Gill Fluke HELP

kaliman33

kaliman33

Member
I bought a fish from a diffrent LFS, my tank was perfect up to then, i brought home a bird nose wrasse, he was always at the top which we thought was weird but not unusual, within a week he died, and lost ALL my fish, a lion, emporer angel, dog face puffer, niger and huma,blue hippo, fox face, lunar wrasse and eel, i am pissed. i brought the dead fish to my LFS that i usually go to, we cut open the gills and sure enough thier were parasites in them. He said the only way to get it was through a diseased fish. what an expensive lesson
My water peramiters are fine, i am doing a super charcol cleaning to get all the medicine out of the tank, then i will start again with chromis,
can these things live on my rock, the LFS said no, my kids cried when the puffer died, they named him any help and info will be appreciated
what a day
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
All of the fish are dead? Are you sure it was flukes? What medication have you added to your display? Don't add any new fish yet.
 
kaliman33

kaliman33

Member
yes all are dead, we cut the gills open and saw them,
i added prazilPro, i am now cleaning out the water to get all medication out, i need to keep the biological going, so i figured in about 48 hours try a couple chromis
 
kaliman33

kaliman33

Member
the article was helpful in telling me what they are,
but can they still live in my tank with no fish?
what measures did you go to to get rid of them?
thanks
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Actually, not the same thing.
And I'm not convinced that gill flukes necessarily wiped out your whole system. Likely medicating your display was a primary factor for the wipe out.
Leave your tank fallow for 2 mos. Do a daily water change out of 1 gal per day for the duration. In the meantime, set up a quarantine tank, and alway quarantine new fish for 3 weeks min. before adding them to your display.
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
Originally Posted by Beth
http:///forum/post/2655678
Actually, not the same thing.
And I'm not convinced that gill flukes necessarily wiped out your whole system. Likely medicating your display was a primary factor for the wipe out.
Leave your tank fallow for 2 mos. Do a daily water change out of 1 gal per day for the duration. In the meantime, set up a quarantine tank, and alway quarantine new fish for 3 weeks min. before adding them to your display.
I agree with every single syllable of this. It was likely the medication. Flukes or worms do not kill that quickly. Leave it fish less for two months.
 
kaliman33

kaliman33

Member
the gill fluke stressed out the fish, so i am sure it was a factor,
why would medicating the tank wipe them out? the bottle says extremly safe and highly effective, 1 dose will do the trick, but i think i caught it to late, they where rubbing on the rocks for atleast a week and thought nothing of it, my lions gills where chewed up on the inside, they all showed signs of them, tank is empty
 
T

tizzo

Guest
Ugh...this is tough. Every where I have read agrees with Beth and Sep, that they are not fatal.
That being said, You guys might remember this thread. I've had 2 fish both in QT, both wrasses, have and die from these parasites so I don't know what to believe.
As I said though, mine was in QT so I dried out, freshwatered and bleached every single part of it.
 
al mc

al mc

Active Member
It does seem stange to me that all the existing fish would die from flukes within 7 (?) days of introducing a fish with flukes. Were all the water parameters good before the wrasse was added and after he died? Something is missing from this puzzle. A toxin other than the medication used for the flukes? Any chance the children added something to the water to 'help' their
fish? (It has been known to happen).
Sorry for all the questions...something is missing here.
 
peter1215

peter1215

Member
are you sure it wasnt oodinium? last year i made the mistake of buying some anthias from an lfs and not qt. within a week i lost almost all my fish including two large angels. I've never heard of fluke wiping out an entire tank in one week. I kept my tank fallow for two months (as recommended by Beth) and now everything is back to normal.
 
T

tizzo

Guest
Originally Posted by Al Mc
http:///forum/post/2655836
It does seem stange to me that all the existing fish would die from flukes within 7 (?) days of introducing a fish with flukes. Were all the water parameters good before the wrasse was added and after he died? Something is missing from this puzzle. A toxin other than the medication used for the flukes. Any chance the children added something to the water to 'help' their
fish? (It has been known to happen).
Sorry for all the questions...something is missing here.

good point.
The fish I lost, I lost in week 3 of QT. Both of them.
Normal for 2 1/2 weeks, then no eating for a day, then hiding and no eating for 2 days, then death at exactly week 3.
 
T

tizzo

Guest
OK, I'm reading and reading about gill flukes, that I now also know as Dactyrogylus , and I'm learning that it's a microscopic parasite. You will not be able to see it. Seriously, they have microscope pics all over utube, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuhtfPSAmLE
Now I'm gonna go try to find what you can see...
 
kaliman33

kaliman33

Member
i have been racking my brain as well, water was fine, test it all the time,
it had been a total of 2 1/2 weeks sice the wrasse was added, i cant remember seeing my fish act wierd, as soon as i noticed somthing was'nt right i did a 12 percent water change, my salt was a little high, i noticed the next morning, so i took out about 5 gallons and added fresh water, salt was normal, could that have anything to do with it???
nothing added to the tank, except prazipro, i even have UV, which i shut off after medicating, this is a costly mistake
appreciate everyones help
 
T

tizzo

Guest
Can you tell us what the critters looked like? Turns out certain isopods ar pretty common in the gills.
Just skip to the pics...
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbzool/v20n2/v20n2a13.pdf
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
Originally Posted by kaliman33
http:///forum/post/2655804
the gill fluke stressed out the fish, so i am sure it was a factor,
why would medicating the tank wipe them out? the bottle says extremly safe and highly effective, 1 dose will do the trick, but i think i caught it to late, they where rubbing on the rocks for atleast a week and thought nothing of it, my lions gills where chewed up on the inside, they all showed signs of them, tank is empty
Can you descibe these "flukes" what did they look like?
 
kaliman33

kaliman33

Member
no, i cant really remember, except my LFS cut the gills open and scraped it with a knife and found atleast 2, they were tiny and white, he wished he had a microscope, we checked the bodies and all scales where ok, they had slime on thier bodies from stress,
but i did see them, and all the fish where gasping at the end, maybe someone had it for a while and i did'nt know???
 
sepulatian

sepulatian

Moderator
Originally Posted by kaliman33
http:///forum/post/2655867
i have been racking my brain as well, water was fine, test it all the time,
it had been a total of 2 1/2 weeks sice the wrasse was added, i cant remember seeing my fish act wierd, as soon as i noticed somthing was'nt right i did a 12 percent water change, my salt was a little high, i noticed the next morning, so i took out about 5 gallons and added fresh water, salt was normal, could that have anything to do with it???
nothing added to the tank, except prazipro, i even have UV, which i shut off after medicating, this is a costly mistake
appreciate everyones help
The UV wouldn't have done a whole lot. The parasites were in his gills. I can see him dieing in a few weeks, but these guys do not multiply by the thousands.There is no way that they wiped out the tank in a matter of seven days. Ich can barely wipe out a tank in that time if all fish are sickly to begin with. Flukes are worms. There are many species of them. Some can be plucked right off with tweezers. You can use copper for them if needed. They have a direct life cycle, and are treatable.
 
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