Fish Getting Skinnier And Skinnier Could It Be Parasites ?

[z28pwr]

Hello guys/gals I have a problem with one of my tanks and wanted to see
if you guys could help me.
I have a 75 gallon tank in the garage with about 80 lbs of live rock
with a blue dot puffer, a clown trigger and a HawkFish that is my holding
tank until my 375 get's in. Well everybody was doing fine for the
longest time then about a month ago I noticed that my blue dot puffer was
getting very skinny but he would still eat a lot therefore I went from
feeding every other day like I've always done to feeding every day even
though the other 2 guys were very fat.
Well even with me feeding every day the puffer kept getting skinnier
and skinnier until he died a few days ago and now my Clown Trigger is
starting to look skinny. Is there some sort of disease or parasite that
could cause this or am I just not feeding them enough. I had the blue dot puffer for
over a year and he was a nice size for the longest time. I feed them all
sorts of stuff such as Mysis Shrimp, Blood Worms and Squid.
Thanks for your help.

[Richard]

I've lost 2 fish in the past from the same problem. My last one was a wrasse that ate like a pig but slowy wasted away over the course of 4-5 months. It was a pretty sad thing to watch. Both times I tried feeding lots of garlic, which is supposed help with internal parasites, but it did not help. There is a product called Focus made by seachem which is a polymer that bonds medications to food. You could try mixing focus with metronidazole (Flagyl) and feed them the antibiotic. I wouldn't recommend treating the whole tank with with metronidazole since it probably won't be very effective with internal parasites.

Of course it could be something other than internal parasites but since it seems to be affecting more than one fish I would probably try to treat them. Sounds like you are feeding plenty. When I get a chance I'll break out my super duper fish disease book and see if there are any other suggestions. If you want to try this...Hex-A-Mit by aquatronics is metronidazole and I'm not sure if anybody around carries Focus - we don't.

[Richard]

I looked through the book and the only things mentioned were:
Flagellates - treat with metronidazole orally
Worms(Tape & Round) - treatments involved medications that I don't think are available over the counter. I'm pretty sure I've read elsewhere that problems with these worms is extremely uncommon in SW Fish.
Various other internal disorders none of which were treatable.

Hope this Helps.

[z28pwr]

Thanks Richard.

I emailed The crew at wet web media and this was their response.

<Yes, I'm afraid
so... nematodes and cestodes are the most common culprit - like
tapeworms, they can out-compete for nutrients.>

<Do try to get ahold of some febendazole from your local veterinarian.
Your best bet is to put this fish in quarantine for about three weeks
and treat the quarantine tank directly with the febendazole for that
entire time. The Noga book of Fish Disease recommends 2mg/liter or
7.6mg/gallon of tank water. This should give your fish the upper hand against
these parasites.
Cheers, J -- >

I just hope my main reef doesn't catch this parasite.

[Richard]

Strange, pretty sure it was on wetwebmedia where I read that worms were not usually a problem. Guess it depends on who answers. I would suggest reading through their faqs for differing opinions before you go this route. There is alot of contradicting info on their site IMO.

As an FYI...
nematodes = roundworms
cestodes = tapeworms
Also it is the Noga book I'm looking at and febendazole is recommended orally for nematodes. It does give the bath dosage in the back of the book, once/week for three weeks. Fenbendazole is not recommended for cestodes. The trade name for this is Panacur, we use it on imported reptiles all the time, any vet should have it in either powder or liquid form as it it used for dogs and cats.
For cestodes the recommended treatment is Praziquantel orally(50mg/kg daily) or bath(38mg/gallon for 3 hours).
The Noga book does say that fish can have tremendously high populations of these parasites without any ill effect.

[z28pwr]

Richard, what do you think about Pipzine ?

http://www.inlandreef.net/pipzine.html

http://www.petguys.com/-031399163110.html

[Richard]

Pipzine(Piperazine) is also recommended for treatment of nematodes but not cestodes. This is all guess work of course, but personally I would still try the metronidazole first. One reason is that most species of parasitic worms require intermediate hosts and cannot simply pass from one fish to another. We almost never deal with these things in the fish hobby but they are very common problems in dealing with reptiles -my other hobby. When I recieve new imported reptiles I give them metronidazole first then panacur. Typically flagellate infections will cause the animals to decline much more rapidly than worms which is why I use metronidazole first. This is why I try to order mostly captive bred reptiles - hence the name CB Pets.

Just to confuse things more, one intermediate host for some of the worms that affect fish are crustaceans. Do you feed your puffers and triggers "FRESH" HEB shrimp?

[allanh]

Just to pipe in, Panacur is available at any feed store in paste form. We use it to treat our horses for worms. If you can make the paste work would prolly be MUCH cheaper from the pet store.

Allan