removal of prazi pro

[saltykid85]

Hello, once again.

I am kind of in a dilemma, man made or not, however I was seeking someone who may be able to help me.

Long story, really short, is I have a 155 fowlr with quite a few fish in it. Over the past month I added some medium sized angelfish, and one by one they perished. I initially attributed it to angelfish being hard to keep, and not having perfect water quality. (nitrates are 100). So I implemented some ecoback bio pellets in a reactor, about 3 weeks ago. Another two of my angelfish started showing the same signs the others, that died, had. These were cloudy eyes, frayed fins, and loss of eating. So I had enough, and decided to dose tank with prazi pro. Well within two days, the eyes cleared up the fish started eating again, and I am now in day 8. The only negagtive sign I see if my blue face who had a clouded eye, now has what looks like miscolored patches behind his pectoral fins. Not sure if flukes can cause this, but I am going to let it go for now.

So when using pellets, a good skimmer is important from what ive read. But obviously, I had to turn skimmer and uv off while using prazi pro. I started the prazi last sunday, waited 4 days (accelerated the process by one day, hikari said it would be fine) and did a 30 percent water change, redosed prazi again. So my water is not that polluted from not running skimmer. My plan is to run prazi for remaining two days, which will give me 11 days total treatment time. At that time, I will perform a 50 percent water change, and drop in some carbon.

Question is, how quickly can I place my skimmer back on line? And secondly, would you run one more 4 day prazi dose, and forfeit the skimmer further, or would 11 days be enough?

Thanks, and I know it is a jumbled question, but I am trying to keep pellets cycled , not pulling them offline, all the while treat the tank what appears was flukes.

 

[marrone]

Usually a treatment run 5 - 7 days, with a large water change on the 7 day. I would run a 3rd treatments, especially if you see any signs of the flukes on the fish, as if you don't get them all, and the treatment doesn't kill the egg, you need them to hatch in order for them to be killed, you're just going to have to treat all over again.

Since this is a Fowlr I wouldn't worry too much about running the skimmer, as the fish can handle the high nitrates without any problem, plus the large water changes that you're doing with remove a lot of the nitrates. If you're not doing it already I would run some extra power heads, as you want to pump more oxygen into the water and also watch the Ph, as Prazi-Pro will cause it to drop.

You also need to make sure you actually have flukes, as fish can live quite sometime with flukes. There are a number of signs that looks like flukes but could also be something else. If possible you should give you fish a fresh water dip, about 5min, and see if any flukes come off.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/pests/99529-gill-flukes.html

 

[Cu455]

I second making sure the it's a parasite. It might be a bacteria issue. When you add bio pellets you are feeding bacteria. The bacteria then reproduces and some of them get knocked off the balls. The skimmer is suppose to remove the bacteria. Without a skimmer you are allow the bacteria to enter your tank. Bacteria consume oxygen leaving less for your fish. Like what was said before keep you O2 levels up.

 

[saltykid85]

Thank you. I am 99 percent sure it is flukes. I lost 4 nice angelfish, a queen, 2 different Koran at different times, as well as a scribbled. I was not up on the flukes at the time, but when the fish perished, I would place them in ro fresh water, and fluke like objects would spring off the fish.

I have been running the prazi now 9 days, and for the past 5 days, both fish who each had a cloudy eye, both fish both have clear eyes now, and alsoeat pretty good. So I would like to think it was flukes, unless there was another coincidence.

 

[Cu455]

Sounds like its flukes. That's a crap load of fish to lose. Its good to hear the rest are doing better so what ever you are doing is working.

 

[saltykid85]

They appear to be. I want to end it asap, so I can get the skimmer back on line and help with the pellet reactor. Also, I thought fish could live with flukes, it was just a nuisance> Was never aware flukes can kill seemingly health fish with weeks of showing signs.

 

[marrone]

Fish can live with Flukes, and living with Flukes, or any parasite for that matter, in a close system for weeks is a really long time as most parasite can and do kill pretty fast.

Whether a fish can live with them, or live with them for a long time, comes down to a number of things, how large the fish is, is the fish eating, as usually once they stop eating they usually don't start again and it's usually the end, and how much of an infection you actually have in the tank. Also a lot of times the fish can bleed to death from the holes that the Fluke leave when they fall off the fish or get a secondary infections from scratching again the rocks.

Flukes are very hard to get rid of once if you system, as none of the medication with kill the eggs, though some Flukes are live barer, it makes it very hard to get rid of them. I would recommend a third treatment, as a lot of times it looks like they're gone, only to have them reappear some time down the road.

 

[Pseudo]

Do not worry about the pellet reactor as it will re-seed itself between 4-7 days anyway. If you want to help it along you can use a bacteria enhancer like Microbacter7 or Prodibio. You can see the progress of the reactor by taking a reading now of your nitrates and Phosphates and another in a week. You should start seeing a drop in nitrates.

Concentrate on the health of the fish first. Water changes that you will do with the treatment will keep the nitrates down anyway.