prazi or fluketabs - salt?

[jn]

Hi all, I had some trouble a while back with some WCMM's after stupidly adding some baby shubinkins to my tank.

At the time is seemed like gill flukes. I treated with Wunder cure (malachite green. methl. blue, acriflavine, quinine).

I moved the shubunkins back into a plastic bin, took out the 2 affected WCMM's and treated them in a bucket as a 'test' (they both died from the full strength treatment). I then treated the tank and the plastic bin with a lesser does of the Wunder cure (about half strength.. stopped adding it at the first sign of discomfort! the shubunkins were happy at a higher dose than the WCMM's)

I dosed 3 times at 3-4 day intervals with 50% water changes by gravel vac between each new dose.

This was a few weeks ago. One of the WCMM's is now back to hanging out at the bottom of the tank and has gone pale with irritated looking gills (red). The gills apear to be laying flat and not swollen out.

I understand that there may have been eggs laying around and this is probably a new cycle. I want to be sure to be rid of this before I start up a bigger tank. I can repeat the wunder cure but am also prepared to try anything else. I know where I can get fluketabs and I have used prazi before on goldfish but what's best here?

(I do have sheep and am out of drench anyway so if there are any fishkeeping farmers out there with a recommendation then fire away!)

Where do I go from here? and how many times do I need to treat to ensure that's it's all gone?

[alanmin4304]

I have used neguvon at 3% for 3 minutes then treated at 0.5ppm (1ml of 1%/20litres on goldfish without problems.

[jn]

I decided to give the the sulking minnow a salt bath thinking it might help clear his gills a little and improve any treatment I might do on the whole tank. (He does actually come up to the top albeit infrequently and he is eating and swimming fine when he bothers). The other minnows stay near the top/middle.

I found a website that recommended a short bath of 20g/L (sounded like a bit much actually!) for 20 mins.

I measured out 1L of water. Dissolved 19g (electronic scale - accurate to 1g) of no-additive coarse sea-salt in a separate pottle of water (maybe about 100mls) then slowly added a very small amount of the salt mix (a couple ml's max) to the 1L of freshwater and set the timer. Within about a minute the fish lost balance and went upside down! I quickly popped him back into the tank.

Do they not tolerate salt? All up I've finding the WCMM's to not be very tolerant to additives.

I don't expect he was in the salt long enough to do any good! He's back to his previous state. Hanging around the bottom corner (opposite the filter, not at the intake). Nobody else is showing any signs of trouble, and this guy only has red gills (not laboured breathing at all). He's doesn't seem weak. Just wants to stay out of the water flow under a leaf, he swims with enough vigour when he bothers. Could he be unhappy about the cold? (it's 12 degrees, nobody else is minding)

He looked like he was flashing yesterday before I 'dipped' him but I think this was at his own relfection in the glass and almost looked more like showing off than itching (he really eyeballed his reflection before jumping at it! did it 3-4 times and then just went about eating before going back to hover in the corner) There is only 1 female to 3 males. Could he just have been 'ousted' by the others? (Maybe the 2 that died recently were his gang?)

If his red gills are just irritation from the previous problem how long would it take to heal? (I can try to take a pic but he very rarely comes up out of the plants!). Are fluketabs gentle? I've heard that prazi is pretty gentle.

This is not so much about treating the actual minnow as it is about working out how to know what's wrong and how/when to treat and what to expect.

I'm also hoping to get some more fish soon so I really want to make sure I start with a clean slate (and I am not sharing equipment between my goldfish 'bin' and my tank to be sure!)

(what I really need is to invite a fish expert over for a cup of coffee!!)

[jn]

I case anyone is still watching this, I've got drontal in the tank now.

roughly 2mg/L.

Fish don't seem to be minding at all although they weren't impressed at the extreme cloudiness at first. It seems to have settled a little though.