Help me succeed with regal angel

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 13, 2018

The more eyes, ideas and opinions the better, so I'm starting this thread to solicit advice to help this little regal make it.

Fish arrived this morning, smooth transition into QT. Body weight looks good, has some marks on anal fin. One large white spot on pectoral fin looks like lympho. I fed a bit of brine, it picked a bit and was interested but i can't confirm it ate any

A few hours later. The fish is itchy and twitchy. Flukes are visible on the skin with a magnifying glass.

I could fw dip for some relief or dose general cure or prazi pro. Im leaning to general cure, despite the potential appetite suppression as the fish is interested in food, good weight but very itchy and visible flukes.

What y'all think?

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 13, 2018

Here it is

Humblefish · Mar 13, 2018

How many flukes can you see? If heavily infested, it's best to give a 5 min FW dip to knock most of them off, and then finish the job with 2 rounds of Prazipro or GC.

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 13, 2018

I'm guessing it's a heavy load. The damage on the anal fin looks like flukes and my eyes are old so even with a mag glass if I can see them, there's a lot

Big G · Mar 13, 2018

GoldeneyeRet said:
The more eyes, ideas and opinions the better, so I'm starting this thread to solicit advice to help this little regal make it.

Fish arrived this morning, smooth transition into QT. Body weight looks good, has some marks on anal fin. One large white spot on pectoral fin looks like lympho. I fed a bit of brine, it picked a bit and was interested but i can't confirm it ate any

A few hours later. The fish is itchy and twitchy. Flukes are visible on the skin with a magnifying glass.

I could fw dip for some relief or dose general cure or prazi pro. Im leaning to general cure, despite the potential appetite suppression as the fish is interested in food, good weight but very itchy and visible flukes.

What y'all think?

Big fan of GC. Lower dosage of praziquantel so it's easier on the fish, plus the metro that will eliminate internal parasites.

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 13, 2018

Yeah, he was loaded.

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 14, 2018

Fw dip removed a lot of flukes.

He is in general cure since yesterday.
After dip, his swimming wasn't right. He was swimming but kind of listless. He stayed in a small area, off the bottom just sort of hanging out. He would slowly fade to the other side when i approached, but not exactly scared. He looked dazed....

This morning he was the same, but tonight he is hiding in pvc.

I'm thinking of starting CP, sooner than planned.

HotRocks · Mar 14, 2018

GoldeneyeRet said:
Fw dip removed a lot of flukes.

He is in general cure since yesterday.
After dip, his swimming wasn't right. He was swimming but kind of listless. He stayed in a small area, off the bottom just sort of hanging out. He would slowly fade to the other side when i approached, but not exactly scared. He looked dazed....

This morning he was the same, but tonight he is hiding in pvc.

I'm thinking of starting CP, sooner than planned.

They are extremely shy, and act very wierd upon arrival IME, if you have never had one. Mine was eating in QT, but swam sideways even hung out nose up alot in the first week. Hid 75% of the time. As more time went on, he began acting more normal.

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 14, 2018

Yeah, they are crevice loving fish, but this is different. Especially the drastic change to hiding.

Perhaps it's just changed since the flukes are gone...

4FordFamily · Mar 14, 2018

GoldeneyeRet said:
Yeah, they are crevice loving fish, but this is different. Especially the drastic change to hiding.

Perhaps it's just changed since the flukes are gone...

Irritation from the fluke damage, perhaps. Keep an eye on it. Lights off for a day wouldn’t hurt.

With regals, live mussels and live blackworms are my go to “cheat codes”

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 15, 2018

He looks better today. Hiding, but alert and coming out some. Picked at masstick, nori, and formula2, attached to a clamshell.

I did see white stool. It's been 48 hours since general cure, I may redose the gc or just dose metroplex tonight.

All opinions and advice welcomed abd appreciated. Many thanks to all for the comments and help.

He really is cute!

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 25, 2018

Update,

Regal is doing ok. GC resistant flukes but after doing an aggressive treatment schedule they appear to be gone. Fish is now in metro+CP and is behaving and swimming as I expect he should. I did lower the flow in my QT and that seemed to make her more comfortable.

He is eating clams and mussels on the half shell, and will eat frozen and masstic stuck on an empty shell but nothing is being eaten very aggressively. shows no interest in feeding out of the water column. She did take a pellet off the surface once. No interest in blackworms, much to the delight of my dt.

I am cautiously optimistic, and I welcome any advice or suggestions!

Humblefish · Mar 25, 2018

What aggressive treatment did you use to address the prazi resistant flukes??

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 25, 2018

Humblefish said:
What aggressive treatment did you use to address the prazi resistant flukes??

Maybe I phrased that wrong. I switched to prazipro and followed hikaris reccomendation to dose every three days for resistant flukes. I repeated that 3 times after the initial GC dose, 11 days total praziquantel.

After the initial GC dose, the head shaking and such was better but there was still some twitching and I got a few flukes in a fw dip. 3 doses of prazi 3 days apart and now I found zero flukes and twitching is long gone.

Maybe they weren't prazi rezistant strain, maybe aggressive isn't the right term. They seem gone for now, so I'm happy.

Internal parasites remain, I think. Metro has been in the water for 13 days now. Dosage sheet indicates up to 3 weeks. How long should I continue the metro to rid worms but also not be too hard on fish? I think food dosing is a bad idea right now.

Thanks to everyone for the help, especially humblefish.

Humblefish · Mar 25, 2018

GoldeneyeRet said:
Internal parasites remain, I think. Metro has been in the water for 13 days now. Dosage sheet indicates up to 3 weeks. How long should I continue the metro to rid worms but also not be too hard on fish? I think food dosing is a bad idea right now.

It’s hard to say when only dosing the water. Typically, it takes 2-3 weeks to clear intestinal worms but that is when food soaking.

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 25, 2018

I'll administer with food when its eating better, but plan on keeping up with the water dosing until then. Any reason I shouldn't?

Humblefish · Mar 25, 2018

GoldeneyeRet said:
I'll administer with food when its eating better, but plan on keeping up with the water dosing until then. Any reason I shouldn't?

Are you still seeing white stringy poop? You could add a little Epsom salt to his food to help flush them out.

Is he eating pellets at all? NLS Hex Shield contains Metronidazole + Epsom salt, and you could try a little of that IN ADDITION to what you are normally feeding him.

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 25, 2018

Humblefish said:
Are you still seeing white stringy poop? You could add a little Epsom salt to his food to help flush them out.

Is he eating pellets at all? NLS Hex Shield contains Metronidazole + Epsom salt, and you could try a little of that IN ADDITION to what you are normally feeding him.

Not eating enough pellets to get a consistent dose. I'll try them though.

Thanks a lot

GoldeneyeRet · Mar 27, 2018

Hey all, my regal journey continues.

Saw some very subtle scratching of the gill covers on PVC tonight. Fish has been in cp for a couple days now, I am thinking scratching could be from parasites being knocked off the gills by cp or flukes . should I fw dip, antiseptic dip, dose antibiotics or wait a bit? Something else? I feel I have thrown a lot of meds at this fish and my head says lay off a bit. Normally I would just wait in this situation, I'm just being more cautious with this amazing little angel. I'm not usually so emotionally attached but this cutie is clouding my judgement lol

His appetite was very good today, was really devouring food off the bottom, even pellets and flakes. Kind of seems to support the idea of waiting a bit before taking further action.

What does everyone think?

As always, thanks for the advice r2r!