I have never experienced flukes before so I wanted to post something on my experience. I always figured flukes were one of the lesser threats in fish compared to ick or brook. I picked up a McCoskers flasher wrasse on Wednesday (2 days ago). Acclimated it to my quarantine put the fish in. He was a little skiddish at first but he’s a wrasse so I expected it. Feels him some mysis a couple of hours later and he chomped it down. The next day he was still in good shape and eating. That evening I noticed a little labored breathing, but I figured he was just stressed. I got home from lunch today and found the fish belly up. I tested ammonia to double check and got 0 on both tests. Even took it to the store I purchased it from and had them test the water too. Came home and decided to FW dip the deceased fish and within minutes flukes started coming off. I am still shocked how quickly they killed the fish from the first sign of labored breathing. All in all it was less than 16 hours from the first sign of labored breathing to death.
My question is how do I prevent this from happening in the future? I don’t plan on getting fish from that LFS anymore because I would assume their whole system has flukes if the fish died that quick. I don’t want to FW dip a fish right when I get it, I feel like it needs to acclimate and have a couple of days of eating before I run any treatments on it. Any ideas??
Picture of flukes below.
My question is how do I prevent this from happening in the future? I don’t plan on getting fish from that LFS anymore because I would assume their whole system has flukes if the fish died that quick. I don’t want to FW dip a fish right when I get it, I feel like it needs to acclimate and have a couple of days of eating before I run any treatments on it. Any ideas??
Picture of flukes below.