Worming with Fry in tank

[AilyNC]

Ok it's not an emergency but it is about medical treatment.

My adult Platy are pooping white stringy poop. Apparently they've done this longer than I noticed (guess I'm busy staring at the fry). They poop regular too but definitely long stringy white poop. The male does look a bit bloated but I assumed he was hogging food as the bully in the tank. The female has never not looked pregnant since I got her. She dropped 13 fry, 6 of those survived. Then she dropped more fry. 3 of those survived. She still looks pregnant a month after dropping first fry. Platy fry poop is too small to tell.

To my question - do I give a full dose or half of the 1000 mg/100ml flubendazole NT Labs Anti-Fluke & Wormer as I've some very small (week old) fry?

tank is 58L/16 G, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, 75% water change every 6/7 days

tank stock -
2 adult Platy
6 4wk old Platy Fry
3 1wk old Platy Fry
4 Neon Tetra (will returned/rehomed once worming complete).

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I've never used that wormer, does it suggest a half dose if there are fry?

I used eSHa worming medications while I had fry that were smaller than yours, and they managed fine at the full dose. But again, different wormer.

 

[AilyNC]

I've never used that wormer, does it suggest a half dose if there are fry?

I used eSHa worming medications while I had fry that were smaller than yours, and they managed fine at the full dose. But again, different wormer.

No it doesn't give much direction really. Shake for 30 seconds, 1ml per 50L once a week. Repeat up to 4 doses.

 

[AilyNC]

It does say will kill shrimp + invertebrates.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

No it doesn't give much direction really. Shake for 30 seconds, 1ml per 50L once a week. Repeat up to 4 doses.

I would use the full dose it suggests then. Livebearer fry are pretty tough, and chances are that you'll going to be killing the worms before they've had a chance to really grow and infect the youngest fry anyway. When I was losing young fish to worms, it was the ones that were 1-2 months old affected the worst by the worms. Old enough that the worms had started to grow and take a lot of their nutrition, but the young fish weren't large and strong enough to cope with the heavy worm burden like the adults were.

I think a half dose is much more likely to leave worms alive, without reducing the risk to the fry much.

You don't have shrimp or snails do you? If you have snails, remove those before dosing the tank.

 

[AilyNC]

No shrimp or snails. I was just worried as some are so tiny. Would like to blast through this though and have a healthy tank.

 

[FishBearer9845]

I've used that exact wormer recently. I have no fry, so apologies if my post is not useful. It's a pretty good one, my guppy was half the size after just the first dose, and after the second is acting far more like a guppy.
Sadly, and on my watch, it did kill a bladder snail, it came on a plant and I didn't notice. It was doing really well and I forgot to take that one out the tank, so I can vouch that it does kill snails.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

No shrimp or snails. I was just worried as some are so tiny. Would like to blast through this though and have a healthy tank.

The fry will almost certainly be fine! I wormed mine when some fry were only two days old. They're still doing well and growing The fry are at much greater risk from the worms than the medication, in my experience. So I wouldn't mess around with half dosing.

A lot of meds aren't safe for shrimp or inverts, since a lot of the meds are meant to kill parasites and so also have an affect on inverts and snails because of their physiology, but that doesn't mean it's higher risk for the fry.

I did find the eSHa meds to be shrimp safe enough, and they certainly didn't kill off my pest snails either.

 

[AilyNC]

Great thanks. Full dose it is. I've just gotten the temp lower after ich treatment so hopefully now things will settle.

 

[Colin_T]

Wait until the fry are a month old then use full dose. If the fry freak out do a partial water change.

 

[AilyNC]

Wait until the fry are a month old then use full dose. If the fry freak out do a partial water change.

Oops I did use full strength. The bulk of dry are old enough but everyone seemed fine. I've only done one dose so far.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Wait until the fry are a month old then use full dose. If the fry freak out do a partial water change.

Can I ask why you should wait until they're a month old? Only because I wormed a load when there were newborns in there too, since fry between 1-2 months old were dying off before I was able to determine that it was worms, and with the way livebearers are, I didn't think there would be a gap coming up where there wouldn't be any young fry either. The adults who were struggling wouldn't have lasted another month without treatment I don't think. They didn't seem to suffer any ill effects from the worming.

 

[Colin_T]

Normally you try not to use chemicals on baby animals, birds or fish because they haven't developed yet and are more sensitive to chemicals. However, if the weren't affected by a full dose, then that should be fine.

If fish have intestinal worms, then feeding them more often will provide them with more nutrition so they can produce more blood and survive longer whilst infected.

 

[AilyNC]

Normally you try not to use chemicals on baby animals, birds or fish because they haven't developed yet and are more sensitive to chemicals. However, if the weren't affected by a full dose, then that should be fine.

If fish have intestinal worms, then feeding them more often will provide them with more nutrition so they can produce more blood and survive longer whilst infected.

Great thanks. It's white stringy poop that's improving with treatment. I see the ICH is back (after two attempts of 2 week high temps, one interupted by power cut). @Colin_T is it ok to raise temp to 30 degrees while also treating worms? Wondering if higher temp plus medication might be a conflict. I've just given second work dose & seen the ICH is back

 

[Lajos_Detari]

Great thanks. It's white stringy poop that's improving with treatment. I see the ICH is back (after two attempts of 2 week high temps, one interupted by power cut). @Colin_T is it ok to raise temp to 30 degrees while also treating worms? Wondering if higher temp plus medication might be a conflict. I've just given second work dose & seen the ICH is back

It should be fine to use Flubendazole with heat at 30degC.
Make sure you have much aeration as the oxygen level will be lower at 30C plus the medication.
The heat and the medication will reduce the oxygen level in the water.

Some Discus keepers used very high heat (up to 31C or higher) to kill the worms instead of Flubendazole.
But it's better not to use this method as some fish may not be able to take this high temperature.

From my experience, Flubendazole is effective to kill internal worms though it may take slightly longer for some cases.

How long did you treat the ich?
Usually after all the white spots are gone, you still need to treat for about 7-10 days to kill the remaining eggs.

Also, monitor the effectiveness with heat treatment.
There are some strains of ich that may be resistant to heat.