several ongoing problems

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msjinkzd

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Rachel O'Leary
Febendazole is more typically used to treat intestinal parasites like nematodes. For the parasites you are seemingly dealing with, praziquantel is recommended. It is the active ingredient in Jungle Parasite Guard as well. You can dosae it to a concentration of 2ppm for the tank or you can do a 2-3 hour bath at a concentration of 10ppm. I would treat the whole tank since you have multiple fish effected. From a book I have by Terry Fairfield:

Gryodacyloidea: Live bearing parasitic worms or flukes. They mainly parasitize the skin and fins but occasionally can be found on the gills. The higher the fish population density in the tank, the more rapidly this parasite will spread due to the closer proximity of fish and additional stress. There are in reality four generation of flukes within one because of how they reproduce (i cna pm you this info if you want, but it would take alot of time and space to type it here). These worms can multiply very rapidly and do an incredible amount of damage tot he skin, which is what they feed upon.
Terry's recommended treatment of choice is praziquantel (droncit).

Dactylogyridae- flukes of the gills. These are egg laying and hemaphroditic. This is a common discus ailment. Typical symptoms are spitting out food, coughing, and alternate gill use. These are much more difficult to treat and will often survive treatments becuase of being protected by the slime produced by the fish. High-salt, short term baths or short-time formaldehyde baths work reasonably well. Praziquantel (droncit) is the treatment of choice.


I am by no means positive about what your fish have but I do have some research books available. Let me know if I can offer you any other information within my means.
 
mellowvision

mellowvision

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well yesterday I noticed no significant improvement. the only change I could see was that the growth on the rasbora now looks partially cottony, but also partially like an empty blister pocket, and is larger than previously observed. I had a 2 day lapse in the EM, but have continued the Maracyn 2, and restarted the EM last night.

almost all the inverts in the tank are gone now, and the filter is dead.


what I realized, leaving petco with meds yesterday, is that I could have restocked the tank with nicer fish for way less than what I've spent on meds.
 
mellowvision

mellowvision

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it's been a while since I updated this...

The EM and Maracyn 2 proved useless, except to totally kill my filter, shrimp and snails, and bring on massive algae.

I moved on to Parasite Buddies, to try to clear the cherry barb's gills, and moved the rasbora and kubotai into quarantine. The kubotai died first night, got stuck in the filter. I had just about cured the rasbora with mela/pima fix treatment in qt, but he jumped out today.

So, all that's left of the sick fish are the cherry barbs, which still show a gill problem. They haven't shown much improvement after a week of Parasite Buddies.

The tank has suffered immensely from this course of action. I don't think I'll be going this route again with such common, inexpensive fish. I could have easily replaced the sick fish, and put them out of their missery a long time ago, but it will take me FOREVER to clear the algae that has rooted itself all over the tank. it's a real shame.
 
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