New tilefish, new flukes?

[christinna77]

Hi fish medics!

It's me again, the tilefish obsessed person :) I got these two purples about 3 weeks ago. Right after bringing them home, I noticed some head shaking, but no flashing. This is the third batch of tilefish I've got that has flukes... Anyway, I started treating for flukes instead of copper.

They've now gone through 3 doses of General Cure, almost one packet each time in a 10g tank, spaced 7 days apart.

The head shaking never fully stopped, but it did improve a lot. I thought the flukes were resolved and that they were probably just still irritated and itchy from the flukes falling off, so I started copper at 2.25 ppm last week. Now I'm noticing they're shaking their heads again and some flashing against sand has started too, which I didn't notice before.

Both fish have been eating aggressively the whole time. I feed them 4 times a day with a high quality frozen mix and they're both active. The bigger one does seem to be breathing faster and both often shake their heads. I've seen the smaller one flash against the sand a few times too. Visually, I don't see anything wrong. Their colors look good, no spots on the skin or cloudiness in the eyes, so I think it may be gill flukes.

I'm not sure if a 4th dose of GC would help at this point. I also have PraziPro on hand to try instead. A FW bath is out of the question. They're extremely jumpy and the risk of them getting injured or severely stressed is higher than the benefit of the bath.

Please see the video below. I tried to record the parts where they were flashing and shaking their heads. Apologies for the quality. For some reason they really hate my phone camera and usually freak out or hide, so I can't get a proper video of them.

Here are the options I'm considering:

1. Continue copper for another 3 weeks. Then monitor and treat again with Prazi or GC afterward.
2. Dose Prazi or GC together with copper. Lots of extra aeration and monitoring.
3. Remove half the copper with 50% WC and dose Prazi or GC, then restart copper treatment afterward.
4. Stop copper and go hypo. I don't feel comfortable doing full ich hypo, so this would mostly be for flukes at 1.012, and I'd restart copper afterward. How long would I need to run hypo for gill flukes?

I'm leaning toward 4., since I'm worried redosing GC/PraziPro may not be as effective anymore after we've gone through so many doses already. As always, thank you for any advice in advance :)

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi fish medics!

It's me again, the tilefish obsessed person :) I got these two purples about 3 weeks ago. Right after bringing them home, I noticed some head shaking, but no flashing. This is the third batch of tilefish I've got that has flukes... Anyway, I started treating for flukes instead of copper.

They've now gone through 3 doses of General Cure, almost one packet each time in a 10g tank, spaced 7 days apart.

The head shaking never fully stopped, but it did improve a lot. I thought the flukes were resolved and that they were probably just still irritated and itchy from the flukes falling off, so I started copper at 2.25 ppm last week. Now I'm noticing they're shaking their heads again and some flashing against sand has started too, which I didn't notice before.

Both fish have been eating aggressively the whole time. I feed them 4 times a day with a high quality frozen mix and they're both active. The bigger one does seem to be breathing faster and both often shake their heads. I've seen the smaller one flash against the sand a few times too. Visually, I don't see anything wrong. Their colors look good, no spots on the skin or cloudiness in the eyes, so I think it may be gill flukes.

I'm not sure if a 4th dose of GC would help at this point. I also have PraziPro on hand to try instead. A FW bath is out of the question. They're extremely jumpy and the risk of them getting injured or severely stressed is higher than the benefit of the bath.

Please see the video below. I tried to record the parts where they were flashing and shaking their heads. Apologies for the quality. For some reason they really hate my phone camera and usually freak out or hide, so I can't get a proper video of them.

Here are the options I'm considering:

1. Continue copper for another 3 weeks. Then monitor and treat again with Prazi or GC afterward.
2. Dose Prazi or GC together with copper. Lots of extra aeration and monitoring.
3. Remove half the copper with 50% WC and dose Prazi or GC, then restart copper treatment afterward.
4. Stop copper and go hypo. I don't feel comfortable doing full ich hypo, so this would mostly be for flukes at 1.012, and I'd restart copper afterward. How long would I need to run hypo for gill flukes?

I'm leaning toward 4., since I'm worried redosing GC/PraziPro may not be as effective anymore after we've gone through so many doses already. As always, thank you for any advice in advance :)

I do see the flashing and heavy breathing associated wuth flukes, GC has a very low content of prazi and most effective will be PraziPro itself dosed at 85% of recommended dosage and allow it to work for 8 days, change water and apply one more application lasting 8 days and do add an air stone as Prazi lowers both oxygen and appetite which may be the case or part of it

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi fish medics!

It's me again, the tilefish obsessed person :) I got these two purples about 3 weeks ago. Right after bringing them home, I noticed some head shaking, but no flashing. This is the third batch of tilefish I've got that has flukes... Anyway, I started treating for flukes instead of copper.

They've now gone through 3 doses of General Cure, almost one packet each time in a 10g tank, spaced 7 days apart.

The head shaking never fully stopped, but it did improve a lot. I thought the flukes were resolved and that they were probably just still irritated and itchy from the flukes falling off, so I started copper at 2.25 ppm last week. Now I'm noticing they're shaking their heads again and some flashing against sand has started too, which I didn't notice before.

Both fish have been eating aggressively the whole time. I feed them 4 times a day with a high quality frozen mix and they're both active. The bigger one does seem to be breathing faster and both often shake their heads. I've seen the smaller one flash against the sand a few times too. Visually, I don't see anything wrong. Their colors look good, no spots on the skin or cloudiness in the eyes, so I think it may be gill flukes.

I'm not sure if a 4th dose of GC would help at this point. I also have PraziPro on hand to try instead. A FW bath is out of the question. They're extremely jumpy and the risk of them getting injured or severely stressed is higher than the benefit of the bath.

Please see the video below. I tried to record the parts where they were flashing and shaking their heads. Apologies for the quality. For some reason they really hate my phone camera and usually freak out or hide, so I can't get a proper video of them.

Here are the options I'm considering:

1. Continue copper for another 3 weeks. Then monitor and treat again with Prazi or GC afterward.
2. Dose Prazi or GC together with copper. Lots of extra aeration and monitoring.
3. Remove half the copper with 50% WC and dose Prazi or GC, then restart copper treatment afterward.
4. Stop copper and go hypo. I don't feel comfortable doing full ich hypo, so this would mostly be for flukes at 1.012, and I'd restart copper afterward. How long would I need to run hypo for gill flukes?

I'm leaning toward 4., since I'm worried redosing GC/PraziPro may not be as effective anymore after we've gone through so many doses already. As always, thank you for any advice in advance :)

In addition to the head shaking, I saw some scratching and yawning - that is a sure sign of gill irritation, and that is usually caused by gill flukes. It can also be caused by particles in the water, but I don't see that. There are also gill amoebas, but copper would have helped with that. Here is the thing though - there are also some crustacean gill parasites. We don't see those on typical marine aquarium fish, but tilefish are just different enough to possibly have their own set of parasites...IDK.

Prazipro doses out at 2.5 ppm. General Cure is 2 ppm. Both of these are in the range of the original dose which is 2.2 ppm.

You're aware of the biological breakdown with prazi in multiple doses? It means that each dose becomes less effective due to bacteria consuming it. The dose then needs to be raised. However, you cannot raise the dose of GC because of the metronidazole component, and you can't raise the dose of prazipro because of the solvent it used. You can only do that with pure prazi powder. In that case, you can raise the dose to 4 ppm.

Here is my post on dosing prazi:

Dosing Praziquantel (PZQ)

Using Praziquantel (PZQ) to treat flukes Overview In the early 1990’s, a researcher at the New York Aquarium published a paper on using Praziquantel (PZQ) to help control flukes, a parasitic flatworm. Also known as monogenean trematodes, these fish parasites can cause significant mortality in...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[christinna77]

In addition to the head shaking, I saw some scratching and yawning - that is a sure sign of gill irritation, and that is usually caused by gill flukes. It can also be caused by particles in the water, but I don't see that. There are also gill amoebas, but copper would have helped with that. Here is the thing though - there are also some crustacean gill parasites. We don't see those on typical marine aquarium fish, but tilefish are just different enough to possibly have their own set of parasites...IDK.

Prazipro doses out at 2.5 ppm. General Cure is 2 ppm. Both of these are in the range of the original dose which is 2.2 ppm.

You're aware of the biological breakdown with prazi in multiple doses? It means that each dose becomes less effective due to bacteria consuming it. The dose then needs to be raised. However, you cannot raise the dose of GC because of the metronidazole component, and you can't raise the dose of prazipro because of the solvent it used. You can only do that with pure prazi powder. In that case, you can raise the dose to 4 ppm.

Here is my post on dosing prazi:

Dosing Praziquantel (PZQ)

Using Praziquantel (PZQ) to treat flukes Overview In the early 1990’s, a researcher at the New York Aquarium published a paper on using Praziquantel (PZQ) to help control flukes, a parasitic flatworm. Also known as monogenean trematodes, these fish parasites can cause significant mortality in...

www.reef2reef.com

Interesting about the crustacean gill parasites. I inspected their gills pretty thoroughly and didn't see anything out of ordinary. Shouldn't Prazi help with that too? The only particles in the water are micro bubbles from my airstone, but I don't think that'd cause so much scratching.

Anyway, I was sure I couldn't get Prazi powder here in Canada, but it looks like I got lucky and one of the shops has it in stock right now. I just ordered it, and it should be ready to dose tomorrow, along with my new milligram scale.

Thank you both!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Interesting about the crustacean gill parasites. I inspected their gills pretty thoroughly and didn't see anything out of ordinary. Shouldn't Prazi help with that too? The only particles in the water are micro bubbles from my airstone, but I don't think that'd cause so much scratching.

Anyway, I was sure I couldn't get Prazi powder here in Canada, but it looks like I got lucky and one of the shops has it in stock right now. I just ordered it, and it should be ready to dose tomorrow, along with my new milligram scale.

Thank you both!

How did you inspect the gills? To see the copepods of flukes, you’d need to do a gill clip biopsy and look at it under a microscope - I’d never risk that on a tilefish though, even using an anesthetic.