Treating spironucleus with metronidazole and pumice filter running

I have a constant nagging problem that is happening only on my discus, altum and scalare while no other species are affected (multiple tanks no cross contamination), discus being the easiest to treat and altum the most challenging. The signs are red base of pectoral fin, redness on base of dorsal fin, occasional “bloody nose”, pectoral fin clamping followed by fin rot and anorexia if not treated. I strongly suspected spironucleus because metronidazole-acriflavine-salt combo seems to work well when administered very early with addition of nifurpirinol necessary when late to act, the later seems to stress the fish so much. I highly suspect my recently abandoned behavior of feeding with bloodworm as the root cause of the problem. Please tell me if I am way off or in the right track? I am also wondering if me leaving my pumice bio filter running during treatment will make the medication less effective by absorption from the porous pumice? I don’t think nitrifying bacteria will be totally annihilated by metronidazole, acriflavine and salt so as long as there is no antibiotic I usually just keep my crazy effective pumice filter running when medicating my bare bottomed tank, my fish seems to be happier and less stressed that way. Any advice/suggestion please?

To me it sounds more like bacterial hemorrhagic septicemia type disease (a blood infection). Metro will not cure this. A broad spectrum antibiotic like Furan 2. In severe cases kanamycin and Furan2 can be used. The kind of media shouldn't matter unless you have charcoal/activated carbon in it.

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Originally Posted by bluelagoon

To me it sounds more like bacterial hemorrhagic septicemia type disease (a blood infection). Metro will not cure this. A broad spectrum antibiotic like Furan 2. In severe cases kanamycin and Furan2 can be used. The kind of media shouldn't matter unless you have charcoal/activated carbon in it.

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I also suspected some kind of bacterial infection at the beginning and septicemia is right at the top of my suspect list but metro-acri-salt seems to work wonder if caught very early (1-2 days prior to symptom/s) but yes I have to admit that I have my doubt because result is not consistent enough, thanks for pointing that out.

When adding broad spectrum antibiotic I have always used enrofloxacin combined with metronidazole or nifurpirinol/nifurstyrenate/nitrofurazone combined with metronidazole (I tend to add metro because of my worry of bloodworm effect), never tried to combine with kanamycin, I heard all furan family (nitrfurazone, furazolidone, furaltadone, nifurstyrenate, nifurpirinol) will produce magic when combined with kanamycin, I have to try it but I will have to ditch the metronidazole and I assume I can’t run my biofilter when I use furan and kanamycin?

By the way Furan-2 and nifurpirinol are bloody expensive here so I’ll probably just use nifurstyrenate or nitrofurazone

Out of curiosity, what is the dosage for kanamycin when combined with furan? I can’t find any legit reference fot kanamycin dosage on the internet, I know I can play around with 1-4 ppm but an initial starting point would be nice as I want to minimize the amount of antibiotic to avoid excessive stress.

Almost forget, thanks so much for the thoughts, please keep it coming.

BTW: Chloramphenicol is very easy to get and very cheap here, any good?

The Acriflavine is the compound that likely helped improved things for a few days, sometimes used instead of malachite green (ich remedy), but also acriflavine sudden be used with some water conditioners like Seachem Prime and other meds. Not sure of the med you mentioned. I would see no reason why you would continue to use metro in this case. I would go with nitrofurazone, that is Furan2.