A fundamental cornerstone of fish husbandry or pond maintenance is managing water quality. This essentially involves trying to ensure that the different contaminants of your pond, be they fish waste or external pollutants, remain in balance with the plant life and other mechanisms that counter any negative effects.
If you are able to maintain a healthy balance to your water then many potential pond problems will effectively be avoided or minimized.

Even given effective water management, there will inevitably be occasions when all is not well with the pond environment and you may have illness in your fish stock. One unfortunate truth at this stage is that if one fish is unwell, there is a high likelihood others are, or shortly will be.

So how can fish ailments be tackled? A trip to your local aquatics dealer will show a broad range of chemicals and treatments available off the shelf. Some of the most common treatments are acriflavin, formaldehyde and malachite green.

The uses of these three common treatments are correspondingly to counter infection in a similar manner to antiseptics for humans, to act as a disinfectant which is an effective treatment of many parasites and lastly malachite green is used as a parasite treatment.

In the correct circumstances, these and many of the other treatments can be a great tool in tackling a broad range of ailments or issues. One important discipline in using such treatments is that instructions are adhered to. It is very easy to assume that a little extra can only be better but this is really not the case. Many of these chemicals need to be treated with great respect to avoid new issues caused by mis-use.