Please, Please help!!!!, Disease outbreak

[BluePetalBettas]

How do you use the crushed garlic? I am a holistically minded person, so natural remedies are always a bonus for me!

Oh, and what is RO water? I have never heard of that even though I have been to a hydro store many times for my garden (we tried hydro heirloom tomatoes).

[bettafan]

I don't use the garlic, but the RO is Reverse Osmosis, I use a six stage RO unit and get 80 gallons of pure water, This is what I use for my fish water.
http://cgi.ebay.com/REEF-HOME-RO-DI-REVERS...=item518d379795

[BluePetalBettas]

Thanks! I figured out what RO meant after I asked. Do you still treat the water with conditioners after it is ROed?

[bettafan]

nope no need too. pure 100% water, I add salt, and a touch of well water for minerals.

[onehomegrownsoul]

Usually I just crush open a decent sized clove between my thumb and finger and let it sit in the water and steep. It's easier to keep an eye on it and remove it as I use the water up. But if I don't use it within a few days I take it out.

[bettafan]

I'm curious what linda adviced you to do. Any update. ???

[Martinismommy]

I have NO idea how I missed this post but......I'm curious too about what Linda had to say.....

RO systems are great.....I do know that much......Garlic is good too.....

How are the 90 imports today?

[onehomegrownsoul]

How are things going? Any improvement?

[BluePetalBettas]

Here is an update!!! The best guess we have as to what happened is that the stress caused a TB outbreak, which as you all know is supposed to be 100% deadly.

We had the following symptoms occur (some fish had a few symptoms, others had them all):
-clamped fins
-lethargy
-emaciation
-severe fin rot
-fungal growth (I realize this was secondary to the other infection)
-eventually stopped eating and died

So we lost around 9 fish total and thought we were going to lose about a dozen more. We are a chemical free, holistic household and our animals are treated the same. As a result we use holistic treatments such as IAL and salt. Well, this was a very extreme case obviously, and we thought about using the LFS meds to try and save some of the fish. We had other breeders tell us it was probably TB and to say goodbye to our sick friends, and do our best to quarantine the rest who were ill.

We started by treating with Grapefruit Seed Extract (GSE) for what we thought was just fungal infection. It didn't help at all, which was not true in the past. Then our fish started showing other symptoms and dying off rather quickly.

One of my favorite little green marble PK females got sick. I was very upset, and really didn't want her to die. She was hiding under her plant, breathing rapidly and very pale. My husband had put a drop of the GSE directly in with another fish that was just starting to show the TB symptoms, and he ate it. The next day he didn't show the symptoms any more. So I decided to dose the frozen bloodworms with the GSE for the sick fish and see what happened. After 2 days of GSE laced food, the green PK female was acting better! A week later and she is 90-95% better.

So I think the GSE is a viable treatment for severe infections.

By the way GSE is an antimicrobial, so it kills bacteria of all types, fungus and is an antiviral as well. I use it for all of my families health because it is pretty gentle and very effective. I did want to add that too much GSE is a rather quick euthanization method too, so do not overuse! I add 2-4 drops per half gallon of water. I do need to see what kind of concentration my brand has, so feel free to ask if you have ?s!

[bettafan]

Ya figured it TB , at least you saved some, I'm not holistic but if it worked for U so much the better. at least the fish survived.glad to hear it. well let us know how the breeding goes and how long it takes for a symtoms to clear up.

[BluePetalBettas]

You see improvement after water and food dosed with the GSE within 24-48 hours. It works very well, very fast. We use it for stubborn fungal infections with great success too. We have already bred our show red male line that started showing symptoms. We dosed him the same day and it was cleared the next. We bred him very successfully 2 weeks later. Now we have around 150 nice chili red HMPKs! They went free swimming yesterday.

I also used GSE to clear a kidney infection in myself and an absessed tooth as well. Great stuff, very cheap, very very effective. Hospitals use it to disinfect rooms exposed to MRSA too.