>To the best of my understanding, treatment is not particularly rewarding
>due to many resistant strains. There is a report of successful treatment
>using rifampin, erythromycin, and streptomycin.1 These same drugs have been
>used in humans for treatment of non-tuberculous mycobacterial infections,
>however the treatment time is prolonged (18-24 mos.).2 For most short lived
>fish, there is no way to be sure treatment has actually eliminated the
>organism from the body and there is no test to diagnose this disease
>antemortem (except for thoses fishes exhibiting skin lesions where the
>organism can be tentatively identified from a skin scraping using an acid
>fast stain).
I've read that Kanamycine used at 2-5 gm/100L water may be effective
(G.Bassleer ~ Colorguide of tropical fish diseases). As Bruce says though it
would probably be difficult to get sick fish to eat treated food and with my
shaky hands I'm likely to inject myself if I tried the injection method.
However, Kanamycine here in Australia is around $A80.00 for 5 grams or
$A300.00 for 25 grams (+ tax) which makes it a little expensive. Although
I'm seriously tempted to try it.
Treating a large tank with a large number of fishes could in the long term
be cost effective (that's if it works). Perhaps it might be better to treat
a smaller tank with only a few fish that you know have TB and if the cure is
effective then sacrifice the fish for a pathology examination. At least you
would know if it worked. I guess I will just have to give it a little more
thought.
Adrian.
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Adrian R. Tappin
"Home of the Rainbowfish"
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm
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