Reoccurring Gill Flukes

[hypersushi]

Hi,

I used to keep my fishes in a barebottom tank when some of the fishes started scraping against objects. I suspected it was gill flukes because one of my platies used to flick around but later she was just lying lifelessly at the bottom. She's dead now and I learnt that flukes have overrun her. One of my swords developed secondary sores on the body and this was also a symptom of flukes carrying other dangerous bacteria. I have also lost this fish since. Using PP didn't seem to help so I bought a medication called Tika that has some weird chemical formulation at the back. It seems quite effective coz after one month of observation, everything seemed alright. Please note that all the while I constantly pour boiling water on anything that touches those fishes/water (nets, rocks cotton etc).... things seemed to have been solved so I transferred them to a clean, fishless cycled planted tank (fishless for one month).

Everything seemed rosy then... after two months... I noticed a fancy guppy flicking around the rocks.... in my mind, it was IMPOSSIBLE that flukes could have retured as I never introduced any new fishes without quarantining and all equipment was dosed with boiling water. Even the plants went through 10 minutes of PP before being planted.

I dismissed this as a playful guppy or that some particles got stuck in it's gills. Few days passed and nothing alarming happened. Then today morning, the same thing happened. The same guppy is doing the flick dance. I don't know if ALL fishes should be quarantined or just this particular one. Some literature says fishes can survive handsomely with flukes but some literature and based on my experience, they will slowly waste away.

What should I do? If one fish has flukes, can I assume that the rest are also most likely infected too? When can I know they are free from Gill Flukes? Some literature says salt dips help and I tried that with a sick platy. A 10 minute dip made her lose her balance. She never recovered after that and died shortly after. I'm sooooo tired and fed up fighting flukes.....

[michael lai]

Dear Sushi,
In the first place, I suspect it might not be gill fluke at all. The salt dip will help, you might want to try 'Coppersafe' if it is not a planted tank. It is very effective against this sort of disease, ie violet. But it is not friendly to shrimps and snails so gotta be careful there. You could use a UV cannister to rid the water of any more parasites. PS, use the UV only after medication. Hope the info helps

[benny]

Hi hypersushi,

Welcome to Aquatic Quotient!

A few questions..

01. How did you determined that the first swordtail was overran by flukes?
02. What kind of sores did your swordtail have? Open leisons?
03. Can you give us any more information about Tika?
04. What kind of filtration was used for the bare tank and how many fishes was in there?

If you are certain that it was flukes, it's obviously best to isolate the diseased fish to prevent it from spreading. Flukes can be treated, usually with external parasite medication.

Cheers,

[hypersushi]

Hello Benny,

I've isolated the guppy. None of the fishes displayed anything suspicious yesterday night and this morning.

01. It was a platy. It was flicking constantly before that. Because of articles on the net telling me that fishes could live with flukes as long as I kept the environment and water clean, I did just that. Later it lied listlessly on the tank bottom and had no appetite to eat. Eventually, it died, thin and sad looking. I found out later from http://madhunag.tripod.com/diseases.html that is was due to flukes. Here, I did nothing except have clean environment and lots of salt.

02. The sore was a puss-like boil which eventually burst and the skin around it had a red, blood-like circle. My swords are edgy wimps. Easily spooked. I used PP and didn't have Tika at that time.

03. I'm in office now so I will post the chemical formula once I reach home. Basically, the formula comes in a cute, tiny squeeze bottle not unlike those used when you have sore-eyes. Tika produces a whole range of fish medicines and the one I had was specifically for Gill Flukes, Bacteria and Parasites.

04. The filtration was a HOT with biological as well as mechanical filtration. Before the alleged gill fluke outbreak, my tank exceeded the 1inch per gallon rule. After the outbreak, I fed my shrimps to my tilapia and some fishes died, so it was roughly 1inch of fish to a gallon.

All my fishes look healthy except for a black sailfin male molly... sometimes it's super agressive, flaring it's fins for the females, sometimes it's in a stupor just drifting around aimlessly. It is always active during feeding times though.... I think maybe it's coz there's hardly any salt in my planted tank. But my other mollies look very happy.

[hypersushi]

I guess the gill flukes keep on reocurring is because off the shelf medication works well against external parasites and internal parasites but not those that are well protected under the gills of the fish. Using strong medicine may work for tough fishes like cichlids but for small delicate fishes, it would only kill them. So I guess my question is, has anyone had any success using off the shelf medicine against Gill Flukes... care to share the brand that you use?

[Justikanz]

First, how do you make sure you diagnosed it correctly? Does it have the sympthoms mentioned? http://www.aquariumpharm.com/disease/gillflukes.html

If confirmed that they died from flukes infection, try copper based medications as the flukes are parasites and sensitive to copper. I would think it would be better to treat the whole tank.

Anyway, you keep tilapia with the lifebearers? If so, the tilapia could be biting the fish, thus causing the sore and the stress that opens the door to parasite attack.

My 2 cents...

[hypersushi]

Nooo! My lifebearers would be fish food if I kept them together with tilapias!!! I have several tanks. BTW, the tilapia is exhibiting advanced stage of gill fluke... it lost it's appetite, spits the food out after munching it (it never did that whilst younger), and gasps at the surface if the airstone is turned off... He's 5 inches and I'm keeing him in a standard 2ft tank. I don't know about the discoloured or swollen gills thing... don't seem to see any difference in that department. But all the other symptoms convince me it's gill flukes....

[hypersushi]

Okay, here's the weird chemical formula on that Gill Flike medicine called Tika... (CH3O)2P(O) CH(OH)C Cl3

Any chemist out there want to help out?

[Justikanz]

You might want to switch to something copper-based. Side note, this Tika is quite organic... Would the Mad Biologist know about it?

[hypersushi]

Justikanz, can you recommend me a brand? Not all copper-based medicine are created equal.

[Justikanz]

Gee, I had not bought medication for very long liao cos I dun medicate. Had you tried those off the shelve common brands for parasites that contains copper? Read the chemical table for copper/Cu/Cu2+/copper compound content...

[stormhawk]

Read this if you think you have a fluke problem:

http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/flukes.htm

Ahh.. the wonders of Google.