Potassium Permanganate Dosage

[ahhua]

Hi,

Without any weighting tool, anyone know how to properly calculate and mix Potassium Permanganate (PP) in crystal form with water in order to get concentration of 2mg/liter in my 30 liter tank water. I need 2mg/liter to kill grill flukes on my discus fries. Can I base on color to estimate the dosage? I need the advice as soon as possible to treat my discus. Appreciate very much!

[Navanod]

Erm...first and foremost, if that 30L tank is your actual fish tank, I don't think you should add the PP directly in! You'll kill all your BB in the filters
PP baths are not meant for long exposure time, so beside getting the dosage right, you should find out the exposure time as well.

Without sensitive weighing equipment, your only way is to use a large volume of water to dilute a dose of the smallest amount you can weigh with relative accuracy. ie. do serial dilution.

Eg, 2mg is 0.002g. Take 20g and dilute into 1litre of water. Take out 100ml of the concentrated PP solution and dilute in 900ml of water. Now you have 2g/litre.
Take out 100ml of the concentrated PP solution and dilute in 900ml of water again.
Now you have 0.2g or 200mg/litre.
Repeat until you get 0.002g/litre.

Note: The more times you do the dilution, the more accurate it is. If you simply take 1ml of the 20g/litre solution and dilute that with 999ml of water to get 0.02g/L, you may end up with a large margin of error since even a small drop of the solution contains alot of PP relative to your desired working strength solution.

Depends on how precise you want, you can vary the number of dilutions but generally, 10 times dilution is what I suggest.

[ahhua]

Thanks Navanod!

I just base on the color. I dilute the PP with water and pour slowly until I get a transparent pink purple color tank water.

[stormhawk]

ahhua, it is advisable to keep the colour tint to the lightest possible. Potassium permanganate can be lethal in high doses. I usually just drop in 1 crystal to see the tank water turn a slight pinkish-purple. That usually works, but I do a water change soon after.

It will destroy your filter bacteria, so use with caution.

Another method is make a PP bath. Fill up a small tub with water from the tank, add in a very small amount of PP, just enough to tint the water lightly.. and I mean lightly. Catch the fish one by one with a net, dip it in and let the fish stay there for 5-10 minutes, then return the fish back to their tank. PP baths can be less risky than dosing an entire tank.

[ahhua]

Thanks stormhawk!

I have monitored the progress but it seems a bit improvement only. I am sure I dose more than your advice. Does anyone know other than gill fluke, what other disease can cause rubbing on surface with their gill area. If I use heater at 30'C kill the parasites?

[stormhawk]

It could be white spot. I don't think heaters will help in curing diseases, maybe for certain species. You can try reading this resource:

http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/gill%20disease.htm

If you have any of the possible causes, try and rectify the situation.

[ahhua]

It could be white spot. I don't think heaters will help in curing diseases, maybe for certain species. You can try reading this resource:

http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/gill%20disease.htm

If you have any of the possible causes, try and rectify the situation.

Thanks for the informative website!