Dosing fenbendazole and copper at the same time?

[ihateSpirorbids]

For Quarantine, could I dose both copper and fenbendazole into the water column? Copper would kill all external parasites, and fenbendazole would take care of internal parasites eventually. Since copper treatments can take 30+ days, I was thinking if it would be possible to just also dose fenbendazole in parallel to save on time.

How dangerous is this, or is it ok?

 

[sc50964]

Wrong site. Should be in fish disease. Interesting tho. I don’t think it’s a good idea and have never heard about combining these two. @Jay Hemdal ?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

For Quarantine, could I dose both copper and fenbendazole into the water column? Copper would kill all external parasites, and fenbendazole would take care of internal parasites eventually. Since copper treatments can take 30+ days, I was thinking if it would be possible to just also dose fenbendazole in parallel to save on time.

How dangerous is this, or is it ok?

I prefer not to run anti-helminthic baths and copper at the same time, there is a risk of doubling up on the treatment stress to the fish. What type of copper are you using? That has a big impact on the relative stress level - ionic copper is pretty harsh, I would not run that in conjunction with other medications. I have run coppersafe and praziquantel at the same time with no apparent issues.

I would caution you about Fenbendazole - it does not have the same track record for safety as praziquantel does. It works better as an oral medication (if you dose it correctly) It does show odd toxicity in certain species when used as a bath - I've had 100% mortality with darters and flashlight fish. Other people have had issues with sharks and rays, catfish and tetras. Most coral reef fish seem o.k. with it, but it is not well studied. Fish with acute toxicity just die 2 or 3 days after treatment, and many people mistakenly attribute the fish loss to some other factor.

Noga gives a fenbendazole dose for flukes at 95mg/gallon of tank water for 12 hours (then change the water).

Jay

 

[ihateSpirorbids]

Thanks for the insight! I have cupramine from seachem for copper.

Instead of dosing fenbendazole into the water column, would the mortality be significantly reduced if I soak food in fenben and feed fish while they are in a copper treatment? That way the fish won't be constantly exposed to fenben, but instead just ingested once or twice a day. And any internal parasites that try to escape fenben by jumping out will be killed by the overall copper bath.

I read up on Noga, and you're right: 95mg/gallon is the dosage for dosing in water column. But what would be a good amount of fenben to soak a few pellets in (or maybe half chunk of frozen mysis) (in oz)?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks for the insight! I have cupramine from seachem for copper.

Instead of dosing fenbendazole into the water column, would the mortality be significantly reduced if I soak food in fenben and feed fish while they are in a copper treatment? That way the fish won't be constantly exposed to fenben, but instead just ingested once or twice a day. And any internal parasites that try to escape fenben by jumping out will be killed by the overall copper bath.

I read up on Noga, and you're right: 95mg/gallon is the dosage for dosing in water column. But what would be a good amount of fenben to soak a few pellets in (or maybe half chunk of frozen mysis) (in oz)?

Cupramine is an ionic formulation, not as harsh as copper/citric acid, but worse than coppersafe or copper power.

Yes, oral doses are less of an issue, but you cannot just mix fenbendazole with food - you need to calculate the dose properly. We have the tools here to do that, but it is not for the faint of heart - it is very difficult to run the math!

My article on medicated foods:

Proper Dosing of Medicated Foods

Proper Dosing of Medicated Foods Jay Hemdal c. 2020 Oral medications are an excellent way to target internal diseases of fishes. Marine fish absorb aquarium water, so in certain cases, they “drink” enough medication from the water to effect a cure. However, freshwater fish actively export...

www.reef2reef.com

The calculator devised by @threebuoys :

Fish Disease Calculators

During the course of caring for our fish, we often need to make calculations regarding several recommended treatment options. Most water quality maintenance steps are supported by calculations provided in the "Reef Chemistry by Randy Holmes Farley" forum. Taking it a step further, additional...

www.reef2reef.com

The oral dose is pretty wide - Hadfield/Clayton gives 10 to 75 mg/KG of fish body weight every other day in the food for three treatments, which in turn I think, came from Noga.

You know though, Fenbendazole is mostly for treating round worms, it is only secondarily effective against trematodes.

Jay