Stocking the Marine Fish Medicine Cabinet

[ScottT1980]

Woodstock, do you have some that you are thinking about using? If so, I could pick the brains of the faculty. I only have a year and a half left to do it, so I might as well take advantage while I can...

[Woodstock]

Originally Posted by leebca

All I know of Pancur is that its original intent was for the intestinal track of land animals. I don't know about its use for fishes.

Thanks lee.

Originally Posted by ScottT1980

Woodstock, do you have some that you are thinking about using? If so, I could pick the brains of the faculty. I only have a year and a half left to do it, so I might as well take advantage while I can...

Always pick the brains!!!

I really have no idea what form to use.... The seahorse forum that panmant suggests using liquid panacur (fenbendazole).


I got the idea of using panacur from Panmanmatt. He (and others) use it to deworm their seahorses: my new kuda pony

Originally Posted by panmanmatt

Deworming instructions can be found here if you need them:

Deworming - Seahorse.org


.....Deworming is going to be done over a period of a couple weeks as you are only going to use one medication at a time. Each med does a different thing so we run each one separately. If you need any of the meds, let me know. I have all 3 on hand.


...I have the panacur, not a problem with that. Prazi and Metro are the other 2 you will need.

If it is not needed, I do not want to treat with it. I am just trying to cover anything I should do while all my fish are in a hospital tank.

Thanks!

[ScottT1980]

I looked at a huge paper presented by the Shedd aquarium regarding pipefish and sea horses. Because tapes are seemingly more common in these fish (relative to other pathogens), they recommend using either praziquantel or fenbendazole. Fenbendazol will give you a larger spectrum of activity, but might not kill all your tapes (especially the species that I am seeing are more common in fish). Praziquantel should kill all the tapes, but will miss all the other types of worms.

So....

There is never a good magic bullet. Personally, I wouldn't use either unless I saw wasting. I do like the idea of the jungle dewormer, but if it isn't to the fish's liking, then you might as well just be throwing it in the trash.

Ill ask Noga or Lewbart though. I am sure they have an opinion...

[Woodstock]

Thanks Scott!

I can not count on my fish to eat the Jungle antiparasite pellet food. I tried but the fish laughed at me. I had to vacuum out the pellets afterwards
They are very spoiled and expect thawed frozen foods and sometimes will eat an occassional flake or two.
The directions for prazipro and metronidazole indicate a long term bath (1 week) works well.... I hope so because that is how I am using them both.

[panmanmatt]

Fenbendazol (Panacur), is commonly used in seahorses for deworming. As has been mentioned, metro and prazi are good choices also. However Panacur is just one more extra step becasue as Scott said, there is no magic bullet so using all 3 covers just about every.

Panacur is also used to remove hydroids in dwarf seahorse tanks as hydroids are deadly to the small horses.
We have found that seahorses treated with the other 2 meds may not expel any worms, but with the use of panacur they will pass them from their digestive tract.

One huge word of caution, Panacur is a very nasty treatment and shoule be done in a bare QT tank. It will kill a lot more than worms, it is harmful to quite a few corals, most algae eating organisms such as snails and hermits, and it's effects will last for quite some time(up to a year or more). I and others have used Panacur to treat live rock for hydroids and the residual medication in the rock has killed corals, astria snails, hermits and sea hares for over a year after the treatment. This was even after running carbon and doing massive water changes. We are currently working to see how low of a dosage is effective for treatment yet doesn't have the residual effects. So far we are down to 1/32 tsp for 10 gallons of water and are planning to go lower if we can.

[Woodstock]

Thanks for the info Panmanmatt!