When introducing new fish to your community tank, you also risk adding harmful parasites to your tank water. To prevent the potential spread of infections, you can use a product like the Seachem ParaGuard, which will help ward off Freshwater Ich, Saltwater Ich, Freshwater Velvet, Saltwater Velvet, Fin Rot, Gills Flukes and Skin Flukes.
You can take a look at this step-by-step tutorial to see how you can use ParaGuard as a preventative treatment.
1. Before you begin, you might want to consider setting up a quarantine tank as doing so will make it easier to observe the new fish for signs of infection. Furthermore, you won’t need to use as much ParaGuard when treating for a smaller tank.
2. If you are using activated carbon in your filter, then you need to remove it. Otherwise, this chemical filter media will absorb ParaGuard.
3. Once you are ready, you can start by dosing the solution into your tank.
According to the official directions, you need to add 5 mL of ParaGuard for every 10 gallons or 40 liters of tank water.
4. Continue dosing daily for 21 days if you have a freshwater tank. This length will cover the longest life cycles of the parasites that cause Freshwater Ich, Saltwater Ich, Freshwater Velvet, Saltwater Velvet, Fin Rot, Gills Flukes and Skin Flukes.
For a saltwater aquarium, we recommend dosing ParaGuard daily for 28 days.
5. We also recommend doing weekly water changes to keep your water parameters healthy for your fish.
For pristine water, you should aim to have 0 ppm of ammonia, 0 ppm of nitrites and 0 ppm of nitrates.
When doing a water change, you should wait for at least 24 hours since you last added ParaGuard. You can then take out the used tank water and then add in fresh water for your aquarium.
30 minutes after completing the water change, you should be able to safely dose ParaGuard.
6. If you see no signs of Freshwater Ich, Saltwater Ich, Freshwater Velvet, Saltwater Velvet, Fin Rot, Gills Flukes and Skin Flukes after 21 days for your treated freshwater tank or 28 days for your treated saltwater tank, then you can stop using ParaGuard.
7. At this point, you should be able to introduce your new fish to the community tank if you previously put them in a quarantine tank.
8. If you use ParaGuard to treat your community tank, then make sure you add activated carbon to the filter so that it will gradually remove the medication from your tank water.