Treating Hexamita aka Spironucleus

[luohanfan]

I have already shown you one example, MY fish. Did you view that fish, its condition, and how it is still parasite free 2 yrs later?

Yes i seen the pictures, your fish looks healthy.. Does this mean you killed 100% of the flagellates, or did your fish purge most and the rest died off due to other factors, that could include the fishes immune system, water changes, temperature..
See what i'm getting at?

I have also mentioned, more than once now, how several other MFK members have had the same results as I did, not just on flowerhorn, but other cichlids as well.

I will be looking into this more
You ask for information, yet when I supply that information you choose to ignore it,
I have not ignored you at all, quite the opposite, as i have been closely reading what you have posted, including all links, and any further information i can find
asking for in-depth scientific studies that as far as I know do not exist, or at the least are unpublished studies - which is quite common in the scientific world. Not all research ends up in a peer reviewed journal, and even some that does cannot be found via a google search.
I understand this, i just thought you may have had more information, as the information this thread suggests is in the links on the original post, have no reference to killing hex..

Did you read the paper by the The Israeli Journal of Aquaculture, linked to in the first post, where they stated;

and ........

I read everything, and still i dont see where it kills hex..
only that mortality ceased, with 3% feeds, which could have been daily, weekly? for all we know, and would of course stop the fish from dying as it would purge the hex and keep levels low enough for the fish to grow..


Where do you think those researchers got the idea of using magnesium sulfate? Do you think that they just pulled that idea out of their arse one day while soaking their feet in a warm tub of epsom salt?

Epsom salts have been used a long time, and will purge the stomach just by adding it to the water they swim in, of course dosing it orally is the next step, and of course different strengths

What about Dr. Edward J. Noga, MS, DVM, a highly respected professor of aquatic medicine and immunology, who has been published approx. 150 times in related papers/journals. His lab at NC State University specializes in the study of infectious diseases of finfish and shellfish ........... this is what he specializes in.

In his book; Fish Disease: diagnosis and treatment, Dr. Noga also mentions treating hexamita (spironucleus) orally with Magnesium sulphate.

Do you reckon that this idea just came to Dr. Noga in a dream late one night - so he published that information in his book on fish disease & treatment? A book that some of the most advanced aquarists in the world refer to, along with veterinarians, fisheries biologists, and commercial aquaculturists?

This isn't some little paperback put out by Tetrapress - it's one of THE most in-depth books on this subject that one can find in the world, and is even used by universities when teaching courses or having lectures on this subject. http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/ame/wwf/index.html

Do you really need to get so wound up when i'm just asking for help?
I havn't read the book, but this is the kind of info i'm asking for, as i havn't seen ANYTHING that says this treatment KILLS hex..
The more info the better..

This information was known within certain scientific circles over 15 years ago, but apparently was never openly shared with the average hobbyist.


Take a closer look at your last quote;



Further information is needed exactly why i am asking if you had further information, as these studies dont show anything.. ........... apparently at least by some people. I have no idea exactly how magnesium sulfate works, I just know that it does work, and works well.

I know it works well, this is why i stated that i use it, but always in combination with metro..
Epsom is known to clear the system enough that the fish can be relieved a certain amount, can eat again, and can be treated properly..
Dosing orally would be a stronger attack obviously, but from the studies you show above, it still shows the same results...


I started this thread to bring this information to the general public.
Thankyou, I find it very interesting, hence i have started discussion with you and asked questions..

What anyone does with it is up to them. Personally I don't need someone in a white lab coat to tell me what the results were with the fish that I treated. That fish was knocking on heavens door when it reached me, and within 5 days of this treatment it was like a new fish. Unfortunately Chris had to shorten this thread, so many of the comments by people who have posted in it can no longer be read. There are also other threads on this subject, where the same success stories have been posted by other MFK members who prior to this treatment thought that there fish was a certain goner.

I didn't start this topic because I was looking for fame or fortune, I did so in the hopes of saving some fish from a disease that CAN be treated, and IMO & IME a treatment that in many cases is far more effective than metro, a drug that I was using to treat fish when a lot of the people on this forum were probably still in diapers.

You want facts, those are the facts.

I'm not saying you did it for fame or any other reason, you seem so defensive..
All i was doing was asking where you got the info, and if i had missed something because there is no info saying it KILLS hex..
Apart from you showing me pics of your sick fish, then when it is healthy, which to me proves only that your fish lived..
No offence, but there could be many factors involved here..

I don't want to keep upsetting you, although i'm not sure what i done wrong in the first place....
I will try this method and see what the results are myself if i ever encounter a problem with hex again and see what the results are myself..

From my experience, and what i have seen by others treatments; treatment with epsom only ended up with the fish being infected again only weeks later, also if treated with metro and epsom combined but not done properly it can end in the same way..
But this may be due to less flagellates being expelled when bathed only, instead of oral feeding.
And possibly partially due to the fact that some fish just don't fight off disease as well as others..

Sorry to have bothered you, but just like you i like to know what i can do to help my fish when needed, and would love safer alternatives..

Kindest regards....

 

[RD.]

But this may be due to less flagellates being expelled when bathed only, instead of oral feeding.

Bingo!


And had you actually read all of the info in my initial post, including everything in the links that I had posted, this would have been rather clear from the get go. It seemed obvious to me that you clearly hadn't read everything, or you wouldn't have started off by stating;

I have used epsom salts along with metro for a few years..
The epsom salts only purge a lot of the hex, they will multiply again if they are not killed off with metro or alike..

and

If so could you point me to the info that justifies this claim of magnesium sulphate killing all stains of hex at this dosage?

I never said that magnesium sulphate kills all strains of hexamita, the only strain that I am concerned with is the one that affects the vast majority of tropical fish - which is Spironucleus vortens. Having said that, this treatment does seem to work with other strains typically not seen in tropical fish, such as Hexamita salmonis.

Nor does using epsom salt as a purgative bath have the same affect as feeding it orally.

Had you actually read all 200+ pages of the angel fish study that would have been quite obvious. One needs to use massive amounts of epsom salt via a bath to have the same kind of effect.

Most people can't be bothered to read 200+ pages on a subject such as this, I did, weighed all of the info at my disposal, and it worked. And yes, had it just been one fish, and one single success story, it could have been something beyond just the epsom salt - but as stated time & time again to you, it wasn't just one fish, and one single success story. Numerous people have now used this method to treat their fish, fish that in some cases hadn't eaten in 30 days & were on the brink of withering away to certain death. (and were force fed epsom soaked pellets via a pipette) This treatment saved their fishes life.

From what I have read, and seen with my own two eyes, when the directions are followed for this treatment - spironucleus vortens will NOT multiply again if one does not use metronidazole etc. Hence when magnesium sulphate is ingested orally (not used as a bath as you have done for the past few years) it will totally eradicate the protozoa, not simply "purge" them, as you stated.

Again, and this is from your own previous quote.

Magnesium sulfate
(Epsom salt) minimally affected the parasite’s growth at low concentrations but inhibited
growth at concentrations higher than 60 mg ml-1. It is suggested that magnesium sulfate at high concentration may interfere with homeostasis of ions between the inside and the outside of the cell. Further information of the mechanism actions of pyrimethamine and magnesium sulfate on diplomonads is needed.

That reads to me as cell damage, which is a LOT different than a simple purge.
Is it definitive? No. But at least one researcher working in this field has made a suggestion as to why this works at higher concentrations, and from the data that I have available from my experience and many others - it does work, and it works well, and the suggestion made by this researcher is more than likely correct as no one using this method (orally) has come back posting about reoccurring bouts of spironucleus/hex after a 5 day treatment.

You entered this discussion speaking in a factual manner about something that you have clearly never tried, and clearly didn't take the time to fully read, or at least fully comprehend (bath does not = oral ingestion) and made some rather bold statements - based on your experience, using a treatment method that is not the same as the treatment method that I was recommending. (bath vs oral ingestion)

This isn't me being defensive, this is me getting tired of wasting my time responding to someone that didn't take the time to actually read what was being stated, and that apparently didn't believe me when I said that there have been numerous other people that have had the same success as I did when treating my sick FH.

That's fine by me, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but please don't attempt to tell me what works, or won't work, before you even try something. I would hate to see someone discount this treatment due to a single persons comments that has never even tried it, when I know that it could indeed save their fishes .

 

[luohanfan]

I have read EVERYTHING..
Do i understand it all? no, im no scientist or chemist and dont claim to be a linguist or a genius..

All i tried to do was explain to you my experiences with hex and epsom, and try to get an understanding of the treatment you recommend..

Did i say that it doesnt work? no..
I just stated what effects i know it has, when used in the way i described..
And that all the studies i have read including your links did not state anywhere that epsom kills anything...

Your going to attack me like this because of this quote ?
"It is suggested that magnesium sulfate at high concentration may interfere with homeostasis of ions between the inside and the outside of the cell."
I'm sorry, i should know better right?
This one sentence should have stuck out and rang alarm bells that tells me it kills hex?
I still don't get " it kills 100% of the hex in the host" from that.. sorry..

Now, Does me asking questions to better my knowledge justify your reactions?
Well i guess that all depends on you, and what sort of person you are, which has been shown here..

Not everyone has the same knowledge and same experience/experiences in life..
Thats the whole idea of open forums, to share information, and in forums like MFK, to help in threads like this?

Why did i bother asking questions? because i wanted to know more..
But after having you react like this, i wonder why i bothered asking, and bothered to try to explain where i was coming from..

I'm not saying people should not try this, at the very least, even a bath in it will clear the host enough to prolong its life while waiting to get metro, which metro and epsom has been the treatment of choice in the past..
So trying your method could not hurt..

I'm off to do more reading, in a more civilized environment..

 

[RD.]

I have absolutely no problem answering questions on this subject or any other. Prior to the shortening of this discussion I'm quite certain that I answered scores of questions, including those by people who like yourself thought that simply adding epsom salt to the tank water would have the same effect. It doesn't.

But you didn't just come here asking a question regarding more information/studies, you stated from the very get go that this won't work.

I have used epsom salts along with metro for a few years..
The epsom salts only purge a lot of the hex, they will multiply again if they are not killed off with metro or alike..

Which just like everyone else that has used epsom salt to treat constipated fish, fish with bloat, IP's, etc - it has been added to the tank water and administered as a bath.

One doesn't need to be a scientist, linguist, or anythng else to understand that I was not referring to a bath type treatment, and all of the snippets you attempted to use to prove your point were all based on bath treatments.

I explained to you why one is probably not going to find any studies on this oral treatment via google, and why none will probably ever exist any time soon. That obviously didn't sink in, and you still want documented proof via scientific studies showing that this treatment will not only kill spironucleus, but all strains of hex (even those that don't affect ornamental species?), kill 100% of it, in 100% of all cases. Unreal ........

Time to think outside the box a bit.

 

[RD.]

Speaking of thinking outside of the box .......

One thing that should be mentioned in this discussion, is that not all medications etc have the same type of reaction with parasitic protozoa. As an example, some substances can adversely affect protozoa by disrupting their inner cell membranes. This is what the one researcher was referring to when he/she stated: "It is suggested that magnesium sulfate at high concentration may interfere with homeostasis of ions between the inside and the outside of the cell. "

There are other combinations of meds & parasitic protozoa that when combined will cause death as the parasite loses its ability to adhere to the intestinal villi and obtain nutrients. While one could say that the medication itself doesn't actually kill the parasite, the treatment certainly does, as without a host to feed on the parasites do in fact ultimately die.

There is also some evidence to suggest that certain compounds found in garlic, work in synergy with some anti-parasitic substances when treating spironucleus. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22677132

I happen to feed a commercial food that contains garlic (NLS), including when I feed sick fish with the oral solution of magnesium sulphate, so it is also possible that I might be getting the same type of synergetic effect as one sees when using Metro to treat spironucleus infestations.

Of course, all of this is pure speculation on my part, I have no idea what the exact reaction is that takes place between magnesium sulphate, garlic, and spironucleus vortens, and at this point I don't believe that anyone does.

What I do know is that whatever that reaction is, it works, and works very well.
In the end that's all that really matters to me. Personally I would much rather subject my fish to magnesium sulphate & garlic, vs medications such as metronidazole.

 

[luohanfan]

You say i never bothered to read what you say, but after all of my trying to explain, you must not have read and really understood what i was asking...
This has been a frustrating discussion from the start because you judged my intentions wrongly..
Which did not make it easy to discuss this topic with you considering it was basically turned into a cat fight for no real reason..

I don't expect anything to kill 100% of all strains..
What i meant was the common types cichlids are infected with and if it kills 100% of the flagellates within a host being treated with your method..
Not 100% of all strains, sorry...
I may have been able to explain this better at an earlier stage, or you may have listened earlier if you weren't so set on reacting the way you did..

If you re-read your first quote above again,
"I have used epsom salts along with metro for a few years..
The epsom salts only purge a lot of the hex, they will multiply again if they are not killed off with metro or alike..
I was not saying your treatment does not work, im unsure if it does or not.
What i was doing was explaining what MY treatment does, and trying to work out the correlation between these two methods and results.

I'm sorry if you misinterpreted my questions, explanations or intentions but i do like to be armed with as much knowledge as possible..
And i'm sure most people like to have all the facts when dealing with treatments for there fish that they wish to save..

If none of us had knowledge about treatments for disease, where would we be?

Thanks for the info you were able to provide..

 

[luckiereggie]

strangley i just gave it massive watter changes removed the filter ...I never got good results using medicine

 

[RD.]

While large water changes is always a good idea with sick fish, that alone will not remove spironucleus vortens from ones system.

 

[yaajer]

One question, how early would you suggest the oral treatment? I see signs on my FH (inflamed anal/fish swimming to the top corner), but he's still eating like a pig. Wondering if I shouldn't start the treatment as a preventative measure? Would this harm the fish if he didn't have hex? Thanks buddy.

 

[RD.]

I think that the real beauty of this treatment is not only how effective it is, but also how safe it is when used to treat fish. IMO using this treatment as a preventative measure can never hurt. One thing that we do know about spiro/hex is that the sooner it is treated the better the chances are of a complete recovery by the fish. If you suspect that your fish may be starting to show early signs of spiro/hex I would treat it now while your fish is still actively eating, as this treatment is only effective when administered directly to the gut.

Hope that helps.