Dear Tammy:
Okay, let me see if I can explain ppm a little more clearly. The designation "ppm" is short for parts per million, so if the proper dosage is 10 ppm, in order to achieve the right concentration you would need to add 10 drops of the medication for every 1,000,000 drops of saltwater in the treatment container.
If you’re going to be using a 5 gallon bucket of saltwater for treating your seahorse, you just need to convert 5 gallons of saltwater into milliliters of saltwater, then convert milliliters of saltwater into drops of saltwater, and then convert drops of saltwater into drops of praziquantel using the following equivalencies:
20 drops/ml (i.e., 20 drops equals 1 milliliter)
3785.412ml/gallon (i.e., 3785.412 milliliters equals 1 gallon)
10 ppm = 10/1,000,000 = 10 drops of praziquantel per one million drops of saltwater)
So you will have 5 gallons of saltwater multiplied by 3785.412 ml/gallon of saltwater multiplied by 20 drops of saltwater/ml multiplied by 10 drops of praziquantel/1,000,000 drops of saltwater. To save time, I have worked out the conversion for you below:
5gal x 3785.412ml/gal x 20 drops/ml x 10 drops Prazi/one million drops = 3.785 drops of Prazi
To simplify the math, let’s break down the calculation into separate steps as indicated below.
First step: convert 5 gallons of saltwater into milliliters of saltwater:
5 gallons of saltwater x 3785.412ml/gallon = 18,927.06 ml of saltwater
Second step: convert 18,927.06 milliliters of saltwater into drops of saltwater:
18,927.06 ml of saltwater x 20 drops/ml = 71646720 drops of saltwater
Third step: convert 71646720 drops of saltwater into drops of praziquantel:
71646720 drops of saltwater x 10 drops of praziquantel/1,000,000 drops of saltwater = 3.785
In other words, Tammy, if your bucket holds 5 gallons of saltwater, you would need to add about 4 drops of pure praziquantel to achieve a dosage of 10 ppm. (That’s assuming you’re starting with 100% praziquantel, which you probably won’t be. Your medication will likely be an ethanol-based liquid with a certain concentration of praziquantel in it, and you would also have to take that into consideration when you calculate the proper dosage.)
But the PraziPro should have instructions on the label that explain the right dosage for various purposes, so that you shouldn’t need to perform any complex calculations.
And if you can feed brine shrimp gutloaded with the praziquantel to ghost shrimp, and then feed the ghost shrimp to your voracious but skinny seahorse, that would also do the trick.
Best of luck eliminating any internal parasites that may be troubling your stallion, Tammy!
Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna
Ocean Rider, Inc. is an Organic Hawaiian-Based Seahorse Aqua-Farm & Aquarium that Follows Strict Good Farming Practices in Raising Seahorses and Other Aquatic Life.
