomplish in aquariums and ponds than what we are familiar with in the air environment.

The biggest mistakes beginners (and non beginners) make in handling diseases and treatments is in not seeing the infection fast enough, so that a treatment is started too late to be effective, not being consistent in maintaining daily treatments, and in not treating long enough to get fully rid of diseases.  What is often blamed on the treatment used for unsatisfactory results is really because of the mistakes made by the fish keeper. 

Also, the diseases are different in water than in the air.  It is a new learning experience to understand them.  Few beginners are prepared beforehand for this new experience in maintaining the health of water animals.  This makes it all the more important  to try to have good healthy conditions for the fish, avoiding infections, because it is often difficult or impossible for the aquarist and pond keeper to determine what the infections actually are.  Such as whether they are viral, bacterial, or from single-celled, or multi-celled sources, all requiring different diagnoses (often requiring the use of a microscope and autopsies) and treatments.  Also, many of the infections develop very rapidly.  By the time the aquarist understands the need for treatment and provides one, the fish are dying.  All too often the aquarist thinks that the treatment caused the fishes' death, rather than understanding what really happened. 

Fish and other aquatic animals are subject to a great variety of infections, for which specific medications are needed, such as for common external single-celled infections and fungus.  For many fish infections the aquarist does not see the actual infection, only the effect on the fish. 

Often fish infections are multiple.  One infection lowers the fish's resistance, and other infections take hold.  Sometimes, overcoming the main infection will allow the fish's immune system on its own to overcome other infections.  When treatment choices have to be made, the treatment for what appears to be the main infection is the best to start with.

Because sewage outfalls, whether inland, or along marine shores introduce human, farm animal, and other animal pathogens into the environment, as well as the medications used to treat those pathogens, the pathogens (particularly bacterial) are picked up by fishes and other aquatic animals and are passed on to others.  The medications now in the environment and greatly weakened in effectiveness, causing the bacteria to develop immunity to those medications.    This means that the medications no longer are effective on those bacteria's offspring. Some bacterial pathogens of man (e.g., Salmonella) are pathogens to fishes as well. As for viral infections of fishes, of which there are over 50 kinds known at this time, there are no treatments particularly recognized for any viruses infecting aquarium and ornamental pond fishes. 


In order to help the fishes' immune system to resist diseases, it is recommended to boost their protective slime coating that helps keep viruses and bacteria away.  The basic Kordon product for this is NovAqua+, and a much strengthened product is Kordon Fish Protector, which is particularly helpful when their are open sores or wounds present. 

A common failure among aquarists is not knowing what medications to use when there is the need for their use, and as a result getting the wrong ones, that are useless.  The common result is the complaint that "blankety blank medication just killed my fish."  What the aquarist is not considering is that he is assuming the role of the veterinarian in taking care of his fish, requiring microscope and other lab equipment to make a proper diagnosis.  When the diagnosis is made, and even if the aquarist gets the diagnosis right,  there needs to be the determination of what the best choice should be in a medication, and the proper procedure in its use.  Otherwise, it can be best not to use a medication, such as a chemical that stresses and may have harmful side effects.  Nevertheless, there are alternatives to consider. 

The coming trend is in the use of those products that increase the fishes' immune system against diseases.   It is far better to stop diseases from occurring than in having to treat them, often with little success.  The Kordon products that boost the fishes' immune system are NovAqua+, its forerunner NovAqua, and particularly Fish Protector, and the organic herbal treatments Ich Attack, Prevent Ich, and Rid Fungus.  They are all highly recommended for regular use in aquarium keeping. 



The aquarist needs to understand that there are three main categories of fish medications -- organics, chemicals, and antibiotics -- each category with its own unique features: 

• Organic Herbals for external bacterial or single-celled infections (protozoans, dinoflagellates, fungus)
• Chemical Treatments for external infections by bacteria, single-celled (protozoans, dinoflagellates, fungus), and multi-celled (worms, leaches, flukes) parasites
• Antibiotics for internal and external infections by bacteria

Continue to "What a Beginner Needs to Know Before a Health Emergency Arises "