The Seachem ParaGuard is a multipurpose treatment as you can use it to fight off fish diseases like Freshwater Ich (Ichthyophthirius), Saltwater Ich (Cryptocaryon), Freshwater Velvet (Piscinoodinium), Saltwater Velvet (Amyloodinium), Fin Rot, Gills Flukes (Monogenenean trematodes) and Skin Flukes (Dactylogyrus trematodes).
If you don’t think ParaGuard is working as intended, then you can take a look at this troubleshooting guide to see what steps you can potentially take.
1. The first step you can take is to make sure that you don’t have any activated carbon or similar chemical filter media that are designed to remove any impurities from the water column.
If you are using carbon or other similar media, then we recommend removing them as soon as possible.
2. You can also try doing a water change as good water quality should help your sick fish heal quicker.
When doing a water change, you can try taking the following steps:
- Wait at least 24 hours since you last added a dose ParaGuard in your fish tank.
- Take water out of the fish tank.
- If you are adding tap water back into the tank, then make sure you use a water conditioner.
- Try to get your tank water as pristine as possible. If you have a test kit, then you should aim for 0 ppm of ammonia, 0 ppm of nitrites and less than 20 ppm of nitrates.
- After doing a water change, wait for 1 hour
- After 1 hour have passed since the water change, you can safely dose ParaGuard without causing any potential issues.
We recommend doing weekly water changes during treatment to keep the water quality high.
3. Furthermore, you should make sure that you are dosing the right amount of ParaGuard. According to Seachem, you need to add 5 mL of this solution for every 10 gallons or 40 liters of tank water.
4. The treatment length depends on the disease you are trying to treat with ParaGuard. Therefore, we recommend taking a look at our treatment schedules for this product to see if you are dosing for the correct length of time.
5. Avoid using ParaGuard with another medication as the mixture may make it less effective or even make it very toxic.
6. You should also avoid using this product with other reducing agents, such as Seachem Prime, as this mixture will deplete the oxygen in your fish tank.
7. If ParaGuard still isn’t working after you try all of the aforementioned steps, then you might want to consider switching to another product.
Before doing so, we recommend adding activated carbon to your filtration for at least one week to remove ParaGuard in your tank water.
Afterwards, you can try a different product. If you are looking for a specific product, then you might want to take a look at the Seachem PolyGuard, which treats the same issues as ParaGuard.
If you are interested, you can purchase a bottle of the PolyGuard on Amazon with this link. (#CommissionsEarned)