The battle that wins the war?

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probassfisher010

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 31, 2011
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California
I've been waging war with parasites in all my tanks on and off for probably 2 years. I've tried many cures... All seem to just push the parasites back for a month or two and they return. This time I'm armed with parasite meds (praziquantel, difluben-zuron, metronidazole, acriflavine) salt, not too much since I'm treating Corys, and a uv sterilizer operating in the parasite kill zone. Lets do this.

I've tried general cure, (praziquantel, and metronidazole) which pushes them back and probably boosts the parasite's immunity to those two meds... With no permanent success but the uv and salt are new this time so maybe I'll get rid of them.

The signs of the parasites are mostly present in my ebjd who I watch like a hawk throughout the day. Occasional flashing and fin flicking, other than that eats well and appears healthy, a bit spooky lately though. Also have seen other fish scratching/flashing.


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are you sure it is parasites? Are the only symptoms the flashing? What water conditioner are you using, have you tried aging the water first, and are all fish showing symptoms? Any sign of wasting or sores?
 
msjinkzd said:
are you sure it is parasites? Are the only symptoms the flashing? What water conditioner are you using, have you tried aging the water first, and are all fish showing symptoms? Any sign of wasting or sores?
Click to expand...

You may be on to something? I don't use conditioner, never have on any tanks. Not all fish, occasionally a Cory, a Bolivian ram female that's always done it. I've assumed it's had to be parasites because it seems contagious to my tanks, swapping filters etc. only signs are indeed flashing and the ebjd makes a spitting motion regularly, and flicks his fins. Also, the fact that it does seem to get better with use of meds.


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Do you use tap water? If so, it may just be them being irritated by the chlorine in the tap, which would also effect your bacterial colonies. Might be worth trying a water conditioner at water change time to see if the behavior improves. To me, it sounds like something is irritating them. Parasites generally cause long term issues that show really specific symptoms- sores for external parasites, thin body/wasting for internal; in addition to flashing (usually accompanied by something visible after a long term exposure). Flashing can be a symptom of many things from dominance to an irritant of the water to disease. The danger of using meds to treat is that meds themselves are pretty toxic.
 
My tap has really low Chlorine and chloramine content, its basically well water. Even so, Wouldn't it only affect them after water changes? And not continuous. I'll definitely try some conditioner, as it is plausible and worth a shot. I just don't see how improvement from meds and the patterns of it moving around my tanks etc would lead to this. Could it be some other type of irritant?


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Did you end up using a conditioner? Prime would help. Wouldnt want that nice ebjd of yours to be hurting!
Could be nitrite or ammonia or whatever...my EBjDs uses to flick their fins all the time because of the water parameters. After a while I realized they do better in colder temps and very clean water.

Honestly, if metro and prazi havent worked for you, then your best bet would to feed your ebjd epsom salt to just make sure he doesn't have parasites and flush his system out.

If you want your fish to stay healthy and prevent future disease, check out Seachem's Polyguard, it contains antibiotics :)


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