# Paraguard + MTS = No More Snails



## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

I've been battling black spot disease in my CRS tank for awhile, and dosing with paraguard almost daily for a month now. 

(If anyone has any advice on what else I can do about black spot I'm very open to suggestions, but that's not what I'm posting about)

This post is just to give a warning to anyone else who may use paraguard that it kills snails. I had a thriving MTS colony in that tank before I started dosing, and every single one has died. The mini-ramshorn snails are still hanging in there, but their numbers have dropped as well and the remaining ones are not looking very healthy.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

try stopping the paraguard and starting maracyn 2


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

Paraguard is primarily for external infections. Also, there really isn't a medication that you should need to dose daily for a month.


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## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

The paraguard was helping for awhile, and the black spot disease had almost cleared up, but then it reappeared so I started using the paraguard again. It's really not fun having sick shrimp, especially when it goes on for so long. 

I just ordered some maracyn 2, hopefully that will hit this thing harder than the paraguard and then my shrimp will be happy again.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Maracyn 2 is stocked in most LFS, you could pick some up tomorrow morning if you wanted.


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## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

Ah, well it's ordered now. This has been going on for a month now with only a couple deaths so a couple more days probably won't hurt.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

K, have you been testing your parameters? Because with a few deaths a day you may be looking at ammonia and nitrite starting up again too


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## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

I don't mean a few deaths a day, I mean only a few deaths. In a month I've lost around 10 shrimp of medium to adult size. It's a lot harder to tell how many babies I've lost, I know there's been some, but I've still got lots in the tank. I haven't seen any deaths in well over a week now, and I've been looking.

This disease has been very weird. The shrimp are acting and eating normally aside from not breeding, and the babies are growing at a healthy rate. It's just that their red patches are covered in black spots. At one point more than half were infected, though that's probably closer to 1/4 now. And the higher grades have been hit harder too. I've only got a few SSS, all but one have spots and most of those have it over most of their red segments.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Can you quarantine the sick ones? That would make the process quicker. Treat both tanks, but quarantine the obviously sick ones.


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## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

I've got an empty 10 gallon tank in storage, but it's got no filter and no heater. If I were only putting 10-20 shrimp in then the cycle might be mild enough for them to handle, but I've got at least 50-70 CRS with black spot right now. Probably more, its hard to count them.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Holy zambonie


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## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

My CRS tank is a 40 long with, ballparking, maybe about 300 shrimp in it. I shot this video back in november and have had quite a bit of breeding since then. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yyxd22A8jY

You can imagine how proud of my shrimp tank I was before this disease broke out...


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