# Anyone have sucess curing bacterial infection?



## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

I know folks are successful but I can't help with what meds they are using. Any issues with your water? What's the temp? Lowering the temp sometimes helps with preventing bacterial infections. Maybe add some IAL to the tank as well as it's anti-bacterial.


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## ShyShrimpDoc (Jun 28, 2012)

I can speak to this one. I have done this a few times unfortunately. I have some issues with the tank my CRS are in and its been causing infections. (One being the lack of time to take care of it due to medical school.)

To treat bacteria in shrimp the best way is to treat the food, not the tank. If you kill the biofilter the ammonia spikes and you kill all the shrimp anyway. 

I was told by a rep at seachem to use focus and garlic guard to bind antibiotics to food. My experience with shrimp is that the mix with focus in it is slightly more toxic, so I would not recommend using it.

I take the amount of food I intend to feed and set it aside, I then pour the amount of garlic guard I think it can soak up into a little container. Next I take metronidazole and kanamycin and put equal amounts into the garlic gaurd. My objective is to hit saturation. So I put some in let it dissolve and if there is no grit left put a little more. I don't want chunks of antibiotic but I do want the highest dose I can get absorbed into the food. Especially since most of it will stay near the surface of the morsel and some will leave the food and enter the water column. Once the vast majority is dissolved, I add the food and let it soak the mix up for at least 5 minutes. Then I put it in the tank.

Metronidazole treats anaerobic bacteria, and some parasites. Anaerobic infections in shrimp don't seem to be very common, but parasitic infections with bacterial secondary infections are. So its nice to put in the mix and does not seem to be associated with toxicity. 

Kanamycin treats aerobic bacteria. These are usually your problem. Kanamycin is associated with toxicity but is well tolerated for three to four days. You may still lose a shrimp or two, but it will put an end to the rapid die off from an infected colony. Do not treat until there are no more deaths though... or you will have unnecessary casualties. 

Good luck


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

can you post a pic of your shrimp. neo's can get a parasite that causes them to look like they have bacterial infections. most of the time tiger shrimp are the ones to get bacterial infections. and most of the time the whole colony is lost some have had luck saving a few shrimp but most end up dead.

do make sure to look often in the tank and pull any dead shrimp out. if not healthy shrimp will eat the infected tissue and get infected. i used paraguard and melafix when i had a bacterial infection


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## ShyShrimpDoc (Jun 28, 2012)

Neos are a LOT less prone to bacterial primary infections. But treating just the parasites without treating for a secondary bacterial infection (which infested shrimp are very prone to) wont usually stop the die off. That's why you have to treat both. Just like when a human suffers a major trauma and is compromised in other ways prophylactic antibiotic usage is often called for.


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## Asphalt Art (Apr 18, 2013)

Not only bacterial infections, but fungal infections can occur as well.


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## sbarbee54 (Jan 12, 2012)

Maracin 2 has worked wonders when I first started out and learned about high temps and tigers


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## speedie408 (Jan 15, 2009)

Full tank tear down is your best bet to fully conquer a bacterial outbreak. Bleach everything and use brand new soil to reset the tank. Place the remaining colony in a barebottom quarantine/medicated tank and use Melefix to try to cure the ones that haven't been too far along the lines with infection. Cull any that are already looking sickly/cloudy. This tank must be aerated with a sponge filter and daily water changes must be administered with the corresponding med dosage. This goes on for at least 2 weeks. You should see the deaths start tapering off as the meds heal the ones that weren't too far into the sickness. Put them into the newly set tank once you feel they are healed and the tank has cycled. 

Sounds extreme right?


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## 52149 (Feb 26, 2012)

Never tried with what shrimp doc has to recommend. I do wanna try that method! 

But I'll speak from my experience. Over the past 4 yrs I have raised 17 different species of shrimp ran into all kinds of problems and evens had molting and bacterial infections. But I have found that I had a hydra problem and the hydra ends up stinging the shrimp and thy end up with the infection. This all hapens in my adults. Start by checking for hydras or planaria. Where's there planaria there's hydras. If there is any or a trace of them treat your shrimp ASAP. Don't wait it will only get worse. Treat the hydras with Panacur C you can find how to make the solution online. Also with treating with the Panacur C you wanna treat for a possible infection because the hydra tend to sting the shrimp and whenthe shrimp bails from the hydra the stinger is still in the shrimp leaving a open wound, causing an infection. Now I treat with pimafix and melafix these 2 are shrimp safe cause it's all natural. I kinda under dose the 2 cause shrimps are really sensitive. Do this testament for a week treat the panacur C for 3 days. 


Daboss808


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

All the times I've experienced bacterial problems, Maracyn-Two (the cure) and Melafix (the preventive) solved everything. 

In my experience, though, Melafix needs to be used at the recommended dosage for at least a week when using it. No water changes during that week. No water changes during Maracyn-Two usage, either. Do water swaps after treatment is complete. 

I'll occasionally treat an entire batch of shrimp upon import (Taiwan Bees, primarily) with both in order to guarantee health. Works well. But that's only when I suspect issues with a foreign exporter.


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## snakeskin (Jul 28, 2005)

> All the times I've experienced bacterial problems, Maracyn-Two (the cure) and Melafix (the preventive) solved everything.
> 
> In my experience, though, Melafix needs to be used at the recommended dosage for at least a week when using it. No water changes during that week. No water changes during Maracyn-Two usage, either. Do water swaps after treatment is complete.
> 
> I'll occasionally treat an entire batch of shrimp upon import (Taiwan Bees, primarily) with both in order to guarantee health. Works well. But that's only when I suspect issues with a foreign exporter.


Seems like a lot of people have different approaches but this one seems simple enough for me to follow. Somewhatshocked, have you used this regime with success on cloudy individuals? 

I have a small male yellow neo that has been varying degrees of cloudy for over a week and today I THINK I noticed something similar in another shrimp so I am considering going out and getting these products.

One last questions: can I use Maracyn-Two and Melafix safely with my filters? I don't want to kill all my beneficial bacteria and have an ammonia spike. 

Thanks


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

I've used it for cloudy shrimp, yes. But not all cloudiness is caused by the same thing. So keep that in mind.

Neither Maracyn-Two or Melafix will harm your beneficial bacteria.


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## sayurasem (Jun 17, 2011)

I just wanted to add 1 week treatment of melafix and 25% water change works for my shrimps. For some reason I've started losing my trust on Indian Almond Leaves because my shrimp got cloudy when leaves were present. Now I dose melafix everytime I did water change.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

good to know. i ordered some melafix for my poor tetra's nipped fins, but as a preventative i'll include it with the weekly WC regimen after the initial treatment. Don't want my Fire Red Shrimp getting any bacterial infections.


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## snakeskin (Jul 28, 2005)

I don't want to hijack this post but here are a few grainy photos of my sickly shrimp... hopefully it will aid in a prognosis.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

There's no need to use Melafix as a preventive unless you've encountered a problem. Definitely not with Neos.

Using it with your water change routine is not necessary.



Jahn said:


> good to know. i ordered some melafix for my poor tetra's nipped fins, but as a preventative i'll include it with the weekly WC regimen after the initial treatment. Don't want my Fire Red Shrimp getting any bacterial infections.


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## ShyShrimpDoc (Jun 28, 2012)

I have to be honest my version of diagnostics involves water testing, microscopy and sometimes short term bacterial/fungal culture. I can't tell from those pics at all.


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## Andromeda01 (Oct 13, 2012)

Well I found it dead this evening. I was trying to find it to take a pic and post here. It was hard to find, died in possibly the absolute worst part of the tank. It just looked red, nothing abnormal. So the plan now is to not add anymore shrimp for a couple weeks and keep a close eye on the 3 that are left. 

I don't know for sure what was wrong with it. I had just read in another thread that bacterial infections can make them look milky/dusty and they hide. That described this shrimp. Not sure how long it had been like that. Since I don't have much experience I had just assumed that this shrimp was just not a good quality and that's why it wasn't as red as the other two. 

I've had this tank set up since August. Made some beginner mistakes that resulted in some deaths at first, but the tank was doing really good for the last 4 months or so up until this.


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## snakeskin (Jul 28, 2005)

Sorry to hear that Andromeda01! We have all killed our fair share of shrimp in the learning process.

The description of your shrimp hiding in addition to the milkiness has me wondering about my situation. My shrimp is a little milky but eats and moves around normally. Some people with lots of shrimp say that milkiness doesn't always indicate imminent death or even disease necessarily so I'm confused as to what to do.

I just dosed some melafix so hopefully that will start fixing anything if there is indeed something to fix!


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## Asphalt Art (Apr 18, 2013)

Shrimp will hide if they are vulnerable, whether it be from a recent molt, females being berried, or in times of health issues. Most animalia actually does this, such as when you see a hurt dog or cat hiding under a porch, bush, etc. They are limiting the opportunity for predators to make an easy meal, or basically to limit the amount of area they need to be aware of in regards to their limited capacity.

In regards to Neos, if I see a shrimp doing the funky chicken (falling off of spare seeded filters and not being able to right itself immediately and landing on it's back, laying on it's side for more than a few hours, I immediately quarantine it for observation. I pay attention to behavior and physical attributes, and document this along with how long it persists. It may not tell me exactly what is wrong at times (for me, simple sporadic molting issues) but it does give me a good timeline to reference for future issues. I have lost maybe 3 shrimp so far in total. 2 came from bad molts (one had appeared to have split the carapace at the tail joint) and the other died heroically at the jaws of a diving beetle larvae. 

From one of my first college professors: "As long as you can identify your mistakes, you can move forward. If you start to doubt your own abilities you might as well grab a shovel and start digging now, because nothing I do will help you." - Mr Thompson.


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