Flukes - a picture of just how bad it can get

[wade]

For those who haven't seen my other post, I picked up an achilles tang that brought in flukes (and died to them ~3-4 weeks after).  Now, almost all of my scaled fish are showing signs of infection.

 

So this is my spotbreast angel (last one of three).  I put it into 1/2 tank water + 1/2 RO water... do you see all of the fuzzy opaque/whitish "stuff" in the water?  The water was crystal clear when I added the fish.  ALL of that scuzz is from flukes that have let go of the fish.  This fish isn't even 4" long... and it must have had millions of them on it.

 

On the (very low, but) positive side, the fish is actually still breathing, albeit barely.

 

I am trying to catch some of my other fish, but it has been nearly impossible so far.  I will also try to get a zoomed in picture of the yellow tang to show you what they begin to look like after infection sets in (frayed fins, hazy eyes, specks on their bodies).

 

 

 

[AlanM]

In retrospect, what could you have done with that tang to prevent the flukes from infecting the tank?  Would some sort of hospital tank with prazi have gotten rid of them?

[wade]

A hyposalinity treatment up front would have worked.  A proper routine takes about 4 weeks and you can raise the salinity after a while so that by the time treatment is complete, they have very little adjustment remaining before going into the main tank.

 

My habit has always been to avoid treatment and just hold fish for observation. Most of the time (in wild caught) they are already severely stressed and adding to that stress can be problematic.  I obviously saw nothing wrong with the tang and it was eating OK (not great, but it was eating) so I opted to move it to the display early to get it comfortable and eating better.  That plan backfired.

[AlanM]

how long did you watch it?  And can flukes like that cross species?  So I'd have to quarantine snails and such once I get fish in the tank?

[wade]

From my understanding, many flukes do use intermediate hosts for their life cycles.  Which flukes these are (and if they use snails - or specific snails, etc) I just don't know.  There is a possibility that any snails in tank can become carriers.  When I was at NCSU the lab that shared space in our fish barn was doing life cycle assessments on a similar critter and they could readily infect freshwater fish by placing them into tanks with infected snails.  However, in that case, the snails matured and dropped off the gills quickly and didn't kill their hosts like these flukes have done.

 

That said, I really don't know if any snails in the tank are natural carriers or not.

 

In the wild, a few parasites is not abnormal on any fish.  Something happens when they enter our systems that allows the parasite to really take off and become a problem.  Lack of predation, optimal growing conditions, who knows.

 

BTW- My cleaner wrasse hasn't stopped helping pick things off the fish, but I don't think its capable of doing enough to stop anything.

[wade]

Since you were asking, I started poking around.  Here is what I found.  Most of the flukes we care about are not using snails as intermediates.  That is good and bad.  Good that you don't wind up with carriers.  Bad that they spread very readily between fish (which is what I have been seeing).

 

Monogenean Parasites are better known as flukes or flatworms, which live as parasites on fish usually infesting the gill areas first. Being monogenean means that they have one direct life cycle and do not need an intermediate host to multiply. These parasites are usually transmitted by direct contact between fish.

 

 

Treatments include potassium permangenate, hyposalinity, copper, and some other antifungal compounds like Prazi.  Most things say you need multiple treatments as their egg stage can be resistant which is why hyposalinity would work well.

[AlanM]

Sheesh, now I know why ridetheducati has his whole procedure for new fish intake.  Would be heartbreaking to see something like this wipe out the population.

[ridetheducati]

I was never a fan of Fish-Roulette.  Sorry to hear about the outbreak. 

 

Prazi, Prazi, and Prazi, for 10-14 days.

[zygote2k]

potassium permanganate has another use- algacide.