Platies reacting badly to Prazi?

[RightTurnClyde]

Anyone ever had Platies or other livebearers react badly after adding Praziquantel to the tank? I specifically used Prazi-Pro. I added it as a treatment for some new platies I just added, thinking I could knock out whatever gill flukes they may have arrived with. A few hours after adding the Prazi, I had a few of my existing platies clamp their fins and hide. Sometimes they'll come and hang out at the top and breath a little bit fast.

I did a 50% WC this morning and added purigen back to my filter. One of them is starting to display normal behavior again. I suspect the others will come around eventually too. I noticed a couple of them flashing on the sand after all this was done too. Anyone ever seen anything like this?

Ammonia and Nitrite is zero. Nitrate under 10. 29 gallon, moderately planted.
Pool filter sand substrate. I dose daily with Excel, Seachem Iron and Potassium. Planted Plus LED lighting. Tank mates are white clouds, peppered cories (who I would think would be the most sensitive, but are acting fine), Amano shrimp, Nerite Snails, MTS.

 

[Matt68005]

Prazipro is 5ml per 20 gallons, you likely dosed with 5ml per 10 gallons, which is the standard dose for a lot of medicines. I have done it before.

 

[RightTurnClyde]

Hmm... I'm thinking maybe my new additions brought something bad with them (I don't have room for a quarantine tank.) They looked great in the store and everyone else in the tank looked fine. I have two Blue Mickey Mouse Platys that are now hiding in the corners of the tank. One at the top and is breathing a little bit hard. The other has clamped fins and tends to hide on the bottom. They are still able to swim around when they have to. The one from the bottom came up to eat with the others tonight, but she would grab a piece of food, chew on it, and then spit it out again. I've seen several fish flashing against the plant leaves. As soon as I'm sure I've removed all the Prazi, I think I may begin treatment for Ich.

 

[Delapool]

Closest I can get is using it on mollies with no issues.

 

[Matt68005]

Its really a shot in the dark. But ive had good success with Acriflavin/malachite green combo lately on my guppies that were acting similar.

 

[RightTurnClyde]

Its really a shot in the dark. But ive had good success with Acriflavin/malachite green combo lately on my guppies that were acting similar.

Thanks. I've been treating with Paraguard, which has malachite green in it along with some proprietary aldehyde blend. I started it too late I think. I've lost 3 fish. But the remaining fish seem to be on the mend. I'm going to continue treatment until I see no more flashing and all the fins get unclamped.

 

[Matt68005]

The acriflavin would be found at petsmart "fungus cure" or at Walmart "ick cure"
Do they look bloated to you? Not eating? You said mollies, I know a lot of people are struggling with guppies right now some kind of gut parasite that is drug resistant going around, maybe Mollies, being the same genus as guppies, are effected as well. You can add Epsom salt to their tank 1TBSP per ten gallons, and also mix 1 TBSP with 2 cups of water and add this to their food, like frozen brine shrimp, that will help them pass the parasite. The Medicine in the water kills the parsite once its out of their gut.
Or maybe im just a little paranoid about this pest because its so hard to kill, almost like tetrahymena.

 

[BBradbury]

Your Fish

Hello Right...

If your fish are acting abnormally, there's a water problem. With the exception of a water treatment to remove chlorine and chloramine, chemicals should never go into the tank water. The reasoning is simple, you never know how fish, plants and especially the bacteria colony will react. If you cleaned up the water by working up to 50 percent water changes weekly and eliminated anything chemical based with the exception of the water treatment, I think you'll find the health of the tank, in general, will improve.

Livebearing fish like Platys, will be healthier if you add a bit of standard aquarium salt to their new, treated tap water. Up to a teaspoon for every 5 gallons if you have egglayers in the same tank and two teaspoons if you keep livebearers only.

B

 

[RightTurnClyde]

The acriflavin would be found at petsmart "fungus cure" or at Walmart "ick cure"
Do they look bloated to you? Not eating? You said mollies, I know a lot of people are struggling with guppies right now some kind of gut parasite that is drug resistant going around, maybe Mollies, being the same genus as guppies, are effected as well. You can add Epsom salt to their tank 1TBSP per ten gallons, and also mix 1 TBSP with 2 cups of water and add this to their food, like frozen brine shrimp, that will help them pass the parasite. The Medicine in the water kills the parsite once its out of their gut.
Or maybe im just a little paranoid about this pest because its so hard to kill, almost like tetrahymena.

It's Platies actually, but close enough. That's interesting about the gut parasite. I have seen a lot of posts about that. The platies that died were actually looking a bit skinny, but I have some white clouds in the tank that are quite bloated. I've been feeding them peas once a week, but maybe I'll try the epsom salt mixed with some food. The bigger problem seems to be with their gills. I think it's some kind of gill parasite that is making it difficult for them to breath. They are still flashing occasionally too.

BBradbury, thanks. I keep up with 50% water changes every single week without fail. I honestly think it was simply my lack of quarantining new fish that started this whole mess. I changed 75% within 3 days before this all started too.


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[Matt68005]

I know exactly what you mean....Ya there definitely is something going around that seems to affect livebearers and "fancy" bred fish, but not wild types. Over time if they live they become skinny. They breathe fast and hang and only eat a little or none at all. Honestly, I got the Acriflavin/malachite green/formalin treatment from Stan shubel, the award winning guppy pro breeder. Some article he wrote years ago about loosing tons of guppies to a disease even he could not figure out. I even took one of my fish to a vet, because I was loosing so many for SOOO long. The gut smear and biopsy was negative, no sign of a parasite or worms, but there was a lot of mucus. I really want to know this one myself. It presents as an internal parasite, but absolutely does not respond to Metronidazole. Trust me, I metro'd my guppies almost to death 3 or 4 times over the course of last spring summer fall and this winter, no results until I clove oiled the lot of them and stearalized everything I own. Set the tanks back up and got some new hardy guppies, guess what....IT CAME BACK. Epsom salt and the ick medicine is the only thing keeping my guppies alive and active right now. Their acting fine but once and awhile one will hang....Im really at a loss. Someone needs to put a specimen in some formaldehyde and send some affected fish to a university or zoo so that we can figure out what this is and start fighting it. Your post only re-assures my paranoia that this disease is real and it only affects fancy bred fish, livebearers especially and maybe fancy goldfish.

 

[RightTurnClyde]

Wow. Yeah that sounds a lot like what I've seen. Sounds like I need to get some epsom salt asap. I fed them tonight some ground up NLS Thera A pellets mixed with mashed up peas and they ate that up like crazy, so I hope that helps.


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[RightTurnClyde]

Well... had another dead Platy when I got home tonight.

She seemed to be in decent shape yesterday. This thing kills fast, with very little warning! I read and watched a lot of videos about Bloat today. I think that's what is going on. I got some epsom salt, made a 3% solution and soaked some NLS pellets in it and fed that to the tank. Everyone that is still alive ate it up. I also dumped the little bit of solution that was still left in the cup into the tank. I figured it could only help.

Hopefully the epsom salt will get it out of them and the Paraguard will kill it.

 

[Matt68005]

Hopefully the epsom salt will get it out of them and the Paraguard will kill it.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Only thing I could do to save my guppies, and it worked!

 

[BANGAR]

Sounds like a good plan to me. Only thing I could do to save my guppies, and it worked!

Matt I think I have this problem. I haven't lost any fish, but a few of my guppies look bloated periodically, and one (who looks this sickest) is very skinny, and has had slow recovery from fish attacks. Saw a long white stringy poop come out of a guppy. Worried about them.


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[Matt68005]

Matt I think I have this problem. I haven't lost any fish, but a few of my guppies look bloated periodically, and one (who looks this sickest) is very skinny, and has had slow recovery from fish attacks. Saw a long white stringy poop come out of a guppy. Worried about them.


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I think it is the first phase of worms. And it wont respond to a dewormer just yet.
After a ton of researching, asking on forums, I came to the conclusion that it was the nematode callaprai, and/or the beginning stages of callamunus worms.
I would order some levimasole online and mix it in some brine shrimp or bloodworms and feed them that way. Epsom salt is a natural laxative and you can make some Epsom salt water to put in the container where you mixed the dewormer with food. Also you can put 1TBSP per ten gallons of water of Epsom salt in the tank, and dose the acriflavin. After about a week of the Acriflavin/Victoria green combo (Walmart)
You should have your dewormer in the mail. Do some large water changes, then give them the dewormer, repeat in 2-3 weeks, Vacum the bottom to suck up dead baby worms, do not contaminate other tanks with anything used on the sick tank. Even with all this it is hard to save them once they get to the bloated stage, most will probably die.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to tear it down and stearlize it/everything with bleach if you only have a few fish, if its like a tankful of 50 guppies, try what I said. Most importantly, DO NOT FEED the fish when they are bloated like this, as that will surely kill them. The medicine that worked for me was called "ICK GUARD" and contained Acriflavin/Victoria green, which is malachite green. Then hit with the dewormer later on. Greens like deshelled peas or spirula can also be used with the dewormer to help with them passing the worms. Brine shrimp is easy to digest, and blood worms "soak up" the dewormer, so what I did was go to petsmart and get the "frozen variety" pack of food. And did not feed except one small flake meal every other day during the Aflav/V. Green treatment phase.
I managed to save most of my fish initially, but even then this parasite seems to never go away, so I eneded up taking it all down and cleaning it with bleach very thoroughly. And watch out for super skinny or bloated guppies in the future, and never buy one.

 

[BANGAR]

Well, I am moving tomorrow about 3 blocks down the road. I plan on moving the tank but hopefully won't have to tear everything down(it's a newly dirted 46g bowfront). I will however have to move the fish into a transport container. Probably 20-35g. I was thinking I could use this container as a decontamination station for a few weeks. Could the worms live in the dirt/gravel substrate for a month with no host?!? I want to be rid of them! But I would prefer to not break down the tank if not necessary. Current stock:
20 guppys
1 garra ruffa
5 cory melanistius
1 Cory loxozonus
I lost a 1 of each Cory within the last two weeks ( got them about 1.5 months ago)


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[Matt68005]

I want to help more, but ive told you everything I know. I lost my battle with calamunus worms and put them down, then, re-homed their babies when they were adults (to someone who I informed they had calamunus)
Just read up on calamunus
it happened to my guppies, some of them living for nearly a year before the worms eventually killed them.
Any new aditions would come down with bloat, and labored breathing....just like yours.
Other than trying to treat the bloat with Epsom salt, no food, and acriflavin/MG...... try the levimasole when you get it. I tried fenbendazole in pre-made flake food, but it was too weak.
It is VERY contagious. Personally I would tear everything down, clove oil/ice water euthanize the lot of them, stearlize the heck out of EVERYTHING while we got some last warm days ahead, count my losses, and start over.