Are you over medicating your fish?

The idea behind this post comes after reading several boards on various fish and aquarium forums across the great wide web. I’m always coming across posts that start off like this: “I recently set up a new tank and now I think all the fish have ich”. Or, “My fish has fin rot what can I do?”. Then you see all the responses from the others on such and such medicine and such and such treatment. Why do we think medications will fix our shortcomings as aquarists?Let me start this off by stating that while I’m all in favor of using medicines and other treatments in the right situation, I really do feel that most of them are misused and they are used much too often to treat our aquarium fish.
Take fin rot for example. Fin rot can usually be “cured” by simply providing a good diet, clean, frequently changed aquarium water and any fin nipping tank mates. No medicines are necessary. Bada-bing, poof - fin rot gone.
Ich is another easily preventable disease, but one that will benefit from using medicine to fight this fish disease in a quarantine tank before introducing it to your main tank and infecting ALL the fish in the aquarium. Developing a proper quarantine protocol with ALL new fish is an absolute. The aquarist can watch for any signs of infection and/or disease and treat if necessary in the quarantine tank. It’s too bad since this disease is so easily prevented and often fatal for our fish.
Ok, by a show of hands please, how many of you use a quarantine tank? Not many I see. It’s too bad, because you really could make it easier on yourself and your wallet by using one for you new fish friends. One of the best things you can do for your fish, aside from using a quarantine tank, is to do those partial water changes on a regular basis. Our aquariums are enclosed systems and they can quickly become polluted. Frequent partial water changes dilutes the levels of pollution in our tanks and can keep the fish from stressing. Once stressed, their immune systems may be lowered making it easier for them to contract a disease, fungus or other problem.
So, if you discover a problem with your fish such as fin rot or a fungus remember back to when your last water change was… Has it been awhile? Try getting and keeping the water cleaner before resorting to using medications.
Sorry for the rant, but I get tired reading about how much money gets wasted on all these fish medicines!