Suspecting Internal Parasite. Please help!

[Bidadari]

I have a leopard wrasse in my reef tank for about 5 months. He's eating like a pig, but he never gains weight. In fact, I've notice his body getting skinnier and skinnier, except for his belly. His belly stays round and looks like he's been eating something all the time.
He looks very healthy otherwise; swimming & picking at rocks all the time.
I suspect he probably got internal parasite. Can anyone recommend how should I treat this?
His poop is kind of whitish in color & not stringy at all.

I've been doing a bit of reading on metrodinazole and praziquantel, but can't find much info on those medicine.
Are those medicine reef safe?

I don't want to catch the fish, because leopard wrasse just doesnt' deal well with stress. It took more than 2 weeks for my leopard to actually getting acclimated to my tank schedule when the first time I got him.

 

[Puffer Queen]

I would not dose any medications in a reef tank. I would recommend feeding the wrasse food "enriched" with praziquantel. For the treatment of internal parasites/worms, it is more effective if adminstered via the oral/gastrointestinal route than a bath or prolonged immersion. You could also feed the praziquantel to freshwater ghost shrimp & then feed them to the wrasse. ( You will see the white powder inside the gastrointestinal tract of the shrimp.)

You can get praziquantel (droncit) through a vet. You can also get it: www.nationalfishpharm.com.

I always deworm every new fish while they are in quarantine as internal worms can live within a fish for long periods of time before symptoms may start.

Kelly

 

[Bidadari]

Thanks for the reply Kelly.
I always feed my fish with frozen mysis, cyclopeeze & seaweed/nori. Can I soak the frozen food with the praziquantel, then feed it to the tank? Will that work?
Or is there actually a pellet or flake fish food that's already contain praziquantel in it.

I can also get some ghost shrimps locally here, but will the ghost shrimps eat the praziquantel?

Thanks again.

 

[Puffer Queen]

Bidadari,

I have had luck with feeding the ghost shrimp. Some inject the ghost shrimp with the praziquantel.

I am not aware of any pellet or flake with praziquantel in it.

You could try dissolving the praziquantel in a small amount of freshwater & soaking the seaweed and mysis.....problem is I am not sure if the fish will take it and if you will be able to get a therapeutic dose in the fish. Also do not think it would be wise to have praziquantel exposure to the inverts or corals in a reef. I do not have any experience with medicating fish in a reef.

Kely

 

[Bidadari]

Will try with the ghost shrimp then.
I just ordered the praziquantel. It will be here in the next few days, I hope.
So I assume I just need to break apart the tablet, then give it to the shrimp? I bought the 23 mg tablet.
Any specific dose I should follow?

 

[Puffer Queen]

Here is the oral dose I use: 50 mg/kg or 23 mg/pound of body weight of the fish. This is the dose that was given to me by my friend at the Shedd Aquarium & can be found in Dr. E Noga's Fish Disease book.

I would guess the wrasse's weight or weigh it on a food scale (the ones that come with a bowl) and figure out the dose. I would then break the tablet in quarters or half it according to the dose required and crush the piece with a mortar/pestle. Then feed the powder to the ghost shrimp. I would recommend a small well aerated container/dish so the shrimp will readily find it and ingest it. It may take a few minutes to a couple of hours - watch for the white powder to be visible in the shrimp. If they do not eat it, then injection into the shrimp is your next choice.

Try enriching the food with garlic as well. Garlic does have some deworming properties as well.

Best of luck,
Kelly

 

[Bidadari]

Will do.
It's good to know that garlic have some deworming properties, I will start soaking the frozen mysis with garlic today then.

Thank you. I will keep you posted with the progress.

 

[Puffer Queen]

You're welcome.

Please update on any progress.

Thanks.

 

[Bidadari]

Alright, I got my praziquantel shipment a couple days ago. I didn't administer it right away since I've read that garlic can also be quite effective as a dewormer. I've been feeding the tank with garlic soaked mysis for about 1 week or so, but I haven't seen any result so far (Maybe I'm not patient enough).

So today, I decided to use the prazi.
I figured my leopard weight about 1 oz., so I break the 23mg tablet into 4, then I have to divide the 1/4 of the tablet into 4 again (this dose is based on 23mg/ pound of body weight).
Since the 1/4 of tablet is really small, I ended up disolving it with 1/2ml of RODI water, then I injected 1/4 of it ( ~1.4mg of prazi) to 4 mysis shrimps (I tried to find the bigger ones), and 2 of them was eaten by the leopard.

Crossing my finger hopefully it's enough to eliminate the internal parasite & my SPS won't be affected by this.