Mysterious fish deaths are more common now (Flukes)
- Thread starter cthetoy
- Start date
odangdiggity
New member
its weird.... one of my koi fish just die randomly a big one in my pond. it was 12"
billyb1122
Member
Flukes
Flukes
I purchased a Squareback Anthias from LFS on Sunday. It's Wednesday and it's dead. My wife took it out of the tank for me while I was at work and for some reason she put it in a large glass of fresh water. I thought that my new anthias just didn't make it for some reason. My water tests perfect and the other fish seem happy. When I got home, my wife showed me the fish and there were tons of big semi-clear sesame seeds in the cup. I immedately remembered reading this post and came back to read it again.
Here are my questions:
1. Is it likely that in the 3 days the fish was in the tank it left eggs or other live flukes that are now in my tank?
2. How long to I have to go get Prazipro and treat before it's will harm my other 5 fish?
3. How long will I have to leave the skimmer off?
Have other people out there had the same experience w/ anthiases?
.bb.
Flukes
I purchased a Squareback Anthias from LFS on Sunday. It's Wednesday and it's dead. My wife took it out of the tank for me while I was at work and for some reason she put it in a large glass of fresh water. I thought that my new anthias just didn't make it for some reason. My water tests perfect and the other fish seem happy. When I got home, my wife showed me the fish and there were tons of big semi-clear sesame seeds in the cup. I immedately remembered reading this post and came back to read it again.
Here are my questions:
1. Is it likely that in the 3 days the fish was in the tank it left eggs or other live flukes that are now in my tank?
2. How long to I have to go get Prazipro and treat before it's will harm my other 5 fish?
3. How long will I have to leave the skimmer off?
Have other people out there had the same experience w/ anthiases?
.bb.
cthetoy
Active member
Hikari says 5-7 days and I always treat for 7 days.
I don't add Prazipro right away for new fishes. First I make sure they are eating. Then I add Prazipro at half dose. If they are still eating the next day then I add the other half dose. Watch your skimmer because it will overflow. I left my skimmer running normally and let the overflow drain straight back into the tank for aeration. After your 7 days you can start skimming the Prazipro out.
Watch your ammonia in any Q-tank. I changed 25% of my water daily so make sure you are adding Prazipro as well
Last edited:
cthetoy
Active member
Re: Flukes
Re: Flukes
Sorry to hear about your loss. I've loss plenty myself thinking it was my water quality, bacterial infections, or ich,
1) What other fish do you have? If you have Angel, butterflies or other Anthias then Ill treat the tank. If you have Tangs, Damsels then you could watch and wait since in my experience they are more fluke resistant.
2) I Treat for 7 days. Doesn't harm fish. Only change is I does 1/2 strength the first day. Next day if fish are fine and eating I dose the second part.
3) Watch your skimmer because it will overflow. I left mine off because it may skim your Prazipro out. After 7 days you can turn on your skimmer but restrict your air intake. My gate valve was wide open and it still overflowed. A few days you can open the air intake valve more and more as the Prazipro is being skimmed out . By the end of the week your skimmer should perform normally.
Re: Flukes
Sorry to hear about your loss. I've loss plenty myself thinking it was my water quality, bacterial infections, or ich,
1) What other fish do you have? If you have Angel, butterflies or other Anthias then Ill treat the tank. If you have Tangs, Damsels then you could watch and wait since in my experience they are more fluke resistant.
2) I Treat for 7 days. Doesn't harm fish. Only change is I does 1/2 strength the first day. Next day if fish are fine and eating I dose the second part.
3) Watch your skimmer because it will overflow. I left mine off because it may skim your Prazipro out. After 7 days you can turn on your skimmer but restrict your air intake. My gate valve was wide open and it still overflowed. A few days you can open the air intake valve more and more as the Prazipro is being skimmed out . By the end of the week your skimmer should perform normally.
My rabbit fish for years had very cloudy eyes and I always thought it was breathing rapidly. Despite that, it lived many years and grew to nearly 9 inches. I always thought that all rabbits had cloudy eyes - like the photo. Maybe they all have flukes. Now I am not so sure. Diver's Den currently has a rabbit posted with clear eyes. - Not posting photo becuase it won't be up for long.
Do you think the fish in the photo has flukes? or do rabbits have cloudy eyes.
Do you think the fish in the photo has flukes? or do rabbits have cloudy eyes.
Raverwings
New member
wow nice to know, I go to jans all the time so this comes in handy if i ever get flukes in any of my fish <3,
microbubbles
New member
just wondering about this freshwater dip- is it 100% fresh? or do you mean hypo- i'm thinking about all the non-ich fish deaths that occured over the years and the fluke symptoms sound pretty familiar...
thanks for starting this thread
thanks for starting this thread
Chihuahua6
Premium Member
Bump for a great thread and a question.
I had three beautiful Yellow Pyramid Butterflyfish that were vibrant. healthy and ate like pigs. They were in quarantine for seven weeks when one stopped eating and his behavior changed. He also had a cloudy spot on his eye that did not go away. He shook his head so I suspected a parasite and narrowed it down to flukes.
I attempted to freshwater dip him and unfortunately lost him do to an accident of my own stupidity.
Out of the two I had left another stopped eating and did the head shake thing. He actually ate one piece of food that day. I decided to treat the whole quarantine tank with Prazipro. On the day of treatment the third fish had stopped eating.
The next day fish #3 had started to eat again but the second to get sick hadn't. Now fish #3 seems to be doing well but #2 still doesn't eat, hangs by the rear corner of the tank and breathes a bit faster that the other one.
Treatment started on Saturday. Today is the third day and the package said you can dose again in three days. I used half the original dose and added it to the tank in hopes of killing some stubborn flukes. Since the fish hasn't eaten for almost three days and his behavior hasn't changed I'm thinking it's too late. Now the healthy one is starting to show a little bit of aggression towards him. These fish always swam together and never had any aggression issues.
Does anyone have suggestions on what I should do next?
I had three beautiful Yellow Pyramid Butterflyfish that were vibrant. healthy and ate like pigs. They were in quarantine for seven weeks when one stopped eating and his behavior changed. He also had a cloudy spot on his eye that did not go away. He shook his head so I suspected a parasite and narrowed it down to flukes.
I attempted to freshwater dip him and unfortunately lost him do to an accident of my own stupidity.
Out of the two I had left another stopped eating and did the head shake thing. He actually ate one piece of food that day. I decided to treat the whole quarantine tank with Prazipro. On the day of treatment the third fish had stopped eating.
The next day fish #3 had started to eat again but the second to get sick hadn't. Now fish #3 seems to be doing well but #2 still doesn't eat, hangs by the rear corner of the tank and breathes a bit faster that the other one.
Treatment started on Saturday. Today is the third day and the package said you can dose again in three days. I used half the original dose and added it to the tank in hopes of killing some stubborn flukes. Since the fish hasn't eaten for almost three days and his behavior hasn't changed I'm thinking it's too late. Now the healthy one is starting to show a little bit of aggression towards him. These fish always swam together and never had any aggression issues.
Does anyone have suggestions on what I should do next?
cthetoy
Active member
Just curious how did you lose one of your fish to the FW dip?
Butterflies are known to carry flukes. Your 3rd butterfly should make it out ok. The 2nd non eating one is 50/50. I had fish that had flukes, didnt eat, FW dipped it to confirm for flukes, treated it with Prazipro and made it out ok. The other half did not make it after 2 weeks of not eating. The longest hunger strike I had was a week and ate after that.
Thats why I treat all newly aquired fish for flukes because the cure ratio is higher when caught early on.
You should change 50% of your water, dose prazipro again and by this weekend your fish should be fluke free and hopefully your 2nd butterfly will eat. You might want to seperate the 2 butterlies with a divider if one is too aggressive. Watch out for secondary infections caused by flukes.
Chihuahua6
Premium Member
I just want to kick myself for making such a stupid mistake. I had a powerhead in the freshwater dip tank and neglected to put the guard onto the intake. When I went to check him the second time his head was stuck to the powerhead and it was too late to save him. I can't tell you how angry I was at myself. These fish were my pride and joy. They're so beautiful and their personalities are outstanding. I highly recommend them to anyone with a large tank.
I though I had done everything right with the last two batches of fish purchased. I have two quarantine tanks running and planned to keep them there for eight weeks. I figured since they were all active and eating well that they were fine. For now on I will treat all fish with Prazipro. Ich and black spot can be seen and treated but flukes are a silent killer.
I just wanted to add that I have a Bicolor Blenny and Flame Angel in quarantine with the Butterflies. The Blenny arrived with blemished tail and fins and scratched on the rocks for the first few days. He then got better and stayed that way. Perhaps he had flukes and the flukes left him and made their way to the Butterflies?
Thanks for the advice. I'm making up some saltwater as we speak. I'll keep you posted.
I though I had done everything right with the last two batches of fish purchased. I have two quarantine tanks running and planned to keep them there for eight weeks. I figured since they were all active and eating well that they were fine. For now on I will treat all fish with Prazipro. Ich and black spot can be seen and treated but flukes are a silent killer.
I just wanted to add that I have a Bicolor Blenny and Flame Angel in quarantine with the Butterflies. The Blenny arrived with blemished tail and fins and scratched on the rocks for the first few days. He then got better and stayed that way. Perhaps he had flukes and the flukes left him and made their way to the Butterflies?
Thanks for the advice. I'm making up some saltwater as we speak. I'll keep you posted.
Chihuahua6
Premium Member
Here's the update I promised.
Last night, very late, Butterfly #2 (sick one) was swimming in fast backwards summersaults and breathing very heavily. I shut off the powerheads and powerfilter. I have never seen a fish swimming in such a crazy way and gasping as much as he was. I really felt bad and was thinking of a way to euthanize him. He seemed to have calmed just a bit once I turned off the flow. I need to keep the filter biologically active so I turned it on to see if he could handle the flow and he was okay with just the filter running. I decided to observe him for a bit before I would make the decision to euthanize him.
After reading a post about electrical current in an aquarium a light bulb went off in my head. I had felt a shock in a small cut on my finger in the past while putting my hand into this tank. I just thought it was the salt but now it seems it may have been some stray current. Perhaps the current was bothering this sick and stressed fish. Perhaps he had small cuts in his gills from where the flukes fell off. I left the powerheads off and changed out the heater for a brand new one that I had.
For the next few hours I checked the fish and he still seemed better, still not great but not swimming in fast summersaults any longer.
Yesterday I also added half of that second dose of Prazipro. Today I added the rest. I also realized today that I had made another dumb mistake. The measuring spoon I was using was 1/2 teaspoon, not 1 teaspoon. So yesterday they had almost one full dose total between the two times I treated the tank, still a bit short. I guess all the stress and lack of sleep between these fish and two sick dogs had me not thinking straight.
Now for the good news. Today the fish was swimming around a little more than he had been. I fed the others several times throughout the day. This evening as I was giving their third meal Butterfly #2 ate two pieces of mysis! I continued to add mysis and he ate a little more. This is the first time he has eaten since Friday! If anyone had seen this fish last night they would never think that he could have survived.
I believe the crazy swimming was due to stray current in the water. I believe that finally getting an almost full strength dose into the aquarium for 24 hours killed off all of the flukes and allowed the fish to feel better and start eating.
I learned a lot from this experience and I thank Cthetoy for starting this thread.
Last night, very late, Butterfly #2 (sick one) was swimming in fast backwards summersaults and breathing very heavily. I shut off the powerheads and powerfilter. I have never seen a fish swimming in such a crazy way and gasping as much as he was. I really felt bad and was thinking of a way to euthanize him. He seemed to have calmed just a bit once I turned off the flow. I need to keep the filter biologically active so I turned it on to see if he could handle the flow and he was okay with just the filter running. I decided to observe him for a bit before I would make the decision to euthanize him.
After reading a post about electrical current in an aquarium a light bulb went off in my head. I had felt a shock in a small cut on my finger in the past while putting my hand into this tank. I just thought it was the salt but now it seems it may have been some stray current. Perhaps the current was bothering this sick and stressed fish. Perhaps he had small cuts in his gills from where the flukes fell off. I left the powerheads off and changed out the heater for a brand new one that I had.
For the next few hours I checked the fish and he still seemed better, still not great but not swimming in fast summersaults any longer.
Yesterday I also added half of that second dose of Prazipro. Today I added the rest. I also realized today that I had made another dumb mistake. The measuring spoon I was using was 1/2 teaspoon, not 1 teaspoon. So yesterday they had almost one full dose total between the two times I treated the tank, still a bit short. I guess all the stress and lack of sleep between these fish and two sick dogs had me not thinking straight.
Now for the good news. Today the fish was swimming around a little more than he had been. I fed the others several times throughout the day. This evening as I was giving their third meal Butterfly #2 ate two pieces of mysis! I continued to add mysis and he ate a little more. This is the first time he has eaten since Friday! If anyone had seen this fish last night they would never think that he could have survived.
I believe the crazy swimming was due to stray current in the water. I believe that finally getting an almost full strength dose into the aquarium for 24 hours killed off all of the flukes and allowed the fish to feel better and start eating.
I learned a lot from this experience and I thank Cthetoy for starting this thread.
