L75 Still won't gain weight

[sillypony]

I have had my L75 for almost 2 years now, and he still refuses to get a nice plump belly. I quarantined him last year and used prazipro, I fed more frozen foods, and I know he scavenges a lot, but his belly is still concave. Should I be worried? Is there anything else I can try for him?

1. Water parameters
a) Temerature range: about 76 degrees F
b) pH 7.5 i think, it's been a while
c) GH in the normal range.
d) KH in the normal range.
e)Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, levels 0, 0 and 20
f) Water change frequency- as needed, I have a heavily planted tank and only do water changes when nitrate gets up to 20 or so.
(Most LFS's will check your water and give a list of readings).

2. Tank set up
a) Size. 55 gallon
b) Substrate. black sand and small gravel
c) Filtration. canister filter and sponge filter
d) Furnishings. large piece of driftwood and lots of rocks. There are a lot of plants and a mass of green (long hair?) algae from lights being on too much
e) Other tank mates. 2 botia dario and a beta (5 brand new b. dario currently in quarantine), a ton of trumpet and ramshorn snails
f) How long has it been set-up? 2 years
g) When was the last new fish added? a year ago
h) Foods used and frequency? algae wafers, shrimp pellets and earthworm pellets morning and night, frozen bloodworms, shrimp and/or peas several times a week

3. Symptoms / Problem description
As stated above, Bibi refuses to gain weight. He forages, he seems happy and healthy and even sucks on the glass on occasion, but no plump belly. He is not overly victimized by the other fish- the beta generally stays on his own, and he is more likely to bother the loaches than the other way around.

4. Action taken (if any)
Feeding more (rich) foods. I know i'm not underfeeding, I'm certainly overfeeding, but i'd rather clean up the extra food and have lots of snails cuz i'm always scared someone will go hungry...

5. Medications used (if any)
PraziPro last year. It seemed to have no effect. No signs of worms in poo.

[Sanplec]

Hello Sillypony,

I don't know if this would help your plec gaining weight, but I saw that your pH and Nitrite levels seem a bit high.
These catfishes come from South Amerika, and the water there is very soft and sour.
Preferably your Nitrite needs to be 0.
Faeces in the water and feeding to much, increases this level.
If you want this to decrease, you need to refresh the tank more often or feed less.
You can also feed your pleco and Botia's only at nighttime.
Both species are hunting at night.
Most pleco's don't eat in the morning/afternoon.
Maybe this is a solution for your Nitritelevel.

Have you ever seen him eating?

[sillypony]

nitrite is 0, i'm sorry if i miss typed above? NitrAtes are 20 max. The cycle is established and the tank looks good, other than the algae cloud that i'm slowly removing.

I see him foraging a lot. He has a favorite spot to sit, and sometimes he disappears behind the caves, and often times he comes up front and bullies the snails for food. He cleans the glass once in a great while. And that is just during the daylight hours. He comes out when I feed, or shortly afterwards, regardless of time of day. (I feed 2x a day, morning and night.)

One thing i know he's not getting is cucumber, or any other fresh veggies, because none of my fish eat them. I've tried garlic, i've tried starving them for a day before hand, and none of them touch it. The snails won't even finish a slice of it. They all seem to like peas,but no one likes other veggies.

[drpleco]

One dose of prazipro isn't enough - you need to give at least two (preferably three) doses four days apart. The medicine won't kill eggs, so you need to wait until they hatch inside the fish, and then dose again. The third dose is just for good measure. After that, feed blackworms (live) and zuccini for roughage. Once my 75's learned to eat NLS pellets, they plumped up very well. But I always start fish out with the prazi schedule and then blackworms.

[sillypony]

I did the multi-doses of prazi, not just one. My apologies for not specifying that. the instructions on the bottle say to do it multiple times. Should I redose the whole tank? Or just try the different feed?

[apistomaster]

I have had good results using UltraCure PX soaked into sinking pellet food. It only works on fish that are still eating.
It is a combination of praziquantal, flubendazole and metronidzole. This combo covers a much wider rage of internal parasites than prazquantal(PraziPro) alone.
I feed wild Plecos and wild Discus with food medicated this way as soon as they will eat sinking pellets. Thereafter, I feed them the medicated pellets once a day for 5-7 days every six months.

[sillypony]

Apisto-

thank you for the suggestion, I'm going to try to find it with decent shipping, and give it a try. I really would love to see him with a happy, full belly.

[apistomaster]

You should be prepared for the possibility that treatment won't work. It is difficult to reverse long standing problems.

[PoconoGal]

Hello Larry - I recognize you from Bidka and from SD I believe as well!

I too have had success with issues like this using Ultra Cure PX. I actually have a Discus that will eat the drops. I've also used Parasite Clear a few years ago for flukes and am currently treating the tank with it now for what seems to be a little fluke outbreak. The BNs were in the tank for the treatment years ago and are still in the tank now and have had no problems handling the Parasite Clear. That may also work for this problem as it contains prazi, diflubenzuron, metro and acriflavine. I would check with Jungle Labs though as the PC that I have and also 2 new boxes I just purchased have a single different ingredient than some others have in theirs. the different ingredient in mine is diflubenzuron.

[apistomaster]

Hi poconogirl,
I have heard of Discus taking the drops before but I have my doubts about how much they actually ingest. Fish only have one way of checking thing out; pick it up with their mouths. I feel more certain of the fish ingesting sufficient quantities of the 3 drug it contains when the swallow food pellets saturated in the UltraCure PX. This formulation is rather weak to use just added to the water.
Diflurzon is just another form of flubendazole so they are covering worms praziquantal does not.
I have ordered Levimasole HCl as a 3rd anti-worm medication. It is effective against some round worms that cause bloating.
Not exactly the problem with the OP's L75. It sounds like it is a good idea to use Levimasole HCl carefully until you know what to expect. Some people report signs of stress in their fish but I suspect it is much safer, or at least wiser, to increase the dose gradually than using whatever amount someone says to use all at once.
I get bulk flubendazole 10% powder and Levimasole HCL from Charles Harrison, inmkr.com
He is a fellow member of the American Killiefish Association and the only place I have found that sells the ingredients of these sometimes difficult to find fish medicines in unbranded bulk quantities. 25 grams of 10% flubendazole powder is only $20+postage and that is enough to treat a lot of water. I only used about 7 grams of the old 5% strength formula to eliminate Hydra from about 800 gal of aquarium water in 2 separate treatments.
Flubendazole is supposed to kill snails, even MTS, at higher doses but I haven't tried it out for that purpose yet. Charles doesn't make any claims, these are just reports of others I've read.

[PoconoGal]

Larry, I've just purchased Levamisole for worming as well and your post gave me some info that I was looking for, mainly how safe it was to use with my BNs or my Corys in the tank. Been wondering if I should remove those guys or not, but I will follow your post as to its use and observe. As to my drop loving discus, he loved the drops, took them in his mouth and did not spit out and actually followed my hand around to be under the bottle. He'd greedily lunge at each drop and gobble with typical discus gusto, LOL!!!! But, alas, he was the only one to do so... He was however finally cured of the recurring hex problem he had from the time I brought him home from the breeder using just the Ultra Cure PX. Interesting about the flubendazole, I think someone just posted that they could not purchase it in the US any longer... I wonder if that is really the case and if so, maybe you had better stock up!

[apistomaster]

These antihelminthic drugs are used on livestock, cats and dogs.
They have been around the vet business quite awhile and I know of no moves to restrict their sales in the US. They are not or on a more limited basis, harder to acquire at fish shops in the UK and Continent. Many aquarists there just use the dog or pig pills with good results.

[PoconoGal]

Hi Larry. I found the post by mmorris on Bidka about new import restrictions on flubendazole in the US. Maybe the "help desk" doesn't know what its talking about unless these restrictions are very new???? (Or the poster misunderstood, which is entirely possible).

It appears that flubendazole is not available in this country. I tried the internet, the feed store, all of my area vets, including the large animal ones, and finally called National Fish Pharmaceuticals. The `help desk' told me new import restrictions makes flubendazole unavailable. He suggested I do a two-week non-stop bath using Prazi, double dose.

[apistomaster]

I would have to see something official before I believe that flubendazole is now restricted from import.
It has been known for some time that it and other antihelminthics were useful to treat fish. It has been a fairly recent development that many new aquarium drugs have become available that contain flubendazole. It would seem very short sighted of the companies marketing them so recently since there is always quite a bit of lead time before drugs are withdrawn from the market except for cases where serious adverse effects have been recently discovered and even then...
These drugs, or their derivatives, are used to treat worm parasites in humans not just animals and worms can affect or infect people outside of more than just the tropics.