Help! Flukes or Parasite

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M

Malawi King

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 26, 2009
15
0
0
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Basic Questions

1. What is the size of your tank?
55 gallon

2. What are your water parameters? State the brand of test kit used.
API Freshwater master kit

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 15 to 20
PH 8.0

3. Is your aquarium set up freshwater or brackish water?
Hard Tap Water I bypass my softner

4. How long the aquarium has been set up?

8 months i did a fishless cycle


5. What fish do you have? How many are in your tank? How big are they? How long have you had them?
Male Hap Tank (african cichlids) 15
2 to 6 iches 8 months

6. Were the fish placed under quarantine period (minus the first batch from the point wherein the tank is ready to accommodate the inhabitants)?
No I just bought a peacock and it was the one that made the other ill (quarantine all new fish from now on_


7. What temperature is the tank water currently?
80 steady


8. Are there live plants in the aquarium?

no

9. What filter are you using? State brand, maintenance routine and power capacity.

DIY SUMP 10 gal.
Mag 7 500 GPH
stealth heater 100 watt
40 to 50% water changes weekly

10. Any other equipment used (aside from heater and filter which are two very important components of the tank)?

Power head maxi 1200

11. Does your aquarium receive natural sunlight at any given part of the day? What is your lighting schedule (assuming you do not rely on sunlight for our viewing pleasure)?
No

6 to 9 hours a day its always diffrent

12. When did you perform your last water change and how much water was changed? How often do you change your water? Do you vacuum the substrate?

Yesterday 20 gals about 40%
weekly i vacuum and change water
cichlids are messy


13. What foods do you provide your fish? What is the feeding schedule?

NLS cichlid pellets.
ounce a day


14. What unusual signs have you observed in your fish?
I added my new peacock the first day it had clamped fins, flashing, twitching head, strange mouth movements, using fins to scratch body and gills,
twitching dorsal fin like its cold, white dots on body not ich.


15. Have you treated your fish ahead of diagnosis? If so, what treatments did you use? State your reasons for planning ahead of proper diagnosis.

I was think flukes so i treated with jungle parasite clear for about a week and nothing rly happend. Then i treated just the peacock with quick cure and the white dots disappeared but still everything else.

Just today i started treating with JPC agean and will do so for the rest of the month unless you guys think something diffrent.

The illness went through my tank in 3 days and all my fish were scratching and twitching and twitching head, also some get 1 or 2 white dots like ich but no i have had ich before not these fish tho.


Thanks I need help
 
protozin covers a good range of paracites and is a relativly small dose and you should see results in 3 days sorry i could not help diagnose i would cut down water changes to 30% and maybe feed less if possible. I use protozin and it has worked 100% of the time i hope this helps you
 
Well I'm not really sure what to suggest. But I had to bump this since you're one of the few people that answer all those need-to-know questions.

I seem to be saying this alot lately, but probably a good idea to do 20-30% water changes several days in a row. Not sure what meds you should use though...
 
Could you please post photos of these "white spots"? What makes you think it is not ich? Flukes are best determined if you coud conduct a skin and gill scrape and see them under a microscope but if they appear to scrape the same gill area or body area with no explanations of other possible parasites, then this certainly involves flukes. I recommend praziquantel for flukes.
 
lupin I was hopping you would chime in!!!

i will post some pics tonight if i can get any good ones i can take photos for the life of me...

reason for bleaving they dont have ich. They have been this way for about a month and the temp in the tank is 80.

also there is 1 or 2 spots on each fish at most and it comes and goes for the last month. I think it could be flukes and a small case of ich maby

but with ich they dont normal twitch there head do they?
 
Malawi King;3346910; said:
lupin I was hopping you would chime in!!!

i will post some pics tonight if i can get any good ones i can take photos for the life of me...

reason for bleaving they dont have ich. They have been this way for about a month and the temp in the tank is 80.

also there is 1 or 2 spots on each fish at most and it comes and goes for the last month. I think it could be flukes and a small case of ich maby

but with ich they dont normal twitch there head do they?
Click to expand...
Ich can stay undetected as low lying infection often residing in the gill tissues without showing up as outbreaks. Once they sense their hosts weaken, then that's the time they begin to appear as outbreaks.

You cannot see flukes without a microscope. They are not visible to naked eyes at all. You had actually seen the ich and just could not tell it exactly as it did not appear as a mass outbreak as it had currently in your situation.

In this case, this isn't flukes but ich. They don't twitch all the time especially with very few white dots around. If they got a more severe infestation, then they certainly would flicker around too often as they are aggravated by the parasites.

To be sure we are dealing with ich, do post the photos once you have them. A proper diagnosis is better than using a wrong treatment and risk killing your fish.
 
i agree i will get some pics tomorrow. if i can see some with spots.

i have also treated the peacock with quickcure for 15 days now in a separate 10 gal and he is still the same...

thanks
 
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