Gill flukes

[Mebbid]

So I think I may be having an issue with gill flukes and was wondering if there were any treatments that would be effective in treating the entire 55g tank.

There are a few problems from this though:
1. Heavily stocked with shrimp, plants, and snails.
2. Large numbers of fish so pulling them out is difficult and wont treat the issue in the tank itself.


I do have metronidazole medicated food already although I'm not certain that it will work in my case.

 

[George9]

So I think I may be having an issue with gill flukes and was wondering if there were any treatments that would be effective in treating the entire 55g tank.

There are a few problems from this though:
1. Heavily stocked with shrimp, plants, and snails.
2. Large numbers of fish so pulling them out is difficult and wont treat the issue in the tank itself.

I do have metronidazole medicated food already although I'm not certain that it will work in my case.

I'd recommend prazipro, it's safe for inverts and you can treat the entire tank. You should do multiple treatments though. I'd do 5 day treatment, wait 5 days, do another 5 day treatment, wait another five days, then do another. Hopefully you'll kill them all with this. One treatment will only kill the flukes, not the eggs. That's why more are needed to kill the eggs as they hatch.

You can wait anywhere from 5 days to a week Inbetween treatments IMO.

 

[jlk]

+1

Praziquantel is the most effective treatment for flukes. Prazipro (by Hikari) is the easiest to use as its liquid while powdered prazi needs to be dissolved in alcohol (as in vodka) as it does not dissolve in water. Prazi will not affect shrimp, snails, frogs, plants or other creatures nor will it affect your good bacteria.

The minimum treatment to break the fluke (skin or gill) lifecycle should be treating for atleast 3 weeks. As flukes are the number one issue with goldfish, most goldie owners treat for atleast 4-6wks or cycle 3 on, 1 off, 3 on (or a similar cycle 4/1/4 with a break).

With prazi, nothing special really needs to be done other than a big wc before dosing. It can be redosed (after a big wc) based on your normal wc schedule routine, whether its wcs every 3 or 5 or 7 days (7 days between doses is the max). Please ask if you have questions!

 

[Angelsong777]

Another vote for Prazipro, in fact I just dosed my 50 gallon tank with it earlier today.

 

[Mebbid]

Well I guess that means I'm going on a road trip tomorrow. That's one of the medicines I was looking at and the only store in my area that has it is a little over an hour away. Oh well, it's a HUGE pet store and I just like going to look at their salt water stuff

 

[George9]

I know this is old but I'm curious, did the prazipro do the trick?

 

[Mebbid]

It did but killed at least 100 wild type neocardinia shrimp. I did 2 doses of the medication with an 70% water change between them and apparently it was too much for my shrimp. I should have ran carbon in the tank before the second dose.

Thankfully I had pulled a couple of my females out to try to breed one of the color morphs out and have probably 15 shrimp from that which should start breeding within the next month as well as probably 10 left over in my DT.

It took about a week for the least affected fish to recover and 2 - 3 for my guppies to recover fully which were worse off by far.

 

[jlk]

It did but killed at least 100 wild type neocardinia shrimp. I did 2 doses of the medication with an 70% water change between them and apparently it was too much for my shrimp. I should have ran carbon in the tank before the second dose.

Thankfully I had pulled a couple of my females out to try to breed one of the color morphs out and have probably 15 shrimp from that which should start breeding within the next month as well as probably 10 left over in my DT.

It took about a week for the least affected fish to recover and 2 - 3 for my guppies to recover fully which were worse off by far.

I am very sorry to hear about your shrimp! I have no experience with wild shrimp but my ghosts, adf's and snails have never suffered ill effects from using prazi at twice the recommended dose and for lengthy periods of time. I will note this information in respect to wild shrimp in case I encounter this again in the future! Thanks for letting us know what happened!

 

[Mebbid]

They are the base color form for the rcs. Not sure how far removed from the wild ones they are.