Tang scratching after quarantine

nemotang2019 · Mar 16, 2024

In my 75 gallon qt, I finished 30 days of coopesafe at 2.3-2.5 and three rounds of prazipro 7 days apart. I started coppersafe five days ago again instead of just observation, and today I noticed my hippo tang and powder blue tang scratching against rocks and twitching randomly. No visible symptoms other than the behavior issues.

Do I sterilize the tank and start three rounds of prazipro again? Or just start prazipro until symptoms go away? I’m worried about the bacteria degrading prazipro faster after three rounds of prazipro. So maybe I need to sterilize the whole tank before starting prazipro? Idk what to do next.

Attached is a video of the hippo tang scratching. The water is a bit green because I added phytoplankton just before the pic.

vetteguy53081 · Mar 16, 2024

nemotang2019 said:
In my 75 gallon qt, I finished 30 days of coopesafe at 2.3-2.5 and three rounds of prazipro 7 days apart. I started coppersafe five days ago again instead of just observation, and today I noticed my hippo tang and powder blue tang scratching against rocks and twitching randomly. No visible symptoms other than the behavior issues.

Do I sterilize the tank and start three rounds of prazipro again? Or just start prazipro until symptoms go away? I’m worried about the bacteria degrading prazipro faster after three rounds of prazipro. So maybe I need to sterilize the whole tank before starting prazipro? Idk what to do next.

Attached is a video of the hippo tang scratching. The water is a bit green because I added phytoplankton just before the pic.

Looks like symptoms of flukes and you may have to repeat one more dose of Prazi. How much prazi are you applying?
Is there carbon or other media running in the tank system?

nemotang2019 · Mar 16, 2024

I followed the directions on the bottle. No carbon. Just regular mechanical filters. Oh crap. I have the uv light on. I forgot to turn that off. This must be it right???

nemotang2019 · Mar 16, 2024

So do I sterilize everything and start over with 3 rounds of prazipro?

LAReefer4Life · Mar 16, 2024

nemotang2019 said:
I followed the directions on the bottle. No carbon. Just regular mechanical filters. Oh crap. I have the uv light on. I forgot to turn that off. This must be it right???

Yes UV must be off otherwise the medication will quickly degrade. Are any of the other fish displaying symptoms?

Regarding the degrading of Prazi after 3 rounds, this is true, for peace of mind I would sterilize to ensure it works properly.

Jay Hemdal · Mar 16, 2024

nemotang2019 said:
In my 75 gallon qt, I finished 30 days of coopesafe at 2.3-2.5 and three rounds of prazipro 7 days apart. I started coppersafe five days ago again instead of just observation, and today I noticed my hippo tang and powder blue tang scratching against rocks and twitching randomly. No visible symptoms other than the behavior issues.

Do I sterilize the tank and start three rounds of prazipro again? Or just start prazipro until symptoms go away? I’m worried about the bacteria degrading prazipro faster after three rounds of prazipro. So maybe I need to sterilize the whole tank before starting prazipro? Idk what to do next.

Attached is a video of the hippo tang scratching. The water is a bit green because I added phytoplankton just before the pic.

The scratching isn’t too severe and the anthias look really good. Sometimes, minor scratching is behavioral. You could give the tang a 5 minute FW. If it is still scratching after 24 hours, then it isn’t likely to be flukes. If the FW dip stops the scratching for 3+ days and then it comes back, that confirms flukes.

I agree that the UV may have played some role in this, but prazi sometimes just fails to fully control flukes. Then, as you know, subsequent prazi doses are even less effective due to the growing population of degradation bacteria. Sterilizing the tank will kill those bacteria, but then you’ll be battling “new tank syndrome” while redosing the prazi. What about a 30 day hyposalinity treatment at half salinity? That isn’t as rough on the fish as full hypo is, and it works very well.

nemotang2019 · Mar 17, 2024

I will go with the 30 day hyposalinity tx. That sounds so much easier than sterilizing the tank/battling with the new tank syndrome, prazi still failing, etc. in the future, would you recommend the hyposalinity tx instead of PraziPro altogether? Thank you so much!

Jay Hemdal · Mar 17, 2024

nemotang2019 said:
I will go with the 30 day hyposalinity tx. That sounds so much easier than sterilizing the tank/battling with the new tank syndrome, prazi still failing, etc. in the future, would you recommend the hyposalinity tx instead of PraziPro altogether? Thank you so much!

I've had the best luck with hyposalinity for flukes - it kills the adult flukes and keeps the eggs from hatching. You do not need to go as low in salinity as you do to treat ich, I use a specific gravity of 1.012. You do need to measure that carefully though - I use a good swing arm hydrometer, and then confirm the reading with a second device, just to be sure.