Medicated foods and their place

[ozzyrockman]

I noticed a few newer medicated koi and gf foods on the market and wanted to get some opinions on them. A few years ago I ordered 1.25lbs of Aqua Meds Medi-Koi for some problems I had with our koi and had to order it 2nd day air for the simple reason that no local dealers carried it at the time (fall 03) and because of my experience or lack there of at the time I could not tell how effective it was.

Recently I noticed the Koi Care Kennel not only came out with a medicated food they also came out with a separate product for internal worms and parasites as well. I know from personal experience that the Koi Care Kennel ie Debride products are very reliable and do exactly what they say they do unlike others !grrrr so I wonder if the Debride products would be good products to add to the emergency shelf along with salt, Debride medicated ointment, Baytril, TB syringe, large bag and Tricide Neo for the simple fact that these products are so hard to get a hold of when you really need them.

I know it sounds stupid to add a bag in there however I wonder how many of us right now have a bag they can put their 24" koi in for transport/acclimate to a qt tank for treatment? Sorry got a bit side tracked. I am not sure if the Debride products are like the Medi Koi but I have heard rumor that you can feed these products to them weather they are sick or not and it will not hurt them. I have to assume this is true because it would be very difficult for someone to know for sure that a fish has an internal worm or internal parasite other than when it is potentially too late.

The other thing I was told and makes since to me is that if a koi is stunted and not growing as fast as the others of similar age is that it may very well have worms and I know for sure this is true in other animals. Allen

[Terri]

We've never used medicated foods so I have no opinion there but like all foods the package will have an expiration date... so that's something to think about when purchasing when you do not need it - hopefully you will never need it.

[Jackie Ramo]

I also haven't used medicated food. Bought it but then ended up throwing it away as it was 2 years old and still not used.

As for debride... I can't see it would do anything that neosporin wouldn't do for muchless cost.

BTW, I need to put another bag in the emergency kit, Terri ran off with it and the fish today :-D but since she left the bag here in the first place who am I to complain

[GregBickal]

Ive been using medicaid food (stuff from AES) for the 3 weeks for my koi from Japan. I didnt notice that it made much difference, however my problem was a .25 ambient ammonia, so I dont think it was a good test. I did give a few of my koi injections of Amakacin (sp?). That seemed to help them heal up faster than the ones that didn't get the injections. I am going to be injecting a Shiro Utsuri tonight.

Used Amquel to clear up the ammonia problem. Now I have some Cloram-X on hand for future problems.

[Jackie Ramo]

Well medicated food certainly won't do much for ammonia :D but for internal problems its handy.

Why are you shooting up your fish Greg?