copperband twitching its head

[daniella3d]

I surely hope it's not been cought with cyanide. He does not have the sympthoms of it, just head shaking and darting a bit and a little fast breathing but appetite is good and he's fattening up I think.

I ordered some prazipro and metylene blue and will give him a treatment with prazi in my QT and a dip in methylene blue before that. It's been setup today for this purpose. I don't have to treat my frag tank as it is independant of any other aquarium and any parasite in there will surely die as this aquarium usualy has no fish for months.

I will try a dip in fresh water and methylene blue before I transfer him in the QT for the prazi treatment. I am not sure about treating prazi in my main tank because I have some delicate coral in there like a blue sponge and a non-photosynthetic gorgonian and some expensive zoanthids.

Today the fish seem quite a bit better, breathing better and still with good appetite.

Originally Posted by Myka

Where do you think us smrt fishy pple got the idea?

You gotta catch them pretty fast as far as I know, but there aren't many studies on ornamental marine fish so most of our methods are anecdotal at best. Personally, a fish like a CBB which is known to often still be caught with cyanide I would have dipped in MB during acclimation just as a precaution. MB is quite gentle on them, so I see it causing no further stress or harm. More of an anti-stress dip in my experience.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

I will try a dip in fresh water and methylene blue before I transfer him in the QT for the prazi treatment.

I would observe for at least 24 hours after the FW&MB dip before starting the Prazi treatment. FW&MB is certainly stressful, SW&MB isn't.

Oh, and just to state the obvious in case it isn't obvious...Methylene Blue stains anything it touches pretty much, meaning clothes, skin, silicone, many plastics. I always put on "fish clothes", wear gloves, use a glass beaker for dipping, and a disposable plastic knife to stir up the dip.

[daniella3d]

what would a saltwater and methylene blue achieve? Just releave stress or would it have some effect on fluke or parasites?

I would think that any dip would be stressfull for the fish so might as well make it worth it?

The fish seem to be breathing pretty close to normal today, so that's good. Still twitching the head on regular basis though and darting here and there.

Originally Posted by Myka

I would observe for at least 24 hours after the FW&MB dip before starting the Prazi treatment. FW&MB is certainly stressful, SW&MB isn't.

Oh, and just to state the obvious in case it isn't obvious...Methylene Blue stains anything it touches pretty much, meaning clothes, skin, silicone, many plastics. I always put on "fish clothes", wear gloves, use a glass beaker for dipping, and a disposable plastic knife to stir up the dip.

[Myka]

MB will affect parasites and flukes on its own accord. I usually just dip them using SW&MB when doing it prophylactically, but anytime I do decide to do a fw dip I always add MB. In your case, since there is some sort of issue I would do FW&MB, but give him at least a 24 hour rest before starting Prazi. If he looks good after 24 hours, start Prazi. If he looks bad, decide from there whether to give him a bit more time or whether time will only make things worse. Educated guess is about all we have for most diseases/parasites.

[daniella3d]

Ok thanks, I will do that.

Originally Posted by Myka

If he looks good after 24 hours, start Prazi. If he looks bad, decide from there whether to give him a bit more time or whether time will only make things worse. Educated guess is about all we have for most diseases/parasites.

[daniella3d]

I treated the tank with prazipro yesterday. none of the flatworms in the tank are affected one bit. They are all over the glass as if nothing was in the tank.

Either prazipro does not affect aquarium flatworms or this prazi (brand new) is not good any longer (unlikely).

If it does kill flatworms, it takes longer than a day to do so. My bristle stars and bristle worms are not affected as well as my spagetti worms.

[Delphinus]

That's interesting about the flatworms not being affected. When I did praziquantel I bought both Prazipro and Praztastic but only used the Praztastic, which is I think more concentrated so it could be that it takes longer with Prazipro. I did not have the red flatworms or the smaller clear ones, or at least, none that I knew of, but I did notice weird flat worm looking things coming out of the rock and floating off into the current, so I figured it did have an effect.

I intended on doing a second treatment because the tang was so badly "infected" but after about a week I did start to notice improvements .. so elected to hold off on the second treatment and only do so if really necessary - but it never proved to be necessary.

I had major amounts of green slime algae form on the glass shortly after treatment that lasted until well after the treatment stopped so I was all too happy not to do that second treatment.

So my advice is to keep watching for now, it might take a few more days. Hopefully that's all it is. Good luck!