Internal Parasite treament for plecs

[Stuey]

Hello All,

I am searching for recommendations for the best treatment for internal parasites I could treat my coming wild caught plecs with.

As I am in UK, I am looking for a treatment which is readily available within the UK.

I understand that wild caught plecs can live 'comfortably' so to speak with internal worms etc, but I also aware that with the addtional stress of shipping etc, a load of internal parasites can tip the balance and plecs can be lost.

I would like to treat incoming fish in a quarantine tank, prior to moving, and mixing with other fish.

Any suggestions, recommendations would be greatly appreciated

Many thanks
Stu

[fish fodder]

interpet No 9 is very good.

[drpleco]

I've had good success with Prazipro by Hikari, though others might suggest a broader spectrum parasite medication. No harm in using broader medications to kill more things, but I've gotten good results in the prazi, which targets roundworms, flatworms, and flukes (I believe). It's also very gentle on the fish and the only side effect that I've noticed is decreased appetite on the day you dose the tank. Regular feedings of food with high amounts of garlic is effective as well, and might be considered as a maintenance food for awhile after you chemically de-worm your fish.

[Barbie]

You guys have access to Flubendazole, which is a fantastic parasite treatment, IME. The fish weren't stressed at all when I've used it and it was very effective against even camallanus (granted, at a much higher than recommended dose). The fish themselves handled it very well, as did decorative shrimp.

Barbie

[Rohan Richardson]

I use wardleys para-ex at the recommended dose and swear by the stuff never had a parasite in my tanks after unless it came in the tap water it is brilliant anti parasitic medicine for worms flukes etc.. Rohan R

[MatsP]

If you want to get Flubendazole, This is available in the UK.

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Mats

[Stuey]

Hi All,

Thanks Barbie, Mats,

I did a search for Flubendizole and found the Kusuri product from petsparade, shipped in no time.

Just need to get the plecs in now...lol

Thanks again

Stuey

[mlb7225]

You guys have access to Flubendazole, which is a fantastic parasite treatment, IME. The fish weren't stressed at all when I've used it and it was very effective against even camallanus (granted, at a much higher than recommended dose). The fish themselves handled it very well, as did decorative shrimp.

Barbie

What is the proper dosing of Flubendazole?

[MatsP]

If you have Flubendazole that is "designed" for fish, it should say on the packet. I have seen many different dosages, and I think there are several different strengths - for example Larry (Apistomaster) was using 1/2 tsp / 10 gal (38 liter), but that is a 5% mix - so basically, the active ingredient is mixed up with some other stuff, usually to make the dosing for small volumes of water possible (or a small dose for say a cat taken as part of the food - I looked at a product in the supermarket that contains Flubendazole designed for a cat, and it contained less than 100mg of the active ingredient - you'd need LOTS of those for one aquarium!).

The "wormer plus" that I recommended needs "on scoop per 30gal" [from memory, read the instructions!] - and a scoop (again from memory) is less than half a teaspoon - so it's apparently less concentrated. The overall pack I got has 5g of powder, and it is supposed to treat 500 gal of water.

Another site I read has twice the dosage of 0.5g per 5 gal - and apparently, 0.5g is supposed to be half a teaspoon - so that's twice the dose Larry suggests. I did have a look some time ago [when figuring out if the cat medication would be any good for fish] and found a research study with LD50, and the suggested dose was 30-60x below the LD50 (Lethal dose for 50% of the population) - so a slight overdose (e.g. 2x) should have no short-term effect on the fish. And hopefully water changes will remove any overdose from the water within a short enough period to not make much of a difference.

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Mats