Flukes

[Mental1]

I bought a copperband butterfly who was eating. I got him home, threw him in the tank and he was flashing and twitching like crazy. Yes, very unhappy. Next morning he was all scratched up so I decided to give him a 3 minute freshwater dip. We had a local reef meeting that afternoon so I saved what dropped off of him and had a member bring over a microscope. Another member had a way to take a picture so I sent her home with a bunch of the little critters. Here's the result:

http://www.nhreefclub.org/index.php?topic=5267.0

[kirkaz]

Cool pics

Are you treating with Prazipro? FW dip will get the external ones, but not the internal.

[belljim]

I've had a recent outbreak of flukes on a couple of my wrasses. I had taken down my QT so I was reluctantly forced to dose my display tank. Thankfully, my LFS was correct and the product did everything it was supposed to and did not harm any corals nor inverts.

Learned two good lessons on this experience; always have QT ready and Praztastic is as good as advertised.

[Mental1]

I am not treating with anything right now. Adding some cleaner shrimp to the tank he is in and observing. If he puts weight on and looks healthy then I will assume they were only external. I thought the pictures were cool too.

[SDguy]

FW dips are good for immediate relief. You are going to want to treat with prazi to eradicate them. It's really easy to treat, and really not something you want getting into your DT!

[kirkaz]

Agreed. I was told exactly this when I had an angel with obvious flukes by Mark Martin, not the race car driver, the owner of Blue Zoo Aquatics.

[namxas]

I agree...I'd treat the fish.

[Mental1]

He is in a tank on his own but is a part of the system. Does the presence of external flukes automatically mean there are internal flukes? My reluctance to Qt him is because I seem to have only limited success with QTing fish and I would need to re-home a half a dozen mollies somehow. He looks fine right now -- the flashing has stopped, he's eating really well, and there is only one small lesion left -- everything looks to be healing. He's active in the tank, not shy and as I said -- eating mysis like a champ.

[SDguy]

Can't you just take that tank offline for a few days and treat with the prazi?

[anbosu]

If your whole system is connected you should probably just treat your whole system anyway. Prazi is reef safe.

[Mental1]

Not comfortable treating the whole system besides that's about 400 gallons. Would need gallons and gallons of prazi to do that. And it will kill other things in the system. There are many reports of prazi killing many more things in the reef. I am not willing to do that. I have all sorts of starfish and the such. Sorry -- not taking the chance.

[MrTuskfish]

Not comfortable treating the whole system besides that's about 400 gallons. Would need gallons and gallons of prazi to do that. And it will kill other things in the system. There are many reports of prazi killing many more things in the reef. I am not willing to do that. I have all sorts of starfish and the such. Sorry -- not taking the chance.

Could you post some of these reports? Outside of feather dusters, I've never heard of any damage by PP. BTW, I'd do some serious research on a QT; The day will come when you have a 400 gal tank of parasites on your hands. Its happened countless times. If this fish had flukes in the same system as your DT; I think you can expect flukes to show up on other fish.

[Mental1]

I could take the tank offline -- I did think about that but I have a running QT that I turned into a molly breeding the tank. The mollies are not breeding so I can throw them in my water changing tank for the week and treat him. Or do you really think the tank needs to be done? It's a very low flow tank ...

[MrTuskfish]

IMO, all fish should be treated for flukes in a QT when new. I admit that I've never treated my large reef, because all fish were treated in a QT. However, flukes breed like anything else and the chances of all the parasites being eliminated in a dip are about nil, There have been many comments about using PP in reef tanks on this forum and I can never remember anyone having negative comments. IMO. I would get experiences from folks who have actually treated a large reef, however. BTW, you'd need about 16 oz of PP for two treatments....about $24.

[kirkaz]

I had to dose my 240 3.5 years ago with Prazipro, I had a lot of soft corals at the time and had no issue, though I did have to turn off my skimmer.

[Mental1]

You know I looked into a while ago -- about treating the whole system, and there were mixed experiences. I have a fw population in my 180 DT as well as a pretty healthy bristleworm population. These would all die. In fact, several of the experiences that I read also described losing starfish and some clean up crew. The pollution from this could possibly cause a crash to the system.

There are actually 2 mollies in with this guy and they are showing no signs of infection so far. Yes, this was dumb, I should have QT'd him. But I just have crappy luck and I have no doubt that this would crash my system. I think I am willing to isolate this tank and treat it but very, very hesitant about treating the whole system.

[Mental1]

So looking into it a bit more -- seems as if people are mixed about feather dusters and if they would survive. The other thing that troubles me is that there is no way that I could do a 50% water change -- that's 200 gallons!

[Mental1]

Interestingly the fish is doing really well. The cleaner shrimp have done a great job. Some spots that still concerned me were very clear last night. I am contemplating a second fw dip as it's been 5 days. I have to leave Sunday morning for 5 days so would not start any treatment at this point anyway. No signs of infection on any other fish in the system.