Hiya Miss P,

Thanks so much for your advice, that was extremely helpful :)

I sat and wrote a fairly long-winded reply last night on my OH's iPhone, but just before I posted it the battery died, so lost the lot! I'll try again.

To be honest with you, he doesn't go crazy at all with scratching, he just rubs he side of his head into the gravel a few times.

It happens at least once a night, sometimes twice, but never much more than that, and lasts a few seconds. The J&H book says that once a day is normal, anything more could suggest parasites/flukes.

I think for now I'll just keep an eye on him, and if I'm concerned it's increasing, getting more violent, or he's losing scales etc, then I might try salt at 0.3% for 11 days (is that 3ppm / 3 grams per litre?) Sorry, my maths is poo!

I have another small issue to raise with regard to gill clamping - what actually happened when your moor suffered from this? Was it one or both gills? What was he breathing like? Was he lethargic too?

I ask this because my black moor has gill covers that 'curl out' at the ends, think the actual term for this is curled gill. Only recently, one of them has flattened itself out and appears normal, but wasn't sure if it was gill clamping or not. The other gill cover is still curled at the edge. This in-turned edge looks grey, but inside the gills look the meaty reddy-pink colour that they should. She never fin clamps, always has a healthy appetite and is growing into the cutest fish! I just wondered if this was a cause for concern also. She has only ever flashed in the tank when I had sand as a substrate, I haven't seen her flash once since I changed this for gravel last summer.

Anyway, thank you so much for your advice! :D

Hiya, I think you're right to wait and see for the moment, he may stop scratching. But if it increases or there are other signs he's not happy then we can investigate further.

Regarding the gill clamping, you could see that the fish were holding one gill closed and breathing with only the other one. This caused rapid breathing, and they could stay like this for an hour or so sometimes, eiher sitting on the gravel or swimming about. It wasn't nice to see. They too were scratching their faces/gills on the gravel. From what I've read gill flukes and body flukes usually are seen together. With my fish I think I've got rid of the body flukes but perhaps the gill flukes are still present as they lay eggs which aren't affected by treatment until they hatch. I'm quite anxious actually that I'll never get rid them! I can't find much guidance at all on Droncit and am worried about over doing it.

Probably a really daft suggestion but ather than searching for Droncit, have you tried searching Praziquantel?

Look at this if you haven't already: http://www.koivet.com/koivet/index.ph ... cine-treatments&Itemid=57

Praziquantel is entirely benign to plants, fish and filter so therefore apparently impossible to overdose.

Miss P, I presume you've been dosing according to the Prazi content of the tablets & not according to tablet weight.

Jay

Quote:

In this instance then Jay, could Praziquantel be used along with a salt solution when quarantining a new fish prior to being added to existing stock?

I ask this because the J&H book suggests that a 0.3% salt solution can be used as a prevention during quarantine in case the fish is carrying any parasites, so if Praziquantel is impossible to overdose and is totally plant & filter safe, surely it can be used to rid of flukes whether the fish has them or not?

From the information I've read Prazi is just as effective & perfectly safe with salt.

Hi, I will try and search for more info on Prazi, as I'd been mostly searching for Droncit info. But you're right, it's the same thing! Silly me!

Rachy - I started the Droncit treatment while I still had salt in the tank. I had finished the salt treament and was in the process of taking this out of the tank with water changes, but I couldn't wait until all the salt was gone as the fish were lethergic. From what I read, Droncit is safe with salt, and I didn't see any side-effects in my fish.
But I do still think we should avoid generally using 2 meds at once, even though both of these are very mild for the fish. Salt is a medication, so if you can avoid it, I wouldn't use both at the same time. One then the other. I just didn't have a choice in this case as my fish were quite bad.

Jay - yes, been dosing using the actual mg dose of prazi in the Droncit tabs.

It's a very easy medication to use I have to say, and I saw no ill effects on the fish, filter or plants. The only slight reaction I saw was the moor flash quite a lot when it first went in the water, and he did look unhappy for an hour or so, but then was completely fine. It was just the powder sticking to him that was irritating him and the change in water. All the other fish didn't even bother when I added it to the tank - carried on as normal!

Just thought I'd update this thread incase anyone is considering using or needs to use Droncit for flukes at some point. Onto the 2nd treament regime now with Droncit, since I think some flukes may have survived the 1st.

I've done some research on the skin and gill fluke life cycles, and have based my treatment schedule on the following infomation:

Skin flukes seem to give birth to live young - although info on this life cycle I found to be limited. Based on this, 1 or 2 treatments should erradicate them.

Gill flukes lay eggs however, which are temp dependant for hatching period. At temps of approx 20C they take about 4 days or so to hatch. Larvae then take 10 days to mature before they can start to reproduce eggs.

Droncit is active in the water for approx 3 - 4 days.

Based on the above info, I am treating with 3 doses, at 4 days apart. The temp of my tank is approx 20 - 22C meaning that eggs should hatch in 4 days or so. With Droncit in the water for 12 days in total this should allow for all eggs to hatch and all immmature larvea to be killed before they can lays eggs of their own. I'm dosing at 2.5mg per litre.

Have I missed anything obvious here?! Does this sound like a sensible plan? I don't want to overdo the Droncit as continuous meds aren't good for the fish and risk the flukes becoming immune to the drug.

Fingers crossed this works! Put the 1st dose in on Thurday last week - so far, scratching vastly reduced again, fish much happier looking.

How are things going now Miss P?

Hi Sue, thanks for asking, yes, fishes doing fine!

Scratching reduced again to a minimum, all damage from scratching healed up nicely, fishes all happy and very energetic again. It has to have been flukes!

3rd and final dose due tomorrow, then keep everything crossed I've got the blighters this time!!