Prazi resistint flukes or something else?

acomps · Oct 3, 2024

Hello I have had my tank up and running for a few years and I have had an issue on and off for a year or so it seems. I followed all my fish through quarantine by using coppersafe at 2.5 for 30 days based on Hannah tester followed by Prizipro. Then they go into the main tank. Anyway issues come and go. The issues are head shaking, scratching, rapid breathing and darting across the tank. Nothing that is causing my fish to die (mostly) but it's very frusturating. I take the fish out and try copper again followed by prazipro. At times I use formuline. It works for a bit, but it appears to keep coming back. Any suggestion on what it is? I believe it is Flukes. Currently I am using hypo salinity and fresh water baths.

vetteguy53081 · Oct 3, 2024

acomps said:
Hello I have had my tank up and running for a few years and I have had an issue on and off for a year or so it seems. I followed all my fish through quarantine by using coppersafe at 2.5 for 30 days based on Hannah tester followed by Prizipro. Then they go into the main tank. Anyway issues come and go. The issues are head shaking, scratching, rapid breathing and darting across the tank. Nothing that is causing my fish to die (mostly) but it's very frusturating. I take the fish out and try copper again followed by prazipro. At times I use formuline. It works for a bit, but it appears to keep coming back. Any suggestion on what it is? I believe it is Flukes. Currently I am using hypo salinity and fresh water baths.

How are you dosing Prazi and for how long?

acomps · Oct 3, 2024

I follow the instructions. I believe a 7 day trial then a water change and do it again. So I assume you believe it is flukes?

Jay Hemdal · Oct 3, 2024

acomps said:
Hello I have had my tank up and running for a few years and I have had an issue on and off for a year or so it seems. I followed all my fish through quarantine by using coppersafe at 2.5 for 30 days based on Hannah tester followed by Prizipro. Then they go into the main tank. Anyway issues come and go. The issues are head shaking, scratching, rapid breathing and darting across the tank. Nothing that is causing my fish to die (mostly) but it's very frusturating. I take the fish out and try copper again followed by prazipro. At times I use formuline. It works for a bit, but it appears to keep coming back. Any suggestion on what it is? I believe it is Flukes. Currently I am using hypo salinity and fresh water baths.

It does sound like flukes. Can you post a video of the fish?

Hyposalinity at 1.012 works well against flukes, better than prazi does, but it takes up to 30 days.

acomps · Oct 4, 2024

I have it at hypo right now. How long until it should work? It has been 24 hours and its not better. Should I stay the path or should I go to the Prazi?

Jay Hemdal · Oct 5, 2024

acomps said:
I have it at hypo right now. How long until it should work? It has been 24 hours and it’s not better. Should I stay the path or should I go to the Prazi?

As I said, it takes 30 days for a full cure. Initially, the fish may act worse if they have a severe infection, but that should start to resolve after 3 to 4 days.

LAReefer4Life · Oct 6, 2024

Is your tank grounded? Maybe stray voltage causing the fish irritation. This happened to me once, I thought it was flukes so I treated and the problem continued on until I grounded my tank. The scratching and flashing stopped after that.

Just a thought...

acomps · Oct 8, 2024

Jay Hemdal said:
As I said, it takes 30 days for a full cure. Initially, the fish may act worse if they have a severe infection, but that should start to resolve after 3 to 4 days.

Here is a video. 3 days of prazipro and still scratching. It is possible it is getting a little bit better but not too much. Some fish are still shaking and jerking back and forth but I couldn't that on camera.

acomps · Oct 8, 2024

LAReefer4Life said:
Is your tank grounded? Maybe stray voltage causing the fish irritation. This happened to me once, I thought it was flukes so I treated and the problem continued on until I grounded my tank. The scratching and flashing stopped after that.

Just a thought...

Yes it is grounded.

Jay Hemdal · Oct 9, 2024

acomps said:
Here is a video. 3 days of prazipro and still scratching. It is possible it is getting a little bit better but not too much. Some fish are still shaking and jerking back and forth but I couldn't that on camera.

I'm having difficulty following your timeline. Ignoring the prazi dose for now, Is the fish in the video under hyposalinity at the time the video was taken? What salinity and for how long?

The water looks a bit murky with some particulates in it. That can make the fish flash/scratch as well - the fish feel particles hit their body, and they think it is a parasite, so they scratch.

acomps · Oct 9, 2024

Jay Hemdal said:
I'm having difficulty following your timeline. Ignoring the prazi dose for now, Is the fish in the video under hyposalinity at the time the video was taken? What salinity and for how long?

The water looks a bit murky with some particulates in it. That can make the fish flash/scratch as well - the fish feel particles hit their body, and they think it is a parasite, so they scratch.

Jay I had hypo salinity at 1.009 for 4 days and it didn't appear to help much. I now have the salinity at 1.0015 now with Prazi for 4 days and still see scratching and twitching. My filter is dirty and I need to clean it that is maybe the particulates.

acomps · Oct 10, 2024

OK it appears that I may have the Prazi resistant flukes which I have suspected for a long time. I have tried Formlyn (which helps temporary) , fresh water dips etc. My tank has had issues on and off for a long time, sometimes it goes away then comes back. I read another thread about Prazi resistent flukes and people have used fenbendazole. I want to try that, but the only link that was on there was near $500 for an order. Does anyone have a link of a smaller/cheaper amount? I am at my wits end. Thanks for all your help.

Jay Hemdal · Oct 10, 2024

acomps said:
OK it appears that I may have the Prazi resistant flukes which I have suspected for a long time. I have tried Formlyn (which helps temporary) , fresh water dips etc. My tank has had issues on and off for a long time, sometimes it goes away then comes back. I read another thread about Prazi resistent flukes and people have used fenbendazole. I want to try that, but the only link that was on there was near $500 for an order. Does anyone have a link of a smaller/cheaper amount? I am at my wits end. Thanks for all your help.

Prazi resistant flukes are actually a misnomer - what happens is that after multiple treatments with prazi, bacteria grows that breaks down the prazi before it has a chance to work.

That’s why I asked about your hypo regimen - 30 days of that will kill all flukes except some really rare brackish water flukes.

Fenbendazole has some toxicity issues that involve certain species of fish, but that list isn’t fully known, so using it is a bit of a crap shoot - I stopped using it because of that.

acomps · Oct 10, 2024

Jay Hemdal said:
Prazi resistant flukes are actually a misnomer - what happens is that after multiple treatments with prazi, bacteria grows that breaks down the prazi before it has a chance to work.

That’s why I asked about your hypo regimen - 30 days of that will kill all flukes except some really rare brackish water flukes.

Fenbendazole has some toxicity issues that involve certain species of fish, but that list isn’t fully known, so using it is a bit of a crap shoot - I stopped using it because of that.

Sounds good Jay. I'll go back to Hypo. Thanks for your help.

Jay Hemdal · Oct 11, 2024

acomps said:
Sounds good Jay. I'll go back to Hypo. Thanks for your help.

Here is something though - In rereading your post, you said that 1.009 for four days didn't help relieve the symptoms. Four days of hypo won't CURE a fluke infestation, but the fish WOULD show some improvement around day 3 and 4. It's just that short hypo won't kill the fluke eggs, so the fish would get sick again. In this case, if it didn't help at all, so now I'm second guessing if hypo is the way to go here or not......

acomps · Oct 12, 2024

Jay Hemdal said:
Here is something though - In rereading your post, you said that 1.009 for four days didn't help relieve the symptoms. Four days of hypo won't CURE a fluke infestation, but the fish WOULD show some improvement around day 3 and 4. It's just that short hypo won't kill the fluke eggs, so the fish would get sick again. In this case, if it didn't help at all, so now I'm second guessing if hypo is the way to go here or not......

Next I did I did a formalin bath in the hospital tank for 48 hours. I did two drops per gallon and hypo. They are almost symptom free. I will keep them in hypo for 30 days. Hopefully it solves it. I did buy Fenbendazole. If hypo doesn't work I will try that. I have done a lot of reading on Prazi resistent gill flukes and I think this is what it is. Thanks for all your help.

Jay Hemdal · Oct 12, 2024

acomps said:
Next I did I did a formalin bath in the hospital tank for 48 hours. I did two drops per gallon and hypo. They are almost symptom free. I will keep them in hypo for 30 days. Hopefully it solves it. I did buy Fenbendazole. If hypo doesn't work I will try that. I have done a lot of reading on Prazi resistent gill flukes and I think this is what it is. Thanks for all your help.

I know you’ll read a lot about “prazi resistant flukes”, but it simply isn’t a thing except in aquaculture. The pet trade is all single pass supply chain, so flukes don’t have multiple exposures over a long enough period to produce resistance. It’s all about people misunderstanding how bacteria breaks down the prazi.