# best treatment for gill flukes?



## dorabaker

what are your suggestions about the best treatments for gill flukes? it has to be safe for corys.
i'm sick at the moment myself  so i probably wont be able to get anything for a few days anyway, i just hope the fish are alright until then.


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## Lupin

How can you be sure you're dealing with flukes? Did you do a gill scrape? Praziquantel is the safest fluke treatment.


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## dorabaker

well i'm not sure :S i would have to do a scrape to know for sure i guess. and i'm not sure how to do that without hurting the fishies.
but it seems highly likely. i think its what my angelfish and barb had as well. apparently its common in ponds and the barb was in the pond when he got sick, and his gills looked red and he was breathing really fast. angelfish is also breathing fast and since i've been using plants from the pond for some time in my tanks i reckon they could have carried the flukes, maybe...
my cory is scratching his gills on things and kind of quivering like he's trying to shake something off. the angelfish did the same before he got so sick he couldn't swim.
if it is flukes, how long do i have to treat them before they become too sick to recover?


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## dorabaker

just looked up praziquantel and its incredibly expensive...also the smallest size was meant to be able to treat 2000 gallons of water or something...:shock:


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## OscarLoverJim

If you don't have any inverts use Mardel's Coppersafe.


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## dorabaker

thanks 
copper is toxic though, will it hurt my plants? and i assume its not safe for corys since they are so sensitive to everything :-? it sounds a little risky.


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## dorabaker

ok i just did some research and it sounds like formalin would be the way to go. id like to know peoples experiences with that though. i read about something called quick cure, would that be safe for corys and life plants and would it fix the flukes?


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## Lupin

Use praziquantel first. It's the safest and effective treatment. If you are battling stubborn flukes, then PURE formalin should be used. Please try to treat with prazi as per this schedule with a dosage of 2.5 mg per liter.

Day 1 -- remove carbon, perform water change with vacuuming, and add Prazi to tank 
Day 2 -- add Prazi 
Day 3 -- do nothing 
Day 4 -- do nothing 
Day 5 -- do nothing 
Day 6 -- add Prazi 
Day 7 -- add Prazi 
Day 8 -- normal partial water change with vacuuming 
Day 14 - normal partial water change, then add prazi 
Day 21 - normal partial water change, then add prazi 
Day 28 - normal partial water change, then add prazi 
Day 35 - normal partial water change, add carbon, treatment is complete 

Make sure your water is also well aerated and no need to use copper based treatments.


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## dorabaker

ok thanks so much, those directions are great, ill have to print them out or something haha 
so to my relief i found an australian brand of med that is prazi, its called aqua master fluke and tapeworm tabs or something like that. i'm just wondering what dosage i'll need...i have a 60 liter/15 gallon tank. will i need to break tablets in half? i can't seem to find the dosage anywhere online.

edit: i've calculated i'd need a tablet and a half each time i dosed the tank. ( i recall reading somewhere that the tablets are 100 mg of prazi) please correct me if im wrong..


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## dorabaker

update: started treatment today. I swear since i've started treatment, ALL the catfish are scratching a lot and look really distressed, they aren't swimming much and when they do they just scratch on things. they are twitching their barbels and yawning a lot and 'blinking' a lot which i've noticed fish do more when they are stressed. i'm sure their colours are darker too. is it possible the treatment is irritating them more? or is it just the flukes doing this? i'm thinking of maybe doing a partial water change to see if it helps. when i dissolved the praziequantel tablets all this white stuff was left behind (it said that would happen on the packet and that it was harmless) and when i put the water with the dissolved tablets in it into the tank, the catfish ate the white stuff. i don't know if that could have hurt them. it said on the packet the residue was just 'cellulose'.


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## Lupin

Odd. All these symptoms you mentioned are evidently of flukes though. Did you aerate the water? What is the temperature? Water parameters?


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## dorabaker

the filter is run by an airstone so there is aeration, although i dont know how much.
water parameters: 0 nitrate
0 nitrite
ph 7 (slightly more acid than it was when i first set the tank up - i think the ph is naturally becoming lower)
temp: 25 C
i'm using an aqua master liquid test kit for the ph and api dip strips for nitrate/nitrite - not the most accurate i know but they'll have to do for now.
sorry i dont have an ammonia or hardness test kit so cant give you those params, hope what i've said helps though 
is it possible the fish have just got a bit worse and it has nothing to do with the med? maybe it just stressed them a bit and made them worse? i dont know! these gill flukes seem to make fish go downhill very quickly - like my angelfish who was fine one day then that evening collapsed on the floor of teh tank nearly dead.


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## Lupin

dorabaker said:


> is it possible the fish have just got a bit worse and it has nothing to do with the med? maybe it just stressed them a bit and made them worse? i dont know! these gill flukes seem to make fish go downhill very quickly - like my angelfish who was fine one day then that evening collapsed on the floor of teh tank nearly dead.


That's what I was thinking. Just add an airpump to be better sure they have plenty of oxygen.


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## dorabaker

:-? 
i only have one other air pump and airstone and both have been in a hospital tank with my angelfish and are probably highly unhygienic...should i soak it in bleach or something? and then how would i know when i'd got all the bleach out before i put it in the other tank? :-?
also, this has only recently ocurred to me, i've always had my air pumps on the same bench as the tank. and recently i realised teh vibrations probably stress the fish no end - so i want to get a small table to put next to the bench to put the pumps on. the other pump is incredibly noisy :shock:
i'll try to use it though if it'll help the corys recover.


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## OscarLoverJim

dorabaker said:


> water parameters: 0 nitrate 0 nitrite
> sorry i dont have an ammonia or hardness test kit so cant give you those params, hope what i've said helps though


I'd be really interested to know your ammonia levels because with 0 nitrates and nitrites I'd guess your tank isn't cycled.


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## dorabaker

i would like to know the ammonia levels too but its planted and i was talking to someone about this on a different thread and we decided the plants are using all the nitrate. the tank doesn't smell bad or anything, the fish are happy, bla bla, so i think it is cycled. i have a large java fern, a lot of floating elodea and some fontinalis moss in there. and because ammonia is so toxic, you'd think the fish would be looking terrible if there was any in there...just a thought


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## dorabaker

just a quick update: added another airstone to the tank today, as the corys where going up to the surface for air a lot and the gourami was gulping air at the surface. I'm not sure if it's helped yet, but there's quite a lot of bubbles in there now and it actually looks rather nice. I might leave the extra airstone in even when the treatment is finished. I figure it can only be good for the fish.
I disinfected it with boiling water and ran it for a bit in a bucket before adding it to the tank (i had been using it in a hospital tank).


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