Praziquantel Question

[puccie1]

I'm sure I asked this before but I can't remeber the answer. SO here it is Im in my second dose of powder form praziquantel its been 3 days since dosing aquarium can I do a water change now and put on protein skimmer and UV or should I wait 7 days like the first Dose. Thanks for your time in this matter. (some of the fish don't seem to happy with the praziquantel)

 

[vetteguy53081]

I'm sure I asked this before but I can't remeber the answer. SO here it is Im in my second dose of powder form praziquantel its been 3 days since dosing aquarium can I do a water change now and put on protein skimmer and UV or should I wait 7 days like the first Dose. Thanks for your time in this matter. (some of the fish don't seem to happy with the praziquantel)

Wait the 7 days minimum as the UV unit will not address flukes if present nor erase and parasites that are pre-existing

 

[puccie1]

Wait the 7 days minimum as the UV unit will not address flukes if present nor erase and parasites that are pre-existing

Thank you

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I'm sure I asked this before but I can't remeber the answer. SO here it is Im in my second dose of powder form praziquantel its been 3 days since dosing aquarium can I do a water change now and put on protein skimmer and UV or should I wait 7 days like the first Dose. Thanks for your time in this matter. (some of the fish don't seem to happy with the praziquantel)

Praziquantel pretty much decomposes after 3 days. You can change water, turn on the UV or run the skimmer after that time.

However, fish tolerate prazi very well - how do you mean that they don't "seem to happy" in your tank? How are they acting? What species? There may be something else going on here.....

 

[jonelder68]

Praziquantel pretty much decomposes after 3 days. You can change water, turn on the UV or run the skimmer after that time.

However, fish tolerate prazi very well - how do you mean that they don't "seem to happy" in your tank? How are they acting? What species? There may be something else going on here.....

I’ve always been curious so I have to ask you Jay? If prazi decomposes after 3 days and you’ve dosed your two treatments why do we need to wait 7-8 days after treatments to be done with prazi QT treatment? Wouldn’t the fish be done day 4 and ready to go into DT?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I’ve always been curious so I have to ask you Jay? If prazi decomposes after 3 days and you’ve dosed your two treatments why do we need to wait 7-8 days after treatments to be done with prazi QT treatment? Wouldn’t the fish be done day 4 and ready to go into DT?

Ah - the reason why the timing is important is that most marine fish flukes are egg layers, and prazi doesn't kill the eggs. You need to try and time things so that those eggs hatch out, and reattach to a fish where the second dose of prazi can kill them, but BEFORE they can lay new eggs of their own. I find that 3 treatments, spaced 7 days apart works best, but even then, flukes can sneak through, especially Neobenedenia.

 

[puccie1]

Praziquantel pretty much decomposes after 3 days. You can change water, turn on the UV or run the skimmer after that time.

However, fish tolerate prazi very well - how do you mean that they don't "seem to happy" in your tank? How are they acting? What species? There may be something else going on here.....

I have a dog face puffer and two blue jaw, triggers, and a Red breast wrasse the only two doesn’t seem to affect is the jump tank and the yellow head Goldby I lost two bullet goalies the last two days and that Blue trigger finally died with a fat stomach the puffer and trigger and breast wrap seem like almost like lifeless. Thank you for your time Jay.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I have a dog face puffer and two blue jaw, triggers, and a Red breast wrasse the only two doesn’t seem to affect is the jump tank and the yellow head Goldby I lost two bullet goalies the last two days and that Blue trigger finally died with a fat stomach the puffer and trigger and breast wrap seem like almost like lifeless. Thank you for your time Jay.

Just checking - goldby and goalies, you mean gobies, right?

None of those fish are really considered "sensitive" to prazi - except the wrasse. I hear a lot of people have bad reactions with wrasse to prazi - not usually fatal, but the wrasse get lethargic and go off feed. I don't see that myself when dosing those with prazi, I suspect that it is some underlying water quality issue with these other people's wrasses - perhaps low dissolved oxygen.

Another thing that can happen is that fish with very heavy fluke infections can get very sick and even die after treatment - not because of the prazi itself, but because it causes the flukes to all drop off at once. That leaves hundreds or thousands of holes in the fish's skin. The fish then can "bleed out" or those holes can become infected with bacteria. The only way to avoid that is to catch the fluke infection very early on...not always easy to do since the symptoms can be missed.

 

[puccie1]

Just checking - goldby and goalies, you mean gobies, right?

None of those fish are really considered "sensitive" to prazi - except the wrasse. I hear a lot of people have bad reactions with wrasse to prazi - not usually fatal, but the wrasse get lethargic and go off feed. I don't see that myself when dosing those with prazi, I suspect that it is some underlying water quality issue with these other people's wrasses - perhaps low dissolved oxygen.

Another thing that can happen is that fish with very heavy fluke infections can get very sick and even die after treatment - not because of the prazi itself, but because it causes the flukes to all drop off at once. That leaves hundreds or thousands of holes in the fish's skin. The fish then can "bleed out" or those holes can become infected with bacteria. The only way to avoid that is to catch the fluke infection very early on...not always easy to do since the symptoms can be missed.

Thank you for your time in this manner