Flukes

[L.Anna]

Hello fellow fish keepers, I need some help! I have a community tank with platys, swords, corys, and one angel fish (29 gallon).

Problem: I have reaccuring flukes! I’ll get rid of them for a months or so, but when I vacuum the gravel, they come back. I treat them with PraziPro. They go away. I vacuum the gravel. They come back!! I’ve read that I may need to treat the whole tank for up to four weeks. But that’s unhealthy for fish. Any suggestions? Has anyone else had consistent/reoccurring flukes?

Back story:
A few months back, I made the mistake of putting a plant in my tank that I thought I had properly sanitized, with Ruby Reef’s Hydroplex. Well that plant had snails in it, the snails were a carrier for flukes, and my tank came down with them, and I can’t seem to stop the cycle. Last time this happened, I treated my tank for two weeks straight.

 

[Lajos_Detari]

From my experience, treating tank for flukes takes a long time probably up to 3 months due to the nature of the flukes and especially if you have gravel and plants where the flukes can avoid the medication.
I'm afraid that since Prazi is hard to dissolve, some areas in the tank may be beyond the reach of Prazi.(eg. under the gravel, some parts inside the intake tube if you are using Hang on filter or Canister filter).(my opinion).
Usually I will remove all gravel during treatment as a precaution and for greater effectiveness.
If your tank is crowded, it will be even worse.

Flukes don't require a host to live and they can live without a host and stay dormant for some time.(based on my reading from the internets).

I read that Prazi is safe for fish and plants and I suppose that it can be used for longer period and it won't harm the fish even if you used it at slightly higher dose(2-3 times the normal dose) for greater effectiveness.
If you much waste in your tank, I'm afraid that it will reduce the effectivessnes of Prazi. So, usually I use slightly higher dosage.
And I have doubts about the Prazi to stay effective in the water for longer period as it's diificult to dissolve in the water. I usually dose my tank in shorter period(higher frequency) than the instruction given my the medication's manufacturer. For example if the instruction requires you to dose it every 6 days, I will dose it every 5 days.
But this is my opinion and may not be necessarily correct.

I guess you can try dosing your tank more frequently for the first 3 weeks. Then follow the manufacturer instruction of dosing for up to 2 months as a precaution.

There is another medication Anti Parasites, Slime & Velvet by Interpret which I find it to be quite effective as it contains formalin.
But it cannot be used for a longer period like the Prazi.

https://www.interpet.co.uk/Products...tments/Anti-Parasite,-Slime-Velvet-Plus-100ml

Snails are susceptible to carry flukes and other parasites due to their nature as scavenger.
Even the farm bred snails sold at the fish shops are not spared as most of the tanks in the fish shops have high numbers of parasites due to the high turn over rate and crowded tanks.

Let's wait to hear from Colin and others who contributed to this forum frequently as they may have better experience and success in treating flukes.

Here is a video by a Vet on how to treat gill flukes.


Additional info: Skin flukes can/will also attack the gills causing high mortality in fish.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Are you sure they are fluke?
Can you post a picture of them?
Set your cameras resolution to its lowest setting so the images are smaller and fit on here. Use a flash and have the tank lights and room lights on. Open the curtains if its day time. Set the camera to Macro.

Praziquantel will kill tapeworm and gill flukes in fish. You treat once a week for 3-4 weeks and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate 24-48 hours after treating. The reason you treat once a week for 3-4 weeks is to kill off any baby worms that hatch from eggs. Praziquantel does not kill the eggs so you have to wait until they hatch and then kill the baby worms/ flukes.

There are other chemicals that can be used to kill worms and other crustaceans in aquariums. Flubendazole will kill most invertebrates including shrimp. Copper works too but everyone here freaks when I mention copper (there I said it again, copper copper copper), because it kills shrimp and snails too.

---------------------------
To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working.

Before treating the tank, wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.