Does anchor worms effect gars

[Divasen]

Hi

I currently have anchor worm problem with my main tank which has infected my polys but to date i have not found one worm on my florida gar which is in the same tank, I have treated the tank with Parazin P from waterlife and the med has not worked.

I am now going to use sera baktopur direct now and was wondering if this med would effect my gar in a negative way.

Any advise and tips?

Thank you

 

[Madding]

Gars generally do not respond to medication well. If you have to do it with the gar in the tank, I'd half-dose.

 

[screaminleeman]

I would remove/ rehome the gar before treatment. Wait for one of the Gar experts to chime in before taking this statment as "fact", but I am reasonably certain from hands on experience with extreme cases of Anchor worm infection with pbass, clown loach & Severum in tanks that also housed baby gar and have never seen a gar at any age suffer any ifestation from the anchor worm present in the tank at all.

I think that the Gars armour like scales protect it from external parasites reaching their required blood supply.

 

[E_americanus]

gars can be infected by anchor worm and this commonly happens with gars straight out of an LFS (esp ones that don't quarantine). treat similarly to fish lice - use a treatment that contains praziquantel - there is a med called prazipro that works pretty well.

we usually don't see the worms on gars as often because the worms will usually attack fishes with more penetrable scales. it can and does happen though, and they are nearly impossible to get rid of without treatment.

using 1 tbsp of salt per 20g water will also help, and bump temp up to 82F --
--solomon

 

[SimonL]

I had a tank with some sensitive fish I feared medicating, I bumped up the temp and ran an UV sterilizer, worked pretty well. The sterilizer kills the free swimming stage before they anchor on the host.

 

[Lupin]

Sera Baktopur is an antibiotic. That will not work with anchorworms. What you are looking for is either dimilin/diflubenzuron or neguvon/masoten/organophosphate/trichlorfon/dylox. I'll let Solomon comment on the gars' tolerance to either meds.

 

[Polypterus]

Sera Baktopur is an antibiotic. That will not work with anchorworms. What you are looking for is either dimilin/diflubenzuron or neguvon/masoten/organophosphate/trichlorfon/dylox. I'll let Solomon comment on the gars' tolerance to either meds.

praziquantel

 

[E_americanus]

praziquantel

x2 (or x3...guess i'm just confirming myself too )

we've both used this on gars for tough external parasites with great results and no harm to the fishes. i'm not familiar and/or haven't used those other compounds on gars, so i can't really comment on them.

praziquantel-based anti-parasitics have worked best for us in the past with primitive fishes in general, so that's what i would highly recommend for this scenario.--
--solomon

PS-- the UV treatment also doesn't hurt, but if you don't have one already it's expensive...and it needs to be running pretty slow flow to effectively kill parasites (compared to faster flow that can still kill algae, bacteria, etc).

 

[SimonL]

PS-- the UV treatment also doesn't hurt, but if you don't have one already it's expensive...and it needs to be running pretty slow flow to effectively kill parasites (compared to faster flow that can still kill algae, bacteria, etc).

I find it handy to have one kicking around, you can always use it for other purposes like algae, bacteria, etc. The 150 bucks it cost is a lot cheaper than a tank of expensive fish...

 

[E_americanus]

I find it handy to have one kicking around, you can always use it for other purposes like algae, bacteria, etc. The 150 bucks it cost is a lot cheaper than a tank of expensive fish...

oh i definitely agree...i decided a while back that i was going to keep UV running on my tanks with the more expensive fishes. unfortunately given school-research-fish work over the past year(s), i have gotten bad at replacing the lamps. they aren't necessarily cheap for big tanks though, and using too small of a UV sterilizer or too high of flow renders them pretty low in terms of efficacy.

if you're going to invest (as SimonL has, and as i did - man i need to get new bulbs!), make sure and set it up the right way!--
--solomon