Scratching PBT tang

mlivvy · Feb 23, 2022

PBT has been in copper power @ 2.5ppm for the last 2 weeks and metroplex for 1 week. Eats fine, swims fine, no marks or anything on body. Just lots of scratching against pvc. Could it be flukes?

Qasimja · Feb 23, 2022

it could be but it wouldn't hurt to run him through 2 doses of prazi to be sure

mlivvy · Feb 24, 2022

So the scratching got pretty bad and now I could see marks on his body so I decided to do a freshwater dip. I did see flukes in the water but also these large pebble looking things came out of his body. You can see one coming out in the video. Really weird like from a sci fi movie. He was super calm in the freshwater so I think it was alleviating. He looks alot better and the scratching stopped. Will start prazi tomorrow am.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 25, 2022

mlivvy said:
So the scratching got pretty bad and now I could see marks on his body so I decided to do a freshwater dip. I did see flukes in the water but also these large pebble looking things came out of his body. You can see one coming out in the video. Really weird like from a sci fi movie. He was super calm in the freshwater so I think it was alleviating. He looks alot better and the scratching stopped. Will start prazi tomorrow am.

I'm not sure what the pebble thing is. Did the flukes you saw look like tiny fish scales? If so, that is Neobenedenia, an egg laying species. Prazi doesn't work really well to control that, 35 days of hyposalinity is better. If you do go with prazi, you need to space the treatments out to try and kill off any flukes that hatch from eggs in the tank (the eggs aren't harmed by the prazi). I generally dose prazi 9 days apart for three treatments, with water changes before the second and third dose.

Jay

mlivvy · Feb 25, 2022

Jay Hemdal said:
I'm not sure what the pebble thing is. Did the flukes you saw look like tiny fish scales? If so, that is Neobenedenia, an egg laying species. Prazi doesn't work really well to control that, 35 days of hyposalinity is better. If you do go with prazi, you need to space the treatments out to try and kill off any flukes that hatch from eggs in the tank (the eggs aren't harmed by the prazi). I generally dose prazi 9 days apart for three treatments, with water changes before the second and third dose.

Jay

Thanks Jay.

Will prazi be ok done together with hyposalinity?

Nevermind I hit the "search" button.

If anyone else is curious heres the answer- https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/prazipro-and-hyposalinity.544102/

Jay Hemdal · Feb 25, 2022

mlivvy said:
Thanks Jay.

Will prazi be ok done together with hyposalinity?

Nevermind I hit the "search" button.
If anyone else is curious heres the answer- https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/prazipro-and-hyposalinity.544102/

I've used prazi in FW and in SW but have never used it during hypo. I don't see a huge problem, but my inclination is to always just run one treatment at a time - both of these treatments can induce stress, so running them at the same time will increase that. Besides, hypo has a lot of carryover against flukes.

Jay

mlivvy · Mar 1, 2022

So things were going well. I moved the pbt from the copper qt tank to a new tank for prazi treatment and observation. I added prazipro to the tank and the next day the pbt is full of these freckle looking things on his body. Any idea?

Jay Hemdal · Mar 1, 2022

mlivvy said:
So things were going well. I moved the pbt from the copper qt tank to a new tank for prazi treatment and observation. I added prazipro to the tank and the next day the pbt is full of these freckle looking things on his body. Any idea?

Those are likely the sucker marks from where the flukes have dropped off. In really severe infections, the fish can bleed out from that, but there really isn't any alternative, as the fish will die if you don't remove the flukes. You'll need to redose the prazi in 9 days or so, and then I like to dose a third time 9 days after that (not everyone does that though).

My worry here is that this fish was in full hypo? That should have knocked the flukes off before you ever dosed the prazi. There is a rare brackish water fluke that survives hypo but not prazi.....

Jay

mlivvy · Mar 1, 2022

Thank you. I was worried that it was black ich. I only did a freshwater dip no hypo.

mlivvy · Mar 3, 2022

Heres a closer video. Sucker marks?

Jay Hemdal · Mar 3, 2022

mlivvy said:
Heres a closer video. Sucker marks?

Could still be that, but really, I would have expected the lesions to start to heal after two days. It is possible for bacteria to colonize the open wounds left by flukes.....

Jay