Last week I saw tape a couple of section of tape worm segments floating in a tank with one of my pairs. I was mortified and ordered Prazi from Jemco. It arrived today.
Twice before when I did a general clean up on my fish I used PraziPro and saw nothing expelled, so the last time, I didn't bother with it.
The fish will get their first treatment this afternoon. I'll let you know what I see.
Quote from: LizStreithorst on February 16, 2016, 11:55:07 AM
Last week I saw tape a couple of section of tape worm segments floating in a tank with one of my pairs. I was mortified and ordered Prazi from Jemco. It arrived today.
Twice before when I did a general clean up on my fish I used PraziPro and saw nothing expelled, so the last time, I didn't bother with it.
The fish will get their first treatment this afternoon. I'll let you know what I see.
..better to play it safe and treat 'em.....keep us posted........where the 'F' could that have come from....??....food?
That's what I'm wondering. Could be PraziPro doesn't work as advertised. Could be it came in with fish I purchased after I last treated. Has to be one or the other. What most distresses me is that I saw the strings of segments in a young home bred HB pair. BUT I move fish around all the time and all equipment is shared.
It's a good thing that I saw that I had a problem. The strand of segments was unmistakable. It was flat and segmented at regular intervals. I know what Tapes look like in dogs. In fish it's the same but smaller. I wonder how long they have been releasing one or two segments at a time? I would not have be able to identify the problem.
Too bad, but also pretty cool. I have never seen tapeworm bits floating around.
Neither have I until now.
Alas I was not able to treat today. This Prazi mixes best in a small amount of acetone. It just doesn't dissolve in hot water no matter how long you shake it. My acetone was ancient and when I opened the old gallon jug and poured a bit of it into a glass jar with a teaspoon of pure Prazi, my acetone was all brown. I'll get a pint at the hardware store tomorrow. I'd use nail polish remover but I don't think that nail polish remover is 100% acetone.
At least I pre-treated two pairs that I think might be loaded with Epsom salts. Fish that are loaded can bloat and die when wormed. Surely mine are not that bad, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
I thought you could use ethanol for that.
You can. I would have to drive to Laurel to get Vodka. It's a Bible best thing, don't you know...Beer is fine. Wine and and the hard stuff is bad and forbidden. Go figure huh. Besides, a small amount of acetone works better and does no harm. The hardware store is around the corner and just a bit down the road from my shop.
First treatment done. What a pain ::) Can't wait to see what I find in the tanks in the morning.
Quote from: LizStreithorst on February 17, 2016, 06:43:22 PM
First treatment done. What a pain ::) Can't wait to see what I find in the tanks in the morning.
What is your mix ratio?...
1 teaspoon per 100 gallons. I put the Prazi in a jar, pour in just a bit of acetone and shake. Add water and shake and dump in in the tank. I took all the micron filters out of the Magnums and turned them on without any filter in them to to add more air to the tanks.
I'm going to see if I can stand to go 3 days between WC rather than 2 days. All than mixing, measuring, and shaking is time consuming.
..see anything this morn'n??
Nothing yet. I don't know how long it takes for them to be expelled because I've never had tapes before. May be after work today.
Quote from: LizStreithorst on February 18, 2016, 06:46:42 AM
Nothing yet. I don't know how long it takes for them to be expelled because I've never had tapes before. May be after work today.
..weird.....ya sure they're tapeworms too, huh?.... huh
I'd have sworn. I saw 2 pieces, one was about 1 1/2 long. The segments were very clearly defined and of equal size. It had to be a tape. In dogs when you treat the tapes dissolve and you never see them expelled. But in fish they are supposed to be expelled in long strings.
Afternoon up-date...No obvious tape worms expelled although I did see some drifting white poo in one tank. It shouldn't be hex because I treated for hex as a precaution not long ago. What I did see was cloudy water which was more pronounced in some tanks than in others. This morning my water was crystal clear.
When I kept mostly Discus and treated for hex I never saw white strings expelled. I saw thick looking cloudy water. I figured that the look of the water meant that they were being expelled in a dissolved form. My BIDKA Discus friends new exactly what I meant by thick cloudy water from parasites.
Barb always has seen the actual parasites on the bottom of the tank. She has never seen thick cloudy water. But her water is extremely hard and mine is almost soft enough for eggs to hatch in straight tap. Could be this is a water parameter thing. Softer water dissolves metal better than very hard water. Perhaps the same is true when it comes to parasites. My gH is 0 and my kH is 4.5
In any event, I believe that I had tapes and I will continue with the treatment. Except for my little fry which are still on BBS, which I will feed 3 times a day, I'll cut down feeding to once a day. The look of the water in some of the tanks grosses me out so much that doubt I'll be able to make myself go 3 days before another huge WC and re-dosing.
Well, this is very interesting. Now I am wondering if what you saw was Hex, segmented, like the ones I had. If it is Hex, will Prazi treat it? I have no idea. My angels that had hex, had 1-2" white poop and it could have been segmented-looking but I didn't look close at it. Just saw white and got out the Metro. I think if you have tapes, you would be seeing some coming out by now. What do you think?
Barb
Quote from: Barb on February 18, 2016, 04:48:09 PM
Well, this is very interesting. Now I am wondering if what you saw was Hex, segmented, like the ones I had. If it is Hex, will Prazi treat it? I have no idea. My angels that had hex, had 1-2" white poop and it could have been segmented-looking but I didn't look close at it. Just saw white and got out the Metro. I think if you have tapes, you would be seeing some coming out by now. What do you think?
Barb
I don't know, Barb. When I saw the white poo floating in the tank is was very obvious to me that it was a tape worm. I know what tape worms look like. I've raised animals since I was 16 years old, and have worked along side quality veterinarians. I know what a tape looks like. Perhaps the one I saw was a lucky find. If the fish expelled them one segment at the time I never would have known.
Prazi had no affect on Hex, just as Metro has no affect on tapes or worms. This is not hex.
If you are worried, treat. I want to know if you have them and your water gets thick and cloudy or you see long strings of tapes like they say? I want to know so much that I will buy the Prazi for you. I don't want your fish to have tapes so much as I want to know that if they are infested if you see strings of long perfect tapes like Al did or gross water like I have. I want to know if the difference we see when we treat is due to your terribly hard water and my reasonably soft water. It's kinda a wanting to know just for the sake of knowing for me.
If you agree, please know that mixing up the damn stuff to make it dissolve and dosing every single tank it a huge PITA.
When I was running a fish facility, we had a room for sticklebacks.
Some of these were collected from different wild sources on the west coast. Some of those were collected by a certain professor who did not want to follow the quarantine procedures he wanted everyone else to use, so we got a lot of different wormy parasites. Vets said we had 4 or 5 kinds of worms, mostly flukes, but also tapeworms. The nasty ones are the ones that can propagate in that water system, tapeworms and monogenetic flukes (they don't require an intermediary host so they can go fish to fish). We had some digenetic flukes, but had no snails so their lifecycle was limited to only the hhost animal they were in.
Eventually we figured out what was happening and treated the room. We used either Prazi or with Flubendazole and it got rid of all of them. We did not see little bits of worm floating around, nor had cloudy water, But we didn't look for these things and had a large central recirc system to filter the water.
See anything today Liz? I wouldn't want to treat my angels now, none show any issue at all. Yours, Jon's and another's angels are all happy and healthy in a 75 tank . Jon, two of yours have paired up and spawned.
Barb
Quote from: Barb on February 19, 2016, 04:42:31 PM
See anything today Liz? I wouldn't want to treat my angels now, none show any issue at all. Yours, Jon's and another's angels are all happy and healthy in a 75 tank . Jon, two of yours have paired up and spawned.
Barb
+1....happy happy happy ;D
Quote from: Barb on February 19, 2016, 04:42:31 PM
See anything today Liz? I wouldn't want to treat my angels now, none show any issue at all. Yours, Jon's and another's angels are all happy and healthy in a 75 tank . Jon, two of yours have paired up and spawned.
Barb
I did a wipe down and flopping on the bottom WC of 6 tanks that were so cloudy I couldn't stand it plus the Discus tank that was just somewhat cloudy. I may do my tank with my babies and their parents tonight before bed. It's not real bad but I feel that I should do them anyway since they're babies. I couldn't do them just now because I just fed them BBS when I got home from work.
I asked about this on Simply. Discus people know about parasites. Read from post 9 down. I still can't figure out why I have seen no long tapes expelled. http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?123095-Tape-worms
It's almost over and done with. I did wipe downs on the the half of the tanks that were most slimy and disgusting. I gave them flopping on the bottom of the tank WCs. I didn't use all my water but I came close. I'll do the other half of the tanks that are clear and have no slime tomorrow. I'll make them flop on the bottom as well. I'll have to fill my containers to the brim. Tomorrow I'll have 640 gallons of water to change. I retreated with Prazi. Dang fins drink the brandy I bought for cooking now. My fish are lushes... mim
Tomorrow will be my final treatment, thank God. This has been a huge PITA. I never did see anything that I could identify as for sure a tape worm. I did see some immature strands that appeared to be segmented but even with my glasses on I couldn't be sure that it was a tape. I sure did see a lot of cloudy water and slime on the glass. I've never seen this before when I've treated for tapes as a precaution.
I was thinking you might have a smaller type of tapeworm, but then that would not explain you seeing the original piece which presumably would be the same size as any others in the fish.