Cichlid issues

[Lajos_Detari]

I did used to feed live worms, until about 5 weeks ago and the now have frozen. He did seem to be breathing harder and was swimming at the surface more. I moved my filter higher, so it was breaking the surface more. But that didn’t make any difference to him.

Then most likely the fish death are caused by gill flukes (parasites).
So sorry to see you losing your beautiful Apistogramma Cacatuoides.

Do you still have any fish in the tank?
If not, I suggest that you remove and dispose everything from the tank and sterilize your tank with bleach and let it dry for a week before you restarting the tank all over again.

It's almost impossible to eradicate gill flukes from your tank once they get into your tank.
Whenever the infestation is high as the flukes multiply very fast, it will kill your fish again especially the bottom level fish. Top level fish are less affected.

I tried many types of medications - Praziquantel(with x3 dose), Anti Parasite(by Interpret), Potassium Permanganate, other medication which contain Formalin and Malachite Green for months but I still couldn't eradicate them completely.

At the moment, I'm using Wormer Plus which contain Flubendazole for about 1 month, but the Gill Flukes are still coming back.

The main symptoms of Gill Flukes infection are "fish breathing fast and fish scratching against the tank" or any object in the tank.
Firstly, the gill flukes will hook on/attack the fish gills, then follow by the bacteria infection which will suffocate/kill them.
Gill flukes and skin flukes are hard to kill because their eggs cannot be destroyed by any medications. The eggs can stay dormant in the tank for weeks to probably months.
I read a research paper about the effect of "bleach" on the parasites eggs.
Even at very high dosage of bleach, the eggs were only destroyed up to 80%+ and not 100%.

I think the only way to completely eradicate the gill flukes is by restarting your tank again and with everything new including new fish.
Only the tank can be sterilized and reuse again. All filter medias need to be disposed.

Any remaining fish in your tank that carry the flukes in their gills or bodies will also cause the flukes to multiply again very quickly and there will no ending to this infection.
At high infestations and in crowded tank, more fish will be affected and died.

These are based on my understanding and experiences but I hope someone has success with other type of medication and treatment.
You can also read the book by Andrew Soh on how to treat gill flukes. He is a very experience fish breeder who specialized in breeding Discus which oftens face the problems of gill flukes. He wrote the book - "Discus The Naked Truth."

 

[Guest14017]

Formalin and malachite won't work for flukes. It has no true effect on a healthy fluke. PP has some effect on body flukes, but gill flukes will largely [[evade the treatment and begin to multiply once it's over. Due to misuse/overuse, Praziquantel has lost much of its effectiveness against flukes and it won't wipe out a fluke infestation. Try Flubendazole. Many people report success with it.