Treating internal parasites without medication?

[beastie]

Hi. So I know first answer is going to be, it is not possible. This is going to be a long story, so be prepared:

I have a 120x50x60cm tank, which was setup in a south american biotope 10/2021. It houses sterbai corydoras, ember tetras, rummynose tetras (12/22), hatchet fish and latest addition of two months, bolivian rams.

This tank always have had issues of most likely intestinal parasites in the ember tetras. I suspect I bought a weak stock, since i bought at multiple sellers, and it was either always in the tank, or they always had it. The biggest problems I have had with embers was their overfeeding, because to feed the corydoras and to have some food floating at the top for the hatchetfish, the tetras ate triple their take, at the surface, in the column and on the ground. Since getting the 50 or so ember tetras over the course of the first six months, I have lost around 20 to this date. Some would go thin, bent and die off, some would be super large, have sort of bumps under their big bellies and spend all their time near the surface at a 45° angle. Always rapid breathing, rapid mouth movements. 

Last year around november I added 10 more sterbai corydoras (after 3 week quarantine) and in the following weeks lost most of the old sterbais. Similar but vague symptoms, darkening of color, loss of appetite, hanging on the leaves/filter nearer the surface, when died, you could notice their underside was hollowed between pectoral fins, like a hole was poked there from the outside in, but not penetrating the skin. They would die off one every two days, despite water changes, salt baths,... I did a one dose of levamisole, because I could not get my hands on anything else, and the dying off stopped. Though I have lost around 6 or 7 old sterbais, and I only had 12 at that point. None of the new ones died off.

After a month of no new deaths, after 3 weeks of quarantine, I added another batch of hatchetfish (all but 6 jumped out, I added 8, now have again just 6, dreadful fish) and a school of rummynose to help with the ember tetra overeating problem. This worked well, embers have to work much harder to get food, they are a bit more active too. However, and that is why I am here again, in the past two months, I have lost around 3 embers, and I am about to lose two more, per the usual symptoms. One is blacker in color, very thin, very small, the other is fat and again, spending all the time at a surface in a 45 degree angle, same as all the other fish I have lost in the past. I even did some diet courses for the embers, managed to catch the five most fat females and gave them a week long no feeding treatment in another tank. It helped, lost a bit of weight, none died.

 

I know they most likely have some parasites, be it internal or gill. There are no other symptoms, no poop, no redness, no nothing, except them dying off one by one. The worst news for me is, I lost one rummynose tetra just last week, after it got thinner, I noticed one rummynose is missing its upper fin and one of the very fat rummynose females ( have a group of 19 fish, 4 of them are twice the size as the others) may show signs of pineconing, cant say for sure.

 

I would appreciate any advice. I do not own any medication except esha2000, esha ndx and gdex are not sold here, levimasol and parazinquetal are almost not available, unless I want to buy some dog deworming, but my vet will have questions. I ofcourse did a 50% water change and will do another on in 3 days, as water changes are the safest bet at this point. None of the corydoras or bolivian rams are affected, bloated/skinny or behaving weirdly, so at least that

Attaching picture of the darkened skinny ember and the whole tank. Will attach picture of the pineconing rummynose, if it ever stops moving and some of the fat embers, if I managed to get them. 

 

 

 

[Lennie]

@Colu @Odd Duck 

[beastie]

Forgot to include a feeding schedule:

I feed once a day with one or two day breaks in feeding. I use frozen daphnia, cyclops, bbs, bloodworms (once a week on sunday, but can reduce it if you think it is problematic). From dried I use sera vipan baby, fluval bug bites, dennerle shrimp king and recently hikari cichlid gold pellets. Sometimes will feed blanched vegetables like zucchini or some leave for the otocinclus in the tank I didnt mention (6, holding on for from last year), or a nettle spirulina tablet or kelp and spirulina tablet that every fish in the tank eats anyway. Lately I have been feeding live baby brine shrimp, as I always have leftovers hatching for the indostomus, but it is always a small amount.

Water change is 30% every week, every other week sand vacuum. I did clean the filter, sponges and tubing recently, inside of the media ( large eheim canister, 2217) I do every three or so months.

[beastie]

[Colu]

Hanging at the surface and rapid breathing coupled with the sunken belly and some developing bloating would lead me to suspect a parasitic infection as you have Esha gdex active ingredient praziquantel and Esha ndx active ingredient levamisole I would treat following @Odd Ducktreatment plan for parasitic infections @beastie

Edited April 18, 2023 by Colu

[Colu]

Sorry I think I read it wrong if  you do not have Esha gdex or ndx if not you could try and getting holed of a product containing flubendazole or fenbendazole and do a course of medicated food or treat with NT labs fluke and wormer contains flubendazole or sera nematol active ingredient tremazol 

Edited April 18, 2023 by Colu

[beastie]

Ok, I talked to the vet, I can get a tablet containing 250mg of Fenbendazol, which if I understand correctly is for a 450l tanks

I am scared about snails, I have myriads of mts, ramshorns, nerite, clithons,... I can remove the nerite and maybe clithon, but definitelly not the mts. Will it kill them? if yes, having so many dead snails would disturb the balance anyway....

[Colu]

On 4/19/2023 at 7:34 AM, beastie said:

Ok, I talked to the vet, I can get a tablet containing 250mg of Fenbendazol, which if I understand correctly is for a 450l tanks

I am scared about snails, I have myriads of mts, ramshorns, nerite, clithons,... I can remove the nerite and maybe clithon, but definitelly not the mts. Will it kill them? if yes, having so many dead snails would disturb the balance anyway....

Fenbendazole is harmful to snails so I would always recommend removing them before treatment leaving them out of the tank for at least a week after treatment to make sure theres no trace of the medication left I would remove as many snails as you can then follow up with fenbendazole and keep a close eye on your water parameters during treatment 

[Odd Duck]

Yes, the dewormers in the azole family (levamisole, fenbendazole, flubendazole, etc, are all likely to kill snails including MTS.  This could potentially crash your system if enough snails die as their deaths can overwhelm your biofiltration.  It would be very problematic to get all MTS out of a tank but I would try as hard as possible anyway.

You would have to check the tank frequently (every hour or so) after you dose to remove any remaining snails as they die.  They do tend to come to the surface when treating (ask me how I know).  It could be done, but it wouldn’t be quick, easy, or simple.  I try to treat fish in a bare bottom quarantine tank before they go into my display tanks, but especially if they are going into my big tanks.  A little too late for that for this tank but a future consideration for any fish added in the future.

I don’t really see any way around treatment, though.  You’re probably just going to have to do it even though it risks the whole tank from a cycle crash/overload.  Otherwise you’ll never be free of the problem in this tank.  Your only alternative would be to remove every single fish in there to treatment tanks for at least 5-6 weeks for treatment.  Leave this tank empty of fish the entire time but doing weekly water changes while thoroughly siphoning the bottom, then put the fish back in after treatment.

I wish I had an easier solution for you, but you’ll just need to decide if you want to treat this whole tank or if you want to catch out every fish and treat separately.