Dissolved Oxygen During Treatments

[dasaltemelosguy]

I was wondering if anyone knows if a study has been done on using additional Oxygen when treating an aquarium illness improves the efficacy of treatment or reduces mortality or not?

I ask because I recently had a terrible bout with columnaris and it was quite severe. @Coluwas kind enough to guide me to the medications which worked very well (thank you!). 

As is common with fish meds, the Oxygen can drop. I noticed it was only circa 4-5 PPM once I started medicating, dropping from about 6-7 PPM as it is normally. When I see that occur, I add this silly little rig to augment the O2: 

O2 Gen

This raised the Oxygen PPM from 4PPM to almost 8PPM. I only had to refill it once in a week but it kept the O2 at near saturation levels for the entire course of the treatment. 

However I have no idea if it matters or not! 

I can't imagine extra O2 being a detriment, especially when fish are so sick they no longer eat, but I was wondering if it may have helped them or if I'm just making myself feel better!

If anyone out there has first hand experience with adding O2 when treating sick fishes or knows of a study on augmented O2 during fish treatments, I'd love to see that data. Thanks everyone.  

 

 

[Colu]

 

In my experience higher levels of dissolved oxygen definitely help sick fish as there using less effort to breathe and it helps to reduce stress lower level of dissolved oxygen can  cause stress to an already sick fish coupled with the addition of meds that can lower levels of dissolved oxygen even further that can  increase mortality  that all depends on what fish your keeping as cold water hold's a lot more dissolved oxygen then  a tank at tropical temperatures 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Colu

[Gator]

@dasaltemelosguy; I don't have an O2 meter because I never thought I needed one, but now I guess I'll need to buy one.

I've never worried about the O2 level back when I used to have to treat for diseases, I have a lot of plants in my tanks, and I see them pearling quite often, so I suppose everything must be OK, at least a Fisheries Biologist friend says it is.

Please, google columnaris, scroll down the page (or 2, or more) until you find an article from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR) and read it, copy it for future reference if you wish (I did). This article will tell you that if we raise the temps of our tanks to 85 degrees (or close to it), our fish will be healthier, and we will save tons of money on meds.

Think about it like this, our fish originally came from very warm tropical lakes and rivers. Yeah, we do the research on our fish and the articles we read say that a particular fish prefers a water temp that is between 76 to 78 degrees, but really? How and where was the research conducted to come up with this conclusion? Was the research done in the real-world environment of the Amazon, the Congo, Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, or a rice paddy in SE Asia? Probably not, so I'll trust those whose job it is to do the research in a laboratory setting.

Good luck and, HAPPY NEW YEAR!