Gill flukes visibility.

[ClownWrangler]

Will a FW dip always reveal gill flukes and if so, what magnification do you need to see them?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Gill flukes are tough to see in FW dip water. They are very small, and tend to contort into little balls of mucus. I use a dissecting microscope at 40x power, but in reality, I have a staff person who is much better than me at finding them, so I have her look for me. Many vets will opt for a gill biopsy - living flukes show up better due to their motion. I avoid gill biopsies though, I think they are too stressful. I will do skin scrapes to look for Gyrodactylids though.

Jay

 

[Idoc]

Gill flukes are tough to see in FW dip water. They are very small, and tend to contort into little balls of mucus. I use a dissecting microscope at 40x power, but in reality, I have a staff person who is much better than me at finding them, so I have her look for me. Many vets will opt for a gill biopsy - living flukes show up better due to their motion. I avoid gill biopsies though, I think they are too stressful. I will do skin scrapes to look for Gyrodactylids though.

Jay

Jay... do you have any microscope pics of gill flukes under 40x?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Jay... do you have any microscope pics of gill flukes under 40x?

No, not from a dip. The best folks can do is look for anchor hooks at one end. Some dactylagyrids have four really distinctive eye spots that can be seen, otherwise, like I said, the dead flukes just look like balls of mucus.
Jay

 

[ClownWrangler]

Gill flukes are tough to see in FW dip water. They are very small, and tend to contort into little balls of mucus. I use a dissecting microscope at 40x power, but in reality, I have a staff person who is much better than me at finding them, so I have her look for me. Many vets will opt for a gill biopsy - living flukes show up better due to their motion. I avoid gill biopsies though, I think they are too stressful. I will do skin scrapes to look for Gyrodactylids though.

Jay

Thanks. I have a clownfish with gill fluke symptoms for going on 2 weeks now with no change after 3 Prazi treatments. I used a 170x magnifier and found nothing in the bowl after a FW dip. I thought I might be dealing with Prazi resistant flukes, but someone else suggested that it could be velvet because the fish was swimming into the current, but that goes against what i have read about velvet killing quickly and I haven't had any sick fish or new additions for over 4 months. I just put the fish along with its partner in a 10G QT yesterday with 800mg CP and .5ml Dimilin-x, (used for freshwater flukes). I guess I will have to see what comes of it. Other fish in the tank seem unaffected BTW. It's not shown in the video clip, but the fish was also shaking its head, yawning and periodically flashing a few days ago. The video was taken with the fish in fresh mixed water in QT.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thanks. I have a clownfish with gill fluke symptoms for going on 2 weeks now with no change after 3 Prazi treatments. I used a 170x magnifier and found nothing in the bowl after a FW dip. I thought I might be dealing with Prazi resistant flukes, but someone else suggested that it could be velvet because the fish was swimming into the current, but that goes against what i have read about velvet killing quickly and I haven't had any sick fish or new additions for over 4 months. I just put the fish along with its partner in a 10G QT yesterday with 800mg CP and .5ml Dimilin-x, (used for freshwater flukes). I guess I will have to see what comes of it. Other fish in the tank seem unaffected BTW. It's not shown in the video clip, but the fish was also shaking its head, yawning and periodically flashing a few days ago. The video was taken with the fish in fresh mixed water in QT.

There isn't really "prazi resistant flukes". What happens is that after two and three treatments, populations of bacteria grow in a tank that consume prazi as a food source, pulling it out of the water as fast as you add it.

Isn't 800mg a lot of chloroquine to add to a 10 gallon tank? There may only be 8 gallons of water in the tank, I usually dose CP at 15 mg/l. So: 8*15/266 = 450 mg. The highest dose I ever use is 20mg/l, so 600mg.

I thought Dimilin-X was a chitin inhibitor and only kills actively molting arthropods (copepods).

Jay


Jay

 

[ClownWrangler]

There isn't really "prazi resistant flukes". What happens is that after two and three treatments, populations of bacteria grow in a tank that consume prazi as a food source, pulling it out of the water as fast as you add it.

Isn't 800mg a lot of chloroquine to add to a 10 gallon tank? There may only be 8 gallons of water in the tank, I usually dose CP at 15 mg/l. So: 8*15/266 = 450 mg. The highest dose I ever use is 20mg/l, so 600mg.

I thought Dimilin-X was a chitin inhibitor and only kills actively molting arthropods (copepods).

Jay


Jay

The range for CP is 60mg/gal therapeutic to 80mg/gal for velvet/brook treatment according to some literatures. I have used 60mg/gal in the past and had velvet return while still in QT, which is why I used 80mg/gal. The Dimilin, like CP is very safe, so it wont hurt anything if it doesn't help. I don't think it is velvet though. You are likely correct about the Prazi. If I don't see improvement in a few days I'll put them in a sterile tank and try the Prazi again. This tank does hold 10 full gallons BTW. I emptied two full 5 gallon jugs into it.

 

[ClownWrangler]

I thought Dimilin-X was a chitin inhibitor and only kills actively molting arthropods (copepods).

You may be correct about that, but the label is a bit misleading since it doesn't specify the type of Flukes it treats. I used it about a year ago on a clownfish that was flashing because I did not have Prazi on hand and it cured whatever it had. I did not get a definitive diagnosis it was flukes though.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

You may be correct about that, but the label is a bit misleading since it doesn't specify the type of Flukes it treats. I used it about a year ago on a clownfish that was flashing because I did not have Prazi on hand and it cured whatever it had. I did not get a definitive diagnosis it was flukes though.

Not sure why they say flukes on the label, it doesn’t work for trematodes, what we call flukes.
Jay