Keeping Planktivores Fat

[IFbettas]

Hi everyone. Lately I've noticed that one of my wrasses, my dot and dash flasher, appears to be losing weight. It is most noticeable right behind his head. My sunburst anthias also looks like she is losing weight right behind her head.

I'm wondering if this is due to the number of times I'm feeding each day, the foods I'm offering, or if my fish maybe have internal parasites. Right now I feed 2-3 times every night. The first feeding I alternate between various foods including hikari mysis, spirulina brine, fish roe, and cyclopeeze. Every few days I soak the food in selcon. The second feeding is almost always PE mysis. I usually feed NLS thera A pellets at least once a day too, but the anthias doesn't eat those.

Any ideas why my two fish are losing weight? Do you think I need to feed more often? Is the amount I'm feeding considered to typically be enough for these fish? Thanks.

 

[snorvich]

Did you deworm them with prazi?

 

[IFbettas]

Did you deworm them with prazi?

Yes. I did two treatments with prazipro, but I know that prazipro doesn't kill every possible parasite.

 

[LukFox]

I've had prazi not work for internal parasites. What I did instead was soak one of the daily "meals" in metro+ for a week, skip a week, and repeat. The concentration I did was one capful of metro+ diluted into a cup of water. Let the food soak for 3 hours in the refrigerator, and the water should get really slimy and goopy.

Feeding once in the morning before work could help too if it is just a feeding issue.

 

[IFbettas]

Did the parasites go away after feeding the metro soaked food? I'm thinking it is probably a parasite because a lot of people feed less than me and have fat fish.

 

[LukFox]

Yes they did. One of my regal angels ended up getting rail skinny before I tried the metro+ and showed improvement just a few days into treatment. At first I treated for shorter periods, 3 days on, a week off, and 3 days back on. This was not long enough as the fish started losing weight again, so I did another round of 1 week which finished the parasites off. Both regals are little chunkers now.

 

[IFbettas]

That's really encouraging to hear! I'm going to try to get some metro as soon as possible. Is the metro+ you used the stuff made by Hikari that says it is for HLLE? Also do you know if your regal's feces were looking strange while it still had the parasite? I just noticed that my wrasse's feces are clear/white. Thanks for the help.

 

[LukFox]

Yep that's the stuff! I'm not sure if I ever saw the feces, though. I hope you see improvement in your fish!

 

[IFbettas]

Thanks. I'll keep this thread updated with my progress.