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[kevindub]

I have a big male Squarespot Anthias that keeps getting fin rot. The fint will melt away in a day, but it grows back after a while and then it melts away again randomly. This has happend three times in the last year. I have three females that don't have the problem.

What is the best way to treat this? Do you think it will go away on its own?

[jhemdal]

Kevindub,

Are there any other fish in the tank? How bad does the finrot get? Is it just the caudal fin that's affected? Random finrot, with no initial mechancal cause is very rare, and it is even rarer that it will resolve on its own.

Jay

[vitz]

dip the fish in fw+prazi for 5 minutes,(ph and temp matched, of course) repeat next day

that should do the trick

[jhemdal]

Vitz,

Sorry - but that is really bad advice. First of all, there is no indication that the problem is a metazoan. Secondly, there is absolutely no published reference for using Praziquantel at that short of a time frame. It is a sliding scale dose, from 5 mg/l to up to 10 mg/lfor three hours down to 2 mg/l for a 24 hour dose (Hemdal 2006). Thirdly, (and this is the big one), giving a fish any sort of dip when metazoans are involved is pointless if you put the fish back into the infected tank.


Jay

[kevindub]

I have 18 other fish and they are all ok. It is all the fins at the same time. I don't know if I can catch the anthias. He's doing good now but he went through fins rotting away three times already. I don't know if it will come back again.

[kevindub]

I forget to mention all the other fish are fine. They never had this problem. The Anthias was fine for over a year then this happened for no reason. I haven't added new fish or even corals.

[jhemdal]

kevindub,

Well, with 18 fish other fish in the tank, I can say with a high degree of accuracy that whatever the Anthias has is not highly contagious(grin). Are all the fish's fins affected or just the tail? Any missing scales?

To me, I can only see two ideas: a self-limiting bacterial infection or a episodic attack from another fish. The former is exceedingly rare, I've seen a couple of cases in 40 years and none of them were repeated infections. I think it is more likely that one of the other fish is getting irate and tagging the anthias. You'll likely not see it happen - while you are busy watching the tank, the fish will stop what they are doing to watch you - besides it takes only seconds for a hit to go down. Sorry, but nothing else seems to be plausible...

Jay

[vitz]

Vitz,

Sorry - but that is really bad advice. First of all, there is no indication that the problem is a metazoan. Secondly, there is absolutely no published reference for using Praziquantel at that short of a time frame. It is a sliding scale dose, from 5 mg/l to up to 10 mg/lfor three hours down to 2 mg/l for a 24 hour dose (Hemdal 2006). Thirdly, (and this is the big one), giving a fish any sort of dip when metazoans are involved is pointless if you put the fish back into the infected tank.


Jay

you'll excuse me if i don't consider you qualified to judge whether my advice is good or not

i'll wager that the 'fin rot' is being caused by flukes/worms-i see this EVERY DAY on incoming fish-dips w/prazi in fw for 5 min gets rid of most flukes that attack the fins/fin edges

your dosages/time frames are ridiculous, based on volumes of daily experience dipping nearly every single species group of fish available to the hobby a 5 min dip w/prazi will get rid of a TON of various skin/ectoparasites-and 90% of them DON'T get re-infected, even under high population densities of fish in a system

i couldn't give a rat's a** what's published or not-publishing something doesn't make it true, correct, or worthwhile advice-there's alot of stuff i'm seeing you 'publish' that pure horse-hockey, imo

[jhemdal]

Vitz,

Please show me one single paper that supports your treatment regimen. While you're at it, why don't you at least offer a dosage, without that, your advice is meaningless anyway.


Jay

[Fish_dave]

Let me post what I have experienced with flukes over the past many years. I have no published papers to back this up, just my own experiences. Flukes are a huge problem for exporters, importers, and wholesalers. Previously not so much of a problem for hobbyists. I think that the increase in internet sales and stores doing more special ordering with a short turn over time for the fish has increased the awareness and the problem of flukes for the hobbyists in the past several years. In my experience the flukes that importers and wholesalers fight with do not sexually multiply in tanks. I have always thought that it is a species of fluke that requires a specific intermediate host during its life cycle, probably a snail. The snails are eaten by sea birds which then broadcast the fluke larvae over a wide area. This specie of fluke can then come into our chain of custody by being attached to a fish or in incoming sea water that has not been properly treated. These flukes can transfer from fish to fish but I do not think that they reproduce in tanks without the intermidiate host. This is why a good dip seems to cure the problem, once the adult flukes are off the fish it will not become re-infected unless the source is from another infected fish or untreated new water. This is also why hobbyists do not seem to have recurring fluke infections in their tanks.

This is a particular species of fluke that is the scourge of most wholesalers, and simple dips and prazipro do seem to cure the problem. I am sure that Jay sees many other species of flukes that probably need a different course of action. I am sure that there are types of flukes that can multiply in captive situations and very likely in a large public aquarium the type of fluke that we see so commonly in the trade may be able to complete its life cycle and multiply in the large public displays.

I mainly wanted to back up the fact that dips and prazipro do seem to control the fluke problem that we commonly see in newly imported fish. I have never seen a hobbyist tank where a fluke problem would come and go over a years time. From my experience with this particular type of fluke once the flukes are off the fish either by treatment or having died of old age they do not re-infest a hobbyists tank. I don't think that they can reproduce in the tank. If Jay has more information that contradicts my thoughts on this I would love to hear it.

Dave

[jhemdal]

Dave,

The most commonly seen fluke, Neobenedenia melleni is an egg-layer, and reproduces exceedingly well in home aquariums. They have direct development, so do not require the intermediate stage you mentioned. Gryodactylus gill flukes are livebearers, also do not have an intermediate host. These are very commen in home aquariums as well.
I use praziquantel for both of the above. Formalin dips, FW dips and the like will not take care of the eggs or the young flukes in the tank itself. The prazi dose that I use is 2.0 to 2.2 ppm as a static bath. You can dip the fish at higher doses for shorter periods (as I mentioned) but then you still have to deal with the flukes in the tank itself. FW dips will knock most flukes off by itself, so there is no need to augment that with prazi,and again, you still have to deal with the flukes in the tank itself.
I should point out that the problem with the original poster's fish is NOT flukes, and we should probably start a new thread to discuss that topic so as not to hijack this thread.


Jay

[Fish_dave]

Thanks for the info Jay, I appreciate it.

I do not know what type of flukes we are dealing with but in my experience they come in with seawater taken from a bay or close to shore. At export stations we can have no fluke problem then get a bad batch of water and have an explosion of them. Here in the states fish often arrive with flukes, generally quite small ones but they can grow to be pretty large if not taken care of early. I do not see fish getting re-infected with small flukes. I do see larger ones jump from fish to fish in the same tank or in the same row of cubes. Once we dip the fish the flukes drop off pretty readily and I have not seen a re-infestation of small ones that would point to the flukes reproducing.

When I had a few fish stores in the late 80's flukes were not a major problem for us like I see in the export and import side of things. This is what made me think that we are dealing with a fluke that can not reproduce without an intermediate host. I still have not heard of flukes being a major problem in hobbyist tanks except for the ones brought in with new fish. Is fluke reproduction in hobbyist tanks a large (widespread) problem? How fast do the species that you mentioned reproduce and in what numbers? For us the dipping and prazi seem to do the job without the fish becoming reinfected unless we get in a bad batch of water on the export side or get in new fish that are carrying flukes on the import end. If the flukes were reproducing in our tanks this would not be the case. I am quite interested in this because we can seem to go for months without a fluke problem at the export station and then after a particular water change have an immediate problem which we solve by dipping all fish and the problem will be gone. On the import side fish are constantly comming in with flukes and dipping is a daily or weekly thing for some fish and certain locales that always have fluke problems. To us it seems that fish are not becoming reinfected except by large flukes transferring fish to fish. Once a fish has been dipped it generally stays clean of flukes unless it is in close contact with a different infected fish where we have noted larger flukes that have seemed to transfer from an infected fish to a previously clean fish.

My knowledge on this is strictly from experiences and assumptions. That is why I am interested in what may really be happening, my assumptions may be totally off base and I may need to change how we deal with flukes.

Thanks,

Dave

[JimM]

http://www.int-res.com/articles/dao/46/d046p079.pdf

[jhemdal]

Dave,

Fluke infestations at wholesale and export stations is not the same as with home aquariums. Bare bottom tanks and lots of fish moving through the systems are not condusive to fluke reproduction. There are also a number of "fluke-like" parasites, and what you are seeing could be anything from leeches to turbellarians, you really need to put them under a microscope to know what you are dealing with.

Jay

[jhemdal]

http://www.int-res.com/articles/dao/46/d046p079.pdf

Jim,

Look under the citation for the paper by "Bullard et-al" -

Bullard SA, Benz GW, Overstreet RM, Williams EH Jr, Hemdal
J (2000) Six new host records and an updated list of
wild hosts for Neobenedenia melleni (MacCallum) (Monogenea:
Capsalidae). Comp Parasitol 67:190–196

(grin)

More importantly, people should run a Google search on praziquantel + Thoney (he is also listed in the citation of your article).

Jay

[JimM]

Hey...nice.