Treating Velvet?
 

Anyone ever use chloroquine phosphate for treatment?

No Brad. Sorry to hear if you have it. The only thing that kinda worked was praying and even then..... wasn't good.
good luck

Lots of info that it works well, but all the dosing articles are based off using the salt, and I only have access to the tablets. It seems to have a range of safe dosage, so if I don't find an answer in the next few hours, I'm gonna wing it...

how are the fish? Is it velvet Brad?

If I have any fish left by the weekend, I'll be surprised. Lots of the issue is NH3 in the newly setup tank.
I'm pretty sure it's velvet, from what I know (which is next to squat) about fish disease.
However, chloroquine treats that, ich and brook, so that's the next step. I just need to figure out how much of the tabs to use...

:( I'm so sorry to hear this.

Tagging along

So sorry to hear this Brad. Maybe leaving them in the display was a better idea? I hope the chlorowhatsit works for you :neutral:

Would it be beneficial if you run a UV sterilizer? It would cut down on the total # of swimming pathogens.

not sure if it helps but some dude scanned an article in this thread, they at least talk about dosage sort of:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2027415

Honestly, I've done more harm putting them in a new treatment tank. The queen and wrasse are moments away from dead, the naso probably won't see morning. A clown is looking bad. The leopard wrasse seems fine, as do the 2 chromis and the mandarin. Yellow tang seems normal, hippo tang is dusted up pretty bad, but still swimming.

I just need to know the dosage using tabs, but at this point, I'm going to guess and just add 20mg/l of the tabs. I can't do any more harm than I've done already :(

doesn't it say on the box? It usually has to state the amount of "active ingredient". Then you can base it on the weight of the tablet and dose that way??

It's in tablet form. Each 250mg has 155mg active Chloroquine, but I think I need to dose mg/l based on compound weight, not active ingredient. All articles are for the salt, which doesn't account for filler. So it would still be close I guess, but I've sent a note to a compounding pharm to see if they have powdered. If not, I'll get the tabs tomorrow, which will of course be too late..

queen angel just died....

pound it into little bits with a spoon or if Christy has a mortar and pestle, then go with x amount of that. crapola, I thought you had the stuff tonight, can't you call Japarto's hotline?

Aw Brad, sorry to hear this :sad:

So Sorry Brad.........

Sorry man =(

He won't have it, it's from the pharmacy. I need a prescription to get it

Ohh, ok I thought this was the stuff you got from Japarto originally.

=(

Well, done for the night, kidlet just got home from the hospital, gotta go take care of her. I'll update the "list" in the morning...

A friend on another board suggested I have a look so I thought I would jot down a few comment/observations for everyone’s benefit.

1. Target dose rate for chloroquine phosphate usually ranges from 10-40 mg/L, nominal (i.e. the dose that is calculated – but may not be the actual dose). Unfortunately there is some confusion in the literature. I would suggest you target 20 mg/L since your using a treatment tank with minimal things to take up space and put your volume estimate off.

2. The dose rate is based on the active ingredient – not the weight of the table. So if the package says each tablet contains 155 mg active ingredient that is what you would use for calculations. The rest of the tablet is comprised of binders and other such non-medicinal ingredients (unless it contains something else).

3. What is the volume of your treatment tank? If, for example, it's 30 gal; to achieve a dose rate of 20 mg/L, you would need around 15 tablets. That is 30 gal = 113 L x 20 (mg/L) = 2,260 mg /155 mg/tablet = 14.5 or 15 tablets.

4. Tablets should be ground up and added to a small volume of tank water to get them into solution. If you notice it is not going in, you can a little alcohol to see if this helps.

5. Treatments are usually 10 days. The usual suggestion is to treat you water for 5 days at the target dose and then do a 50% water change with make-up water at the correct dose rate.

6. With all treatment of this nature it is important to keep an eye on your fish in case they react negatively – although it sounds like they are far enough gone that there is probably not much (or much else) you can do.

7. Lastly, chloroquine is known to be toxic to invertebrates – how much is hard to say as this will depend on many variables. Just something to keep in mind. Since your fish are in a treatment tank I’m not sure why you don’t just treat with copper – which is effective against velvet and, as a bonus, you can monitor the actual treatment concentration.

As you’ve realized, a treatment tank is great idea – but a big problem if you don’t have a system running in the background that is fully cycled. If you have to set up a treatment tank to deal with an emergency the only way you can manage water quality is with a lot of water changes which presents a problem maintaining the treatment dose.

Good luck with it.

Hope this helps.

Myron, thanks. The part I wasn't sure of was active vs. all ingredients. The tabs are 155mg active ingredient, so I'll calculate that way. I do have rock in the tank, although nothing else (inverts, etc) so should be fine, I don't believe this stuff adsorbs to carbonates.
total volume of water currently in tank is ~45g, so I'll need 11 tabs to treat at 10mg/l. Do you suggest that, or the higher dosage Geomans has suggested (20mg/l)?

I currently have enough bio-filtration to handle the NH3 of the fish, assuming this doesn't compromise the bacterial bed. I've read it doesn't.

As a rule, higher doses are better - provided your fish can tolerate it. If you're confident with your volume/dose calculation I would go with the higher dose - although I must admit I don't know what the therapeutic margin of chloroquine sulphate is. My guess is that it is reasonable (i.e., better than copper) but depends on the species of fish water chemistry specifics.

It sounds like people dose the initial amount, then retreat without water changes, resulting, in my mind, a cumulative dosage much higher than suggested. I did read though, a couple of note on fish mortality blamed on too high of a dose. So, not sure. Bob Goemans in one article suggested 20mg/l, although most references say 10mg/l as a single treatment for 10 days.
I'll try your suggested method of a single dose, then a water change 5 days later with an adjusted dose.

I read in one of the articles last night that light degrades the CP. So it might not be a cumulative dose.
If you only dose the one time for 10 days maybe just keep the lights low or only on for a short time.

I've just got a small light on the tank, and will dose again in 5 days.

So how did you make out? Any updates?

Probably got the med in too late, lost a few more fish. I've got 8 fish in the treatment now. We'll see how the next few days goes. I ordered some CP today from the US, I'll use that to treat the new fish when that day comes.

Where did you buy it from?

I ordered a kilo from the states. Should last a few life times :)

or might as well sell some to people who might need it and get back some of that cost. :)

but where exactly did you buy it? is that something you can disclose?

I don't have the site handy, but the link is in this or my other thread..

Update on the remaining fish: I've treated 2 doses of the chloroquine phosphate at 10mg/l, and the fish all now appear to be healthy and happy. Except that they aren't in the big tank :)

I also still have 2 small fish in the display that won't get sick and die. Not sure how to deal with that...

That's mostly great to hear man. Maybe start wanting them to live? That should kill them pretty fast lol.

Tried that, no good. Built a little trap to fit between the corals, they laughed.

Try dosing plugged-in alarm clock radio. Easy to find and guaranteed results if you forgo gfi.

Have you tried fishing with a small barbless hook?

Probably not going to catch a mandarin with a hook :)