Sick Fish, Diagnosis Difficulties and Treat.

[Stuart60611]

I have a 125 FOWLR with a picasso trigger, banana wrasse, cuban hog, kole tang, one spot foxface, flame hawk, blue dot puffer, and yellow tail damsel.

My trigger is regularly rubbing his body on the rock work and occassionally twitching. He is also acting a bit slugish, but he still is eating pretty well. No white spots on him or any other fish, including my tang. I am fairly sure the trigger has some sort of parasite because he is constantly rubbing himself against the rocks in a violent way trying to free himself of the parasite, but I am not sure it is ich because I see no white spots on him or other discolorations and no other fish shows any spots or discolorations. Is this itch or maybe flukes? How can I tell?

Also, the tank has no inverts or corals and is virtually all base rock (140 lbs) with at most 5 lbs of live rock. Coud I do hypo salinity in the main display? I think I have read that the bacteria will survive hypo, but not the live rock fauna. Since I do not have really any fauna, could I not do hypo in the display? Also, will hypo treat flukes or other parasites other than ich in case it is flukes or something else?

[limitdown]

Twitching and shaking of the head is a sign of flukes. Sometimes you can see them as jelly-like papules. If on the eyes, the eyes will be cloudy. It's easier to see on dark-colored fish, but usually they're really difficult to see.
Prazi-pro (praziquantel) by Hikari works.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=12098
Hypo is not enough.

[Stuart60611]

Thanks. That was my guess also. I will study the fish carefully tonight. If I do not see any white spots on any of them and if the twitching and/or rubing continues with my trigger, I will medicate with prazipro. Luckily, I happen to have some on hand. I have also read that it is safe to use in the display even with corals and inverts. As such, I do not think I will have a problem with my FOWLR using it in the display b/c I have no corals or inverts.

[limitdown]

If you're running carbon, consider taking it off-line for the period of treatment. Then bring it back online after you're done treating and changing water to help remove any residual praziquantel

[Stuart60611]

I dosed last night and disconnected my reactor for carbon and unplugged the skimmer. I am a bit concerned that I may have dosed a bit too much because some kind of poured out by accident during the dosing. I have read that prazipro is hard to overdose on so hopefully I will be ok. I will now wait it out 5-7 days without skimming or carbon and hope that this does the trick. I think I caught it fairly early because the trigger only showed symptoms for 2 days before I started dosing. Everyone is still eating fairly well. However, the hog started to become listless yesterday and hide which is not his normal behavior. After dosing, the fish did act a bit stressed by moving very slowly and hiding a bit. The foxface looked the most stressed by extending its fins and remaining stationary. After a couple of hours, they did look better. This morning everyone was still crashed which is a bit unusual because I usually see some of the fish starting to go out and about by the time I leave for work. Hopefully, this evening they will be more active and will eat. I plan on feeding garlic and selecon enriched food every day for the next week or so to help them fight this off.

[Stuart60611]

Questions:

Generally, does one treatment of prazipro usually erradicate flukes or would it be better to do 2 back to back treatments? The bottle says that in heavy infestations a second treatment may be required. I could do one treatment do a massive water change and skim and carbon the remaining medicine out and see what happens. However, that would be a lot of unnecessary work if I was doing back to back treatments. Plus, I would hate for the infestation to regain a grip on my fish because I did not fully eradicate it the first time. My guess is my infestation is not severe because I did not see a ton dead flukes in my tank yet (but not even yet 24 hours after dosing) and everyone still seems to be not showing extreme signs of illness. What would you do? Finally, because I am a bit paranoid, should I be overly concerned about overdosing prazipro? I think I may have added a bit much to my system accidently. I have read that fish can tolerate a substantial overdose of this stuff, but I just want to verify that before I take drastic action in doing a massive water change midway through treatement.

[dones20]

you can generaly see flukes over the fishes eye lens if you know what they look like they are almost transparent but try looking at them when they are facing towards the front glass. if i were you i would also consider Oodinium ocellatum or velvet wich can sometimes be hard to spot if your not familiar with it normaly you can spot it on a fish when light reflect of the sides of the fish it almost looks like fine powder was sprinkled over the fish i would also consider dosing copper if symptoms worsen or do not get better in a matter of a few days just MO

[LargeAngels]

I have found that two back to back treatments of Prazipro is needed for flukes.

[Stuart60611]

Well, I had to cut the treatment short on my dosing of prazipro because it completely stressed out my fish causing an ammonia spike which I responded to with a 40% water change. Now several of my fish who were acting fine are listless as a result of the treatment either hiding in the rocks or laying on the substrate which is highly abnormal because all of my fish are very active when healthy. I cannot even find my tang in the tank, and I hope he is just hiding in the rockwork. I am pretty sure that at least part of my problem was flukes because the hog shed them like crazy after treatment. I spoke with a lab tech from the manufacturer, and he indicated that the prazipro treatment will still mostly work even though I only dosed for a day. I hope to re-dose in 5 days assuming I can get my fish eating and/or at least moving about. The trigger, puffer, hawk, damsel, and foxface are doing fairly well and although not themselves, are moving about at a slow pace and eating a bit, but the wrasse, hog, and tang are in rough shape. I am at a loss at this point what to do. Too many fish to quarantine. 'Today, all I have done is feed garlic extreme directly to the water which I have read, perhaps, may help a bit in terms of helping build up fish immunities and confuse the parasites. Until (an if) I see some recovery, I am going to feed lightly so as to avoid uneaten food screwing up my parameters. I tested my parameters, and everything is good after the major water change.

[baobao]

done20 raised a good point. how are you certain it is flukes and not oodinium/velvet? if it is velvet/oodinium, you will definitely have to either use copper or chloroquine phosphate. if you take the copper route, then you will have to seperate the fish from the live rock/invertebrates/corals. thus, you either quarantine all fish or remove all the rock/invertebrates/coral and just medicate main system.

[Stuart60611]

Well, the reason that I am fairly certian that flukes is, at least, part of the illness in my tank is the trigger is showing all the classic signs of flukes by twitching and suddenly darting combined with constantly rubbing against the overflow and has no apparant signs of discoloration on his body. Moreover, within 24 hours after medicating for flukes, the hog (and also the trigger) shed tons of little white creaturs from his body and particularly his eyes. My substrate was covered with these white creatures. Now, you do raise a good point, I would not be the least bit surprised that all the stress in my system from this and the medication has caused further illnesses in my tank. I am unfamliar with chloroquine phosphate. What does it treat. From your posting, I infer that it can be used in the display unlike copper. Perhaps, I may want to also medicate with that to treat the other fish for illnesses they derived from the stress of this whole event. For example, from what I have read, wrasses rarely get flukes, but my wrasse is now sick. As such, I bet he may have gotten ill from the stress.

[dones20]

if it appears to be velvet you should not hesitate to treat b/c it kills very fast id say within a 4-5 day time frame depending on how bad a case it is and usually velvet attacks by the thousands unlike its counterpart ick that sometimes will attack litely and worsen

[Stuart60611]

Well, I do not think it is velvet because I do not see any light dusting on my fish, but I by no means am an expert on this and could be very wrong. A bit of good and not so good news. The hog is out and about! He looks much better and is back to cruising the tank. I definitely think he will want to eat tonight. The trigger, although still a bit slugish, appears to have stoped his scratching. The foxface, hawk, and damsel look good and are eating.

Now for the bad news, the wrasse looks much worse. He is now lying on his side in the open under the furthest left archway breathing heavy. For the life of me, I cannot even find where my tang is located. I did remove a few rocks to see if I could even spot him to no avail. I have absolutely no idea where he is. My fear is he may have died and is roting somewhere in the tank.

[cthetoy]

Here's my 2 cent about flukes. If I suspect flukes I usually freshwater dip my fish for 5 minutes and most of the adult irritating flukes falls off. A day or two later I add Prazipro. First day at 1/2 dosage and 2nd day the other half. If the fish stress after the first dosage then I usually do a large water change and wait a few more days. I had the same problems as you described. What I learned is that you have to shake the Prazipro bottle vigorously for 1 minute and pour the correct dosage right away as instructed. Prazipro settles quickly. If you dont shake the bottle well then all the concentrated stuff settles at the bottom of the bottle. As you use up the bottle the Prazipro gets stronger if you did not shake the bottle well. This is what I experienced.

[Stuart60611]

Ya, that is what exactly happened to me. It poured out weird and I got a big thick glob when dosing. A bit of further update, fish are still very stressed and not themselves, but the hog, trigger, damsel, hawk and foxface all ate. Also, the trigger has only rubbed himself twice this evening when before he was doing it constantly. Moreover, the wrasse did not eat but looks like he is starting to come around a bit. Instead of just lying prone on the substrate, the wrasse started to swim a bit strangely just barely over the substrate slowly and only occassionally going up a bit in the water column. I think he has a shot now of making it. However, still no sign whatsover of the tang. Something tells me he is definitely dead and roting somewhere. I just cannot find him. With no clean up crew, could be a major problem causing my parameters to get majorily out of wack so testing daily. I also am running carbon in a reactor to try to mitigate the issue. I could continue to move around some rock and try to find him, but I do not want to do that and add any more stress in the tank so I am going to just wait it out.

[Stuart60611]

Now I am really perplexed. My problems started with only two of my fish exhibiting any signs of illness. First, the trigger started twitching and rubbing to rid itself of a parasite. Then my hog became extremely lethargic and stopped eating and went into hiding. All of the other fish were acting fine and eating well. Careful observation of the fish resultied in the observance of no discoloration or spoting. Based on the Triggers behavior and the fact that I observed no visible signs of a parasite, my best guess was flukes. I treated with prazipro and my hog and trigger shed tons of flukes. Meanwhile, all of my other fish reacted very harshly to prazipro, except interestingly my damsel and my puffer who is scaleless and would think be most prone to an adverse reaction. Now I may have put in a bit too much as I indicated in this thread but not a major overdose, if at all. Further, I contacted the manufacturer who advised me that I would have to use several 100% more than the recommended amount to hurt my fish and that if I overdosed I would see very noticeable medicine participation in the water column. My water column looked crystal clear and normal. I am now certain that I, at least in part, made the correct diagnosis. The trigger and hog who caused me to treat appear to have made a full recovery now eating and behaving normally. Most telling is the fact that the the trigger has not rubbed himself once in the last 24 hours where he was doing so constantly and just before dosing spending most of his time doing so. Meanwhile, my Kole Tang just dove into the rocks and died 48 hours after dosing (managed to locate and remove his body). My wrasse is fighting to hang in there but today went back to lying on the substrate breathing rapidly after swimming just a bit strangely yesterday. No visible markings on the wrasse indicating disease. Other than the wrasse (and now obviously my deceased tang), all other fish are behaving and eating well.

My dilema. I know that there is a good chance my single treatment of prazipro did not eradicate the flukes based on what I have read about their life cycle. And I need to redose in several days or they could reinfest my fish. But at this point, I do not think I can redose for a final round particularly due the the state of the wrasse and my fear of what it will do to my other fish. Moreover, I have been seriously contemplating moving all my fish to quaranteen and treating them with cuppermine because I first thought when my other fish got sick after dosing prazipro that maybe I have multiple problems in the form of ich and/or velvet resulting from the stress of the prazipro. But now I am thinking that may be a very bad idea based on the additional stress to the fish this will cause (not to mention the stress it will cause me) who are now just getting back on their feet, and because I have no reason to believe that either velvet or ich is in my tank. Would you retreat with prazipro to verify a complete eradication of the flukes or take the risk of flukes re-occurring in favor of avoiding another bad reaction to prazipro. I could also move the fish who exhibited signs of flukes to quarantine and dose prazipro only in quaranteen. But from what I have read, this defeats the purpose of re-dosing because the flukes may remain in my display If I do not double dose the display . Alternatively, I could move all my other fish but my trigger and hog (the only fish who showed signs of flukes) to quarantine and then re-dose prazipro in the display. But I do not want to unnecessarily stress out my other now acting healthy fish with the move, plus my wrasse may be to weak to survive the move. Suggestions?

[cthetoy]

Since you have lots of fish your quarantine tank has to be at least 50g. See if you can borrow one. Fill 1/2 of your quarantine tank with your tank water, place all your fish in the quarantine tank and slowly fill the rest of the quarantine tank water with new salt water. Try using large PVC pipes for hiding spaces and avoid using live rocks since they will percipate the Cupramine and anything living in the rocks will die and decay which will worsen your water quality. Treat with Cupramine as directed. Since your bioload in your quarantine is high you might need to change 25% or more water daily. Make sure you add additional Cupramine to the newly changed water.

After a few weeks then you can tackle the fluke problem if there are any left. Buy a new bottle of Prazipro since your bottle may be a stronger/weaker stregth. Don't forget to shake Prazipro well and I use half streghth the first day, next day see if fish are reacting normally and if they are add the other half of Prazipro.

DO NOT USE UV or AMQUEL, etc WITH CUPRAMINE. This will cause the Cupramine to become very toxic to your fish. Good luck

[Stuart60611]

cthetoy:

At this point I am leaning toward not moving my fish to quaranteen b/c I see no evidence of other disease in the tank. The wrasse is looking a bit better today, and my other fish are comming around. As I indicated, I never observed any signs of ich or velvet in my system and only flukes. As such, I see no reason to put my fish through a move to quaranteen at this point. Do you?

[cthetoy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13339114#post13339114 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Stuart60611

At this point I am leaning toward not moving my fish to quaranteen b/c I see no evidence of other disease in the tank. The wrasse is looking a bit better today, and my other fish are comming around. As I indicated, I never observed any signs of ich or velvet in my system and only flukes. As such, I see no reason to put my fish through a move to quaranteen at this point. Do you?

Observe your fish several times a day for ich just in case. Perform a water change and use carbon to get rid of any meds you have left over. Give you fish a few days res. You did not mention anything about your skimmer but your skimmer will go nuts when using Prazipro.

Here is great thread regarding flukes
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1260067&highlight=flukes

[Stuart60611]

Thanks. Will do.