Tropical Fish Forums

[Flame Angel]

Has anyone used 'Tri-Sulfa' tablets before?

I had never heard of them before I started working in this new pet shop. Some people seem to swear by it, and it seems to treat such a wide range of problems (parasitic, bacterial, fungal...).

I'm not sure if it is a new product or if I have just somehow never come across it before.

Anyone had any experience with it? Or heard much about it?

[unissuh]

It's an antibiotic, now de-regulated in Australia along with tetracycline because they aren't reliable anymore due to resistance. Not a new drug, not sure when it stopped being a prescription only medication though. To be honest you could probably find anything relevant about it on Google, it's way past it's prime.
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[Flame Angel]

Oh really, well there you go then. Must have just never come across it before somehow then. So you think other medications would be better suited for things like whitespot?

Oh yeah, tetracycline was the other one I was curious about. Makes sense.

[unissuh]

I don't often hear about triple sulfa-resistant strains of ich, it's more that it seems to be useless for treating bacterial infections now. Where it really comes in handy is when you need to dose a tank that is up and running, often with sensitive fish, without completely destroying the tank. With some sensitive fish (e.g. loaches) it's often recommended to dose half doses of copper, dyes etc, but with antibiotics you can usually (and should!) give 'em the full dose without worrying too much. Whether its better than dye/copper based treatments, I dunno, but it certainly can work and is less toxic.

Tetracycline I'm told still has a decent chance of working on bacterial infections so isn't completely useless yet - would try this one before triple sulfa for bacterial infections.

Last time I tried treating for what I thought was a bacterial infection I went tetracycline to kanamycin (prescription drug) to enrofloxacin (heavy duty prescription drug).
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[Flame Angel]

That makes sense. So triple sulfa could still be useful for ich and such, but tetracycline is probably a better option for bacterial infections. So I guess tri-sulfa would be useful for reef tanks too (rather than copper-based treatments) for whitespot.

So would you say the same for other treatments? In particular things like melafix - I remember using it years ago and it working really well. I wonder if it is still as effective...I guess the antibiotics we use in our aquariums are the same as antibiotics we use for ourselves - in that resistant strains of bacteria will emerge overtime?

[unissuh]

Not sure I'd be throwing any med into a reef tank, the diversity in those almost certainly means any medication will kill something in there. Standard procedure for that is to take out the fish and treat in a hospital tank while letting the main tank lie fallow for a long enough period that the parasites die without a host & that certainly seems like a safer approach.

I quite like Melafix but you have to understand it's like Dettol & won't cure the plague. Not sure if this is like an antibiotic, where things develop resistance to it. I haven't had too many cases where I've had to treat sick fish, so can't really say whether it's becoming less effective or not myself. Not really something that tends to be used in LFS tanks either, they jump straight to the dyes or other meds.

And yep, antibiotic use leads to selection of resistant bugs through constant and/or careless use. Not the case with all meds though, nothing really develops resistance to dyes, formalin etc.
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[Flame Angel]