The Puffer Forum

Dadof4 wrote:The Maracyn is utter BS for this problem and will contribute to this fishes demise. So far through out the thread there has only been mention of ICH at the onset as the reason for adding Melafix, never has a fungal infection been mentioned. Maracyn is a broad spectrum antibiotic that is used to treat gram positive bacteria on the surface of an organism and has little to no systemic uptake. In other words if you do this you are treating the skin, the fish absorbs too little (even at full strength) to do any good with IP's. I feel it will only cause stress and, even though it's targeted at gram positive bacteria, possibly interfere with the continuing cycle of the tank.

Continue with the Jungle Fizz Tabs and Garlic to rid him of IP's and continue your water changes to dilute the toxins in the tank.

You asked why you suddenly showed nitrates and I don't think you got a real good answer yet. Seeing the nitrate spike is a good thing. As a tank cycles you develop different strains bacteria to help oxidize the different toxins created. Simply put the first is Nitrosomonas that oxidizes ammonia to nitrite, second is Nitrobacter that oxidizes nitrite to nitrate. Your cycle was starting to level off the ability to properly handle ammonia as was shown by the drop without a big water change and due to the higher levels of nitrite you had a bloom of Nitrobacter and it's friends to process that off and nitrite in to nitrate. If you added the Dr. Tim's you really got a good dose of of all the differing strains of nitifying bacterias also that aided in the process at an early point in the cycle, causing your nitrates to spike.