best treatment for gill flukes?

dorabaker

what are your suggestions about the best treatments for gill flukes? it has to be safe for corys.
i'm sick at the moment myself :( so i probably wont be able to get anything for a few days anyway, i just hope the fish are alright until then.

Lupin

How can you be sure you're dealing with flukes? Did you do a gill scrape? Praziquantel is the safest fluke treatment.

dorabaker

well i'm not sure :S i would have to do a scrape to know for sure i guess. and i'm not sure how to do that without hurting the fishies.
but it seems highly likely. i think its what my angelfish and barb had as well. apparently its common in ponds and the barb was in the pond when he got sick, and his gills looked red and he was breathing really fast. angelfish is also breathing fast and since i've been using plants from the pond for some time in my tanks i reckon they could have carried the flukes, maybe...
my cory is scratching his gills on things and kind of quivering like he's trying to shake something off. the angelfish did the same before he got so sick he couldn't swim.
if it is flukes, how long do i have to treat them before they become too sick to recover?

dorabaker

just looked up praziquantel and its incredibly expensive...also the smallest size was meant to be able to treat 2000 gallons of water or something...

OscarLoverJim

If you don't have any inverts use Mardel's Coppersafe.

dorabaker

thanks :)
copper is toxic though, will it hurt my plants? and i assume its not safe for corys since they are so sensitive to everything it sounds a little risky.

dorabaker

ok i just did some research and it sounds like formalin would be the way to go. id like to know peoples experiences with that though. i read about something called quick cure, would that be safe for corys and life plants and would it fix the flukes?

Lupin

Use praziquantel first. It's the safest and effective treatment. If you are battling stubborn flukes, then PURE formalin should be used. Please try to treat with prazi as per this schedule with a dosage of 2.5 mg per liter.

Day 1 -- remove carbon, perform water change with vacuuming, and add Prazi to tank
Day 2 -- add Prazi
Day 3 -- do nothing
Day 4 -- do nothing
Day 5 -- do nothing
Day 6 -- add Prazi
Day 7 -- add Prazi
Day 8 -- normal partial water change with vacuuming
Day 14 - normal partial water change, then add prazi
Day 21 - normal partial water change, then add prazi
Day 28 - normal partial water change, then add prazi
Day 35 - normal partial water change, add carbon, treatment is complete

Make sure your water is also well aerated and no need to use copper based treatments.

dorabaker

ok thanks so much, those directions are great, ill have to print them out or something haha
so to my relief i found an australian brand of med that is prazi, its called aqua master fluke and tapeworm tabs or something like that. i'm just wondering what dosage i'll need...i have a 60 liter/15 gallon tank. will i need to break tablets in half? i can't seem to find the dosage anywhere online.

edit: i've calculated i'd need a tablet and a half each time i dosed the tank. ( i recall reading somewhere that the tablets are 100 mg of prazi) please correct me if im wrong..

dorabaker

update: started treatment today. I swear since i've started treatment, ALL the catfish are scratching a lot and look really distressed, they aren't swimming much and when they do they just scratch on things. they are twitching their barbels and yawning a lot and 'blinking' a lot which i've noticed fish do more when they are stressed. i'm sure their colours are darker too. is it possible the treatment is irritating them more? or is it just the flukes doing this? i'm thinking of maybe doing a partial water change to see if it helps. when i dissolved the praziequantel tablets all this white stuff was left behind (it said that would happen on the packet and that it was harmless) and when i put the water with the dissolved tablets in it into the tank, the catfish ate the white stuff. i don't know if that could have hurt them. it said on the packet the residue was just 'cellulose'.