Gill Flukes?

[greenmumma141]

Hey guys. I'm pretty sure I've got a case of gill or body flukes going on in my 60g and I planned on picking up some API General Cure tomorrow, but I just wanted a second opinion in case I'm missing something.
 
I've noticed some flashing here and there for a while now, but couldn't find anything else. I don't like to medicate unless it's necessary, so I would do a wc, then everything would appear to be fine. Now it's more than apparent that something is going on. Here are the symptoms:
 
My cories are flashing, not all the time but enough to say that something is wrong.
My loaches are flashing. Again, not all the time, but when they do its atleast 4 times in a row.
My pictus is acting very aggitated, and just constantly prowling the entire tank.
I would say breathing is somewhat laborous across the board, but none at the surface.
I just noticed tonight that Edward (my bn) has some clumpy sand stuck to one of his gills. His tail fin looks a little clamped, like when a fish is slimy. But his other gill looks fine, and no trailing slime or anything.
 
 
Tank is at 78F
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
 
I'm just a bit perplexed bc everyones' gills look absolutely fine, no swelling and no redness.
 
One more question: Do I remove the carbon from my filter when medicating with API's General Cure?
 
Any help is really appreciated, I'm really worried

 

[ech0o]

Yea that sounds just like parasites, you will notice the fish darting, and holding real still between darts, instead of the usual dilly dallying around the tank.   I suggest not treating the water, but actually using the general cure to treat their food, I had a gill fluke issue, and some fish died when I tried to treat the tank, and eventually the flukes came back.   The second time i treated it, i broke a little bit of the medicine down into a little bit of water, and then added the fish food to the paste, and threw it in the fridge for a couple hours, to let it seep in good.  Fed this to them every day for a couple of weeks, one box was enough to feed them for probably 2 weeks, they all started acting much better, had 0 deaths, and months later no return of the flukes whatsoever!

 

[greenmumma141]

Wow! What a great idea.. I've already treated the tank, and within hours all of my fish were acting so much better, my cories are swimming around, and everyone seemed much less irritable and skittish.
 
If it does come back, I will most certainly try your method, Ech0o, thanks!!!

 

[ech0o]

How does that stuff smell??  LOLOL
 
For some reason it makes me gag, absolutely awful perfume smell that you can taste..... shudder

 

[greenmumma141]

The meds?! I honestly didn't even smell it lol, thank goodness

 

[greenmumma141]

Yea that sounds just like parasites, you will notice the fish darting, and holding real still between darts, instead of the usual dilly dallying around the tank.   I suggest not treating the water, but actually using the general cure to treat their food, I had a gill fluke issue, and some fish died when I tried to treat the tank, and eventually the flukes came back.   The second time i treated it, i broke a little bit of the medicine down into a little bit of water, and then added the fish food to the paste, and threw it in the fridge for a couple hours, to let it seep in good.  Fed this to them every day for a couple of weeks, one box was enough to feed them for probably 2 weeks, they all started acting much better, had 0 deaths, and months later no return of the flukes whatsoever!

 
Looks like I'm going to give your method a try!! The flashing has gotten pretty bad, AGAIN.  I thought it could be stress related, so I've rehomed my pictus (to a great home, thankfully) but my fish are all extremely skiddish.  I've also built a spray-bar for my filter which hopefully I can get installed in the next couple days, so I'm really hoping the extra flow will help as well.  But it's definitely time to med

 

[ech0o]

Yea like i said, have never had luck medicating a tank for internals, it seems to only get externals and even then, often they come back.   Yea just take 1 packet of that stuff, and about 6 days worth of fish food (i soaked bloodworms, you can soak flake too although it comes out of the flake into the water faster, pellets work really well too), then feed normally and make sure you dont overfeed them medication, start small and work your way up, also make sure all the fish get some.   You should notice them return to happiness fairly quickly.

 

[greenmumma141]

Yiiikkesss I think I used way too much medication! I used 4 packets  
 
I am very nervous about my tank at this point, when I decided to use this method, there was so much flashing going on.. pretty scarey.  I'm pretty sure it's gill flukes, it's just tricky bc I can't really see any symptoms. The gill areas might be a little red, but when the fish flash, they are directly rubbing their gills on the substrate. I have noticed that one of my young broze corie's entire body seems to be very pink. And again, they are extremely skittish. I think I noticed an improvement with the skittishness yesterday though, and still some flashing but not quite as bad? Maybe it's wishful thinking....

 

[ech0o]

Keep feeding them the medicine, the skittishness will be the first thing to disapear, then the flashing.   Only one of my fish ever showed physical signs, one of the cichlids had clear tissue loss inside the gills, as there seemed to just be an empty hole under one of the gill plates, this seems to be the last symptom before it would eventually eat away all the gills and kill the fish.   Every other fish just acted skittish with lots of darting around.  The cichlid with the gill damage lived, and is still alive to this day, his gill even started to fill in again.  Just keep feeding them the stuff, after a couple weeks they should be good