Best Fluke treatment?

[Woodstock]

Lee,
I currently have all of my fish in a hospital tank treating them for ICH via cupramine (again).

Does cupramine kill flukes? If not, what would you suggest to be the best treatment for them? I've read up on the FW dips a bit... would I perform a 5 minute FW dip all fish every 3 days for a total of 5 dips?

I am planning on leaving my display fallow for 8-10 weeks. What is the recommended fallow period to kill any flukes?

Thanks!

 

[sasquatch]

Woody? you have flukes? Ive read using advantage flea meds for koi, not sure about marine use, dosent hypo kill them off?

 

[sasquatch]

Praziquantel , I think this is the active one in advantage

Trematodes, the flukes are divided into ecto-parasitic (external) monogenes and the largely endo-parasitic (internal) digenes on the basis of their life histories. Monogeneans have a direct life cycle, and digeneans an indirect one with the use of one or more intermediary host species. The monogenes are important as gill and body parasites of marine fishes.

There are many species of flukes, they are common on imported livestock, and may significantly reduce their health if not eliminated through acclimation techniques. Hiding, rapid breathing discoloration and more are symptomatic of infection/infestation, though microscopic examination of skin scrapings and gill clippings are required for positive diagnosis.

Several chemicals including organophosphates, copper, quinines and dips of freshwater with/out malachite/formalin have been described in the literature as being efficacious. Recent authors tout the use of Praziquantel (Droncit (R)) at 1ppm in a treatment system.

 

[SeahorseBT]

Freshwater dip for 5 min. or until they stop swimming. It usually works.

 

[sasquatch]

Freshwater dip for 5 min. or until they stop swimming. It usually works.

? the flukes or the fish lol

 

[Woodstock]

LOL Sasquatch

I don't know if they have flukes or not but my guess is they do. Once their copper treatment is over, I will let them rest for a week and then FW dip one fish to see if any fluke-like parasite 'falls off'.

 

[sasquatch]

Im not sure dead flukes fall off, they burrow their heads in and in fresh water you pull them out with tweezers (gross) wouldnt the copper be enough anyway?

 

[leebca]

My sincere apologies, Woodstock. Somehow this post got by me! Don't know why. I have become inundated with PMs from all sources (even RC) and I'm trying to figure out how to stop the juggling act!

Anyway. . .Flukes come in a variety of organisms. Flukes are a sub-class of the worm group. There are some 100+ common marine flukes out there. Fortunately for the marine hobbyist, most require other marine life hosts to go through their life cycle. We don't have those other hosts in our aquariums, so that limits our concern to those that can reproduce in our aquariums and that don't need non-fish hosts to go through their life cycle.

They are (speaking in generalities) not affected by copper treatments -- including Cupramine.

A general attack on flukes is to first perform a FW dip of extended time as I recommend for newly acquired fishes. Some flukes are killed outright by this treatment.

Other flukes require a more active medication. Those of the trematode and Trichodina group (often called in general 'gill flukes') are best eradicated by a Formalin dip process. Three consecutive dips of a couple days apart. (I can refer you to a specific procedure/process if you wish). This dip process is very much controlled and can't be performed 'haphazardly' lest the fish die from the 'cure.'

You may find some products off the shelf that claim to kill flukes. Just read the label. The most effective general chemicals that kills flukes are members of the quinine family. Usually that is quinacrine hydrochloride, aka: atabrine hydrochloride, atebrine, chinacrine, mepacrine, or quinacrine.

 

[tippMANn98]

Have you heard of a product called "lifebearer"? its red in color, and it does very very well for flukes, been using it at fish stores for years, especially when we got fish direct. they would come covered with them.

 

[JWarren]

I happened accross this sit a few days ago. Don't anything about them, but it appears it's all the do.

No Sick Fish Products

 

[Woodstock]

My sincere apologies, Woodstock. Somehow this post got by me! Don't know why. I have become inundated with PMs from all sources (even RC) and I'm trying to figure out how to stop the juggling act!

Anyway. . .Flukes come in a variety of organisms. Flukes are a sub-class of the worm group. There are some 100+ common marine flukes out there. Fortunately for the marine hobbyist, most require other marine life hosts to go through their life cycle. We don't have those other hosts in our aquariums, so that limits our concern to those that can reproduce in our aquariums and that don't need non-fish hosts to go through their life cycle.

They are (speaking in generalities) not affected by copper treatments -- including Cupramine.

A general attack on flukes is to first perform a FW dip of extended time as I recommend for newly acquired fishes. Some flukes are killed outright by this treatment.

Other flukes require a more active medication. Those of the trematode and Trichodina group (often called in general 'gill flukes') are best eradicated by a Formalin dip process. Three consecutive dips of a couple days apart. (I can refer you to a specific procedure/process if you wish). This dip process is very much controlled and can't be performed 'haphazardly' lest the fish die from the 'cure.'

You may find some products off the shelf that claim to kill flukes. Just read the label. The most effective general chemicals that kills flukes are members of the quinine family. Usually that is quinacrine hydrochloride, aka: atabrine hydrochloride, atebrine, chinacrine, mepacrine, or quinacrine.

Thank you for the reply Lee.

I would like for you to recommend the best treatment process/procedure to irradicate flukes from my fish that are currently all in a hospital tank.

All of my fish are now 12 days into a cupramine treatment and are not showing any signs of ICH; they are however scratching their gills (flashing) and the tang and copperband are 'clamping/closing' one gill for extended periods. I do not think their actions are because of poor water since I test all parameters twice daily and keep the copper at 0.5ppm via sailifert and API test kits. The water is KEPT in excellent form via regular water changes:
temp 78.5, PH 8.01-8.13, alk 8dkh, salinity 30ppt, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrAtes 0-5ppm. I think they have flukes....

Please do tell me the best way to treat them for flukes.

Thanks!

 

[leebca]

I would begin by removing all the copper. Then I would put the fish through an extended fresh water bath. Use the following procedure but instead of 30 minutes, keep the fish stay in the bath for 15 minutes: Marine Fish Freswater Bath - Step-by-step (The time is reduced because most flukes will die within that time IF the FW will kill them at all).

Repeat the above bath every other day until the fish has had at least 3 treatments. If the fish seem to improve during that time, give them a 4th treatment. If there is noticeable improvement, monitor them in the hospital tank another 4 weeks.

With no improvement after the 3rd treatment, switch to the Formalin treatment. Also given in multiple treatments, the general instructions and things to control are given here: Formalin Treatment by Terry D. Barteleme.

Treating a group of fishes, should they all be in one hospital tank, is a bit tricky. You see, when you put the treated fish back in with the untreated fishes, what's to say the treated fish isn't re-infected? You may think to treat them all at the same time. That can be a disaster. Formalin is tricky and a fish which normally has enough oxygen could find itself in a situation of a Formalin bath to be suffocating. Multiple fish treatment in Formalin is not recommended.

One way around this is to have a second hospital tank with new saltwater. It must be the exact same pH, specific gravity, and temperature as the fish is coming out of. The treated fish then goes into the second tank. When the first hospital tank is empty, it is cleaned, allowed to dry out and then gotten ready to act as a hospital tank to receive the fish after their second treatment. Switch tanks back and forth until treatments are completed.

After treatment, keep fish in the hospital tank another 4 weeks for obserevation.

 

[Woodstock]

Okay. I will use two hospital tanks and I will probably go for the formalin/fw dip instead of just a fw.

 

[Woodstock]

One more question; how long should I leave my main display fallow?

 

[leebca]

That has been a matter of debate among us very experienced aquarists.

As I mentioned above, flukes are a part of the worm family. These guys have quite a range of life off the host. Without positive identification, 10 weeks is the absolute minimum. But I should say that some of my peers (of which there aren't that many :smack: ) recommend as little as 8 weeks and as much as 16 weeks. I recommend 10 because I have had no reports of reinfection of true flukes with life-off-of-host 8-week survival record, when this time is used. "True" in the sense they were properly identified as such.

 

[Woodstock]

Gotta love debated topics... I suppose I should go with the maximum time period to be sure. :hammerhea

Am I correct in assuming that the fluke's life cycle consists of a waterborne stage? If so, my 25 watt UV will surely help to irradicate them during the 10+ weeks of fallow period I will have a very slow flow rate of about 80-100 gph through it to get a maximum kill rate

 

[leebca]

Some are transmitted fish to fish, others are on decorations/rock/substrate a few weeks. The UV can reduce numbers (but not help eradicate as you say), but not kill all because of at least two reasons: 1) all the organisms won't necessarily get to the UV. Fish that rest on the bottom of the aquarium at night will encourage the flukes that live off the fish to go directly to the substrate.

If the UV is sized and flow controlled for killing protozoa (as it should for marine use) then the flukes may pass through with a certain percentage of success. 2) Those exposed to UV and survive will have a lesser probability of reproducing, but may still be able to reproduce.

 

[Woodstock]

Thanks for clarifying that Lee. The UV will help a tad

You may find some products off the shelf that claim to kill flukes. Just read the label. The most effective general chemicals that kills flukes are members of the quinine family. Usually that is quinacrine hydrochloride, aka: atabrine hydrochloride, atebrine, chinacrine, mepacrine, or quinacrine.

Upon further thought I would rather go this direction (using a chemical that kills flukes).

Switching tanks to allow one to dry out would probably work for one (or maybe a few) fish but would most likely be disasterous for all the fish I have in the hospital tank right now. I don't think dipping them would be too horribly bad but placing them all in an uncycled tank would. Even with large daily water changes I think it would be very tough on the fish.

I will hunt for q. hydrochloride treatment that you proposed above.
Thanks again!