Medicating Tucano Tetras, how delicate are they?

[8spidersayear]

I have some Tucano tetras that sunken bellies and are spitting food. I plan on treating with fritz paraguard but I heard praziquental is harmful to Kuhli loaches which are also in the tank. I would medicate them in a separate quarantine tank but the advice is not to keep Tucano tetras in biologically immature aquariums. Is using ammonia neutralizer or acidic water enough for temporarily housing the sick fish?

They are currently in a 15 gallon tank half filled with water and are in with 4 kuhli loaches, 1 clown pleco, and 2 female apistos.

Edited November 11, 2022 by 8spidersayear

[Colu]

With what your describing it sounds like wasting disease paraguard won't treat the parasites that cause wasting disease prazipro isn't effective at treating the some types of parasites that typically cause wasting I would treat with  levamisole  active ingredient in Expel p in food feeding a small amount twice a day for 7 days and repeat the treatment in three weeks it safe to use with scaleless fish 

[8spidersayear]

On 11/11/2022 at 7:24 PM, Colu said:

With what your describing it sounds like wasting disease paraguard won't treat the parasites that cause wasting disease prazipro isn't effective at treating the some types of parasites that typically cause wasting I would treat with  levamisole  active ingredient in Expel p in food feeding a small amount twice a day for 7 days and repeat the treatment in three weeks it safe to use with scaleless fish 

How effective is treating the water? given that they seem to be spitting out food.
Also I thought flukes and tapeworms also caused wasting disease, not just nematodes.

Edited November 12, 2022 by 8spidersayear

[Colu]

It an effect treatment for wasting disease it can take three course of treatment one week apart to treat wasting disease when dosing the tank 

[8spidersayear]

I guess I should try the levamisole first, I had the impression that it was better to try the paraguard first because most advice says that tapeworms can have identical symptoms.

Edited November 12, 2022 by 8spidersayear

[Colu]

Paraguard is only effective at treating some types of external parasites the type of parasites that cause wasting are internal so it won't have any effect 

On 11/12/2022 at 12:30 AM, 8spidersayear said:

I guess I should try the levamisole first, I had the impression that it was better to try the paraguard first because most advice says that tapeworms can have identical symptoms.

 

[8spidersayear]

On 11/11/2022 at 7:35 PM, Colu said:

Paraguard is only effective at treating some types of external parasites the type of parasites that cause wasting are internal so it won't have any effect 

 

The Aquarium co-op store page for Fritz Paracleanse says it's used for internal tapeworms. Idk if they added anything extra to the mix because metro is supposed to be hard to dissolve.

[Colu]

On 11/12/2022 at 12:40 AM, 8spidersayear said:

The Aquarium co-op store page for Fritz Paracleanse says it's used for internal tapeworms. Idk if they added anything extra to the mix because metro is supposed to be hard to dissolve.

Usually when they start spitting their food out and developing a sunken belly you want to treat with a more powerful dewormer such as levamisole or flubendazole 

[8spidersayear]

On 11/11/2022 at 8:51 PM, Colu said:

Usually when they start spitting their food out and developing a sunken belly you want to treat with a more powerful dewormer such as levamisole or flubendazole 

is it ok to use levamisole at the same time as paracleanse?
Edit: I already have levamisole that I bought 2 years ago to treat some guppies with the same symptoms. the guppies ended up dying anyways. I assumed it might be the same disease just present asymptotically in the rest of my fish. I decided to try another medication to see if I could get better results.

Edited November 12, 2022 by 8spidersayear

[8spidersayear]

On 11/11/2022 at 8:51 PM, Colu said:

Usually when they start spitting their food out and developing a sunken belly you want to treat with a more powerful dewormer such as levamisole or flubendazole 

Is flubendazole broader spectrum generally? I might consider it if levamisole does not work, levamisole didn't work for me I ran into the problem in the past and idk if it is the same pathogen.

 

[Colu]

On 11/12/2022 at 3:43 AM, 8spidersayear said:

is it ok to use levamisole at the same time as paracleanse?
Edit: I already have levamisole that I bought 2 years ago to treat some guppies with the same symptoms. the guppies ended up dying anyways. I assumed it might be the same disease just present asymptotically in the rest of my fish. I decided to try another medication to see if I could get better results.

I wouldn't recommend using them at the same time you can do week 1 do a course of levamisole then follow up with a course of paracleanse week 2 do a course of levamisole week 3 do a course levamisole and follow up with a course of paracleanse 

 

On 11/12/2022 at 5:06 AM, 8spidersayear said:

flubendazole broader spectrum generally? I might consider it if levamisole does not work

Flubendazole is what I would recommend if your seeing no improvement after treating with levamisole and paracleanse is a powerful dewormer it treats the same types of parasites as levamisole you can get absolute wormer plus has the active ingredient flubendazole 

Edited November 12, 2022 by Colu

[8spidersayear]

On 11/12/2022 at 7:25 AM, Colu said:

I wouldn't recommend use them at the same time you can do week 1 do a course of levamisole then follow up with a course of paracleanse week 2 do a course of levamisole week 3 do a course levamisole and follow up with a course of paracleanse 

 

Flubendazole is what I would recommend if your seeing no improvement after treating with levamisole and paracleanse is a powerful dewormer it treats the same types of parasites as levamisole you can get absolute wormer plus has the active ingredient flubendazole 

Should I feed fenbendazole fish food to the rest of my fish just in case they are sub-clinical? Should I wait to see if the levamisole or the paracleanse just in case it's a tapeworm which fenbendazole and levamisole is supposedly ineffective against?

If I already dosed paracleanse how long should I wait? Do I run carbon and redose with levamisole?

Edited November 12, 2022 by 8spidersayear

[Colu]

On 11/12/2022 at 3:49 PM, 8spidersayear said:

Should I feed fenbendazole fish food to the rest of my fish just in case they are sub-clinical? Should I wait to see if the levamisole or the paracleanse just in case it's a tapeworm which fenbendazole and levamisole is supposedly ineffective against?

If I already dosed paracleanse how long should I wait? Do I run carbon and redose with levamisole?

What I would do is the levamisole and paracleanse treatment I recommended I would run carbon for 24hr and do 50% water change before dosing with levamisole I would only use fenbendazole if levamisole or paracleanse do not have the desired effect he's a food recipe you can use with fenbendazole just in case you need to treat with fenbendazole further down the road

Edited November 13, 2022 by Colu

[8spidersayear]

Is there a term for when a fish seems to gulp but not at the surface? These tetras seem to be doing it nonstop.

[Colu]

On 11/13/2022 at 1:58 AM, 8spidersayear said:

Is there a term for when a fish seems to gulp but not at the surface? These tetras seem to be doing it nonstop.

It rapid breathing if there doing that then I would add an extra air stone 

[8spidersayear]

On 11/13/2022 at 7:27 AM, Colu said:

It rapid breathing if there doing that then I would add an extra air stone 

I don't think it's rapid breathing, it looks like they are constantly trying to swallow food.

[Colu]

On 11/13/2022 at 7:17 PM, 8spidersayear said:

I don't think it's rapid breathing, it looks like they are constantly trying to swallow food.

That can also be caused by  inflammation of the throat caused by the parasites 

[8spidersayear]

On 11/13/2022 at 2:19 PM, Colu said:

That can also be caused by  inflammation of the throat caused by the parasites 

Any chance this can help identify the specific parasite? Internal parasites seem to have all the same symptoms sometimes.

[8spidersayear]

The tetras seem to be more willing to try to eat food, less likely to let food fall past them, compared to yesterday despite being on only paracleanse so far. They are still spitting most of it so I don't know if there is any actual improvement.

[Colu]

On 11/13/2022 at 7:51 PM, 8spidersayear said:

The tetras seem to be more willing to try to eat food, less likely to let food fall past them, compared to yesterday despite being on only paracleanse so far. They are still spitting most of it so I don't know if there is any actual improvement.

It's usually caused by nematode worms or round worms when there spitting food out 

[8spidersayear]

One of my tetras has developed a single clearish lump that looks like Epistylis. Is is ok to dose kanaplex ad the same time I'm using levamisole?

I think it's epistylis and not ich because ich looks a lot more opaque in the photos.

Edited November 14, 2022 by 8spidersayear

[Colu]

You can use kanaplex with levamisole only if you use kanaplex in food i would just monitor for now and focus on one thing you can add salt with levamisole 1 table spoon for 2 gallons that would slow the spread of Epistylis allowing you to treat the parasitic infection first @8spidersayear

[8spidersayear]

On 11/14/2022 at 3:23 PM, Colu said:

You can use kanaplex with levamisole only if you use kanaplex in food i would just monitor for now and focus on one thing you can add salt with levamisole 1 table spoon for 2 gallons that would slow the spread of Epistylis allowing you to treat the parasitic infection first @8spidersayear

I am hesitant to use salt because I can't find info on how much Tucano Tetras in particular can handle salt. I assume most other tetras can handle that amount, I think a lot of tetras like the neon have been bred in captivity for generations but idk how much tetras that are newer to the hobby and are possibly even wild caught.

Is it possible the Epistylis is caused by dirty water, I have been trying to monitor their ability to swallow food so a lot of uneaten food is in the tank. I used ammonia neutralizer to try to handle this but I guess I forgot about bacteria count.

My tetras normally cannot swallow food so medicated food is probably not going to do anything, but I noticed my healthier eating a stray copepod seemingly without spitting it, is it possible to find something soft enough for them to swallow? I have been using small amounts of brewers yeast as food but they seem to have to spit that.

Edited November 14, 2022 by 8spidersayear

[Colu]

With salt you could start at 1 table spoon for 5 gallons and gradually increase over a couple of days to 1 table spoon for 2 gallons   You could try live baby brine micro worms or some repashy community blend @8spidersayear

[8spidersayear]

On 11/14/2022 at 4:16 PM, Colu said:

With salt you could start at 1 table spoon for 5 gallons and gradually increase over a couple of days to 1 table spoon for 2 gallons   You could try live baby brine micro worms or some repashy community blend @8spidersayear

if I wanted to medicate my replashy, I guess feeding it with levamisole or fenbendazole to it while the water is still full of levamisole iprobably a bad idea? I would think that putting kanaplex in the water and anti parasite in the food would be more effective, though it's probably better to try non medicated replashy to see if they can even eat it in the first place.

Edited November 14, 2022 by 8spidersayear