Prazipro and filtration

mrbacony · Oct 31, 2020

Getting ready to dose Prazipro for internal parasites. The instructions say to remove carbon filtration and turn off UV and just leave filtration on. How long do I need to leave out the carbon and UV off? For the entire week, 24 hours, something else?
Thanks.

Idoc · Oct 31, 2020

Prazipro is usually dosed twice for treatment... doses 5-7 days apart. It does its work on the first 24 hours after being dosed. In quarantine tanks, you typically dose them do a 20% water change before the second dose 5-7 days later... then another water change after the second dose. I don't think that schedule changes when dosing a DT. I would leave the UV and carbon out during the entire first treatment dose and until at least 48hrs after the second dose.

Internal parasite treatment is usually done with mixing the meds with food, plus Focus to bind the medication to the food... rather than dosing the water column. I believe I have seen some arguments saying you can dose the water column though.

mrbacony · Oct 31, 2020

Thanks for the reply. I did try dosing Metroplex binded with Focus and adding a bit of garlic, but he would not eat it. He has not eaten for a couple of days so he was not interested in the food. So I decided I would try the Prazipro tomorrow since he did not eat any of the food. I was a little concerned about leaving the carbon out for a week and wanted to make sure since the bottle did not specify that part.

Jay Hemdal · Oct 31, 2020

Be sure you aerate well (not just circulate) water well when dosing with prazipro....the solvent used serves as a food source for bacteria and that scavenges oxygen from the water.
Jay

mrbacony · Oct 31, 2020

Thanks Jay. I have an airstone and pump I will place in the water. It is one of those emergency airstones for when the power goes out, but should serve well for this purpose.

mrbacony · Nov 2, 2020

Well, I dosed the tank yesterday and dropped in an airstone. Woke up this morning and both my clown (the one I was treating) and firefish were both dead. These are the only 2 fish I had. My cleaner shrimp and other inverts (hermits and snails) are all fine. I have a 32 gallon and dosed 1 1/2 teaspoons of Prazipro. I did not account for the volume taken up by rocks. Perhaps I should have only used 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon. I am thinking the dissolved O2 was too low. Any thoughts?

My water parameters as of this morning:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0.5
nitrate 1
phosphate 0.12 ( Ihad all filtration removed except for filter floss per instructions)
ph 8.0
salinity 1.024

Jay Hemdal · Nov 2, 2020

Sorry to hear that...
Did the fish die with their mouths gaped open? If so, probably lack of oxygen, if not, it was either a miscalculated dose or the fish had severe flukes. What can happen is that each fluke acts as a little cork. The prazi kills them and they drop off, leaving thousands of tiny holes in the fish and they bleed out. There isn’t really any way around that - I’ve tried short FW dips first, to knock some flukes off, then wait 2 days and then treat, but that is really just a guess.
Jay

mrbacony · Nov 2, 2020

I don’t recall their mouths being gaped open, but they may have been. I have definitely learned a hard lesson on this one. I hate the fish probably suffered. But I will take what I have learned and move on.
I am fairly certain it was lack of oxygen. I had the airstone going full blast, but i had a glass cover on the aquarium to cut down on evaporation. I am thinking that probably hurt the gas exchange. I am very appreciative of all the advice Jay. Thanks.