[rainbowbratt]

Sorry! Missed the link before.

[plaamoo]

I have ordered from Charles and he got it to me quick! I love the stuff!! Doesn't seem to bother anything in the tank other than snails, which I wanted gone anyway. I suspect they may have been hosting the parasites.
I also successfully treated camallanus with safe-guard(fenbendazole)canine wormer by intervet. I mixed it with bloodworms and fed it until the worms were gone. Then treated tank with flubedazole to be sure.

[Colin_T]

[rainbowbratt]

I've only ever used cherries for this purpose, but I also have a few other strains of shrimp to try out...... black and red crystals, and yellows--I think they are all the same shrimp, just a different color variant. Oh, and I think I have some tigers hiding out in one of my tanks--thought they died off, but found a few left in the tank when we moved the fishroom...the tigers are the 1st shrimp I've ever had trouble with. Had them almost a year and have only ever seen a couple berried females.

Had a reef tank and got a peppermint shrimp to eat some aiptasia that cropped up. Got the shrimp and within a couple days it had found all the aiptasia in the tank--there were only I think 4-5 of them, but it was a pretty good sized tank(55g) for a little shrimp to find it's way around in.

I've also used orange shrimp(it was an undescribed species when I had them, so no scientific name, but they didnt reproduce like cherries do) and amano shrimp--the oranges get to be about the same size as cherries and were adults at the time, the amanos werent much bigger than adult female cherry shrimp--I put the shrimp in the fry tanks(fry were about 2-3 weeks old) and ended up scooping them out quickly after that because they were too active for the fry. They were running all over the tank, running over fry--not eating them, but I didnt want them to harm the fry with their frenzied darting around. This is why I put smaller cherries in the fry tanks--the cherries and fry grow up together and you end up with a good sized cherry population in a few months, if you have lots of fine leaved plants....otherwise, you end up with some live foods for the fry once the fry get big enough to eat the baby cherries. Cherries grow so fast and reproduce so prolifically that the cherries could be on their 3rd generation within a few months. Pretty cool shrimp.

[rainbowfish]

You know guys, you are swatting a mosquito with a hammer, and it's on your forehead Fluke tabs work great for hydra, period. I've been using them for YEARS with not ill effects on the fry and I think I've probably produced 10x or more the amount of rainbowfish, the # of species as well as other species of fry than any of you have, with no ill effects. Don't use the amount that they suggest though. For a light infection use 1/4 of a tab per 10 gallons. For heavier infections that you need to kill right now, use 1/2 tab. Wash your hands when you are thru, just like with any meds. Use a single edge razor blade to cut the tab (carefully and safely ). You can dissolve the tab in a small glass of water and then pour it into your tank. At 1/2 tab per 10 gallons you will see the hydra start to curl almost immediately. The 1/4 tab takes a bit longer. This is the fastest, best and cheapest method for quickly removing hydra (chemically) from your aquarium. This is an old (cheap) killifish keepers trick that has been working for years, and still knocks them dead every time.

I've used it on adult rainbowfishes at full strength (one tab per 10 gallons) for external paracites, no problems. I would be more cautious on tetras and it says to avoid use on scaleless fish, ie catfish.

Flubendazole is crazy expensive compared to this cheap and safe alternative. It is a major pain in the *ss to dissolve. Like stated somewhere above you have to dissolve it in alcohol to get it into solution, which is something the seller doesn't tell you! Hot water seems to help but who knows if you aren't now breaking it down to something that is ineffective. I wouldn't use this stuff on ich or velvet either as there are other cheaper products, unless you know that your fish is sensitve to those other treatments. HOWEVER there are some parasites, especially internal ones that this product is worth it's weight in gold. So it's not a bad product, and it does work as stated but for my fish $ I'll use the cheap effective stuff and save this for the funky internal buggies. Note to fish keepers - this is a product that you should have on hand. If you have a wasting problem or suspect internal paracites this is the one to have around. Just not for hydra I recommend the same listing above for getting these meds. I don't think that there are many other places that sell it.

Cherry shrimp - These probably won't mix with Fluke tabs and certainly not clout. If you add shrimp to a tank after adding fluke tabs it would be best to change a lot of water before adding any. I guess if the cherry shrimp work as Lori claims this might be a way to produce two harvests at once. Instead of tossing them, like most of us do with excess snails you can sell them on Aquabid or sell them at your local club auction. I used small ones into fry tanks and they seemed ok, but was always kind of worried about adding adults. I've seen Amano shrimp hunt down white worms and even small daphnia so I would never trust them in a fry tank. Cherry shrimp are pretty quick too so I still wonder about using adults in a fry tank. I would have to do that experiment myself with careful watching before I would declare them harmless.

It does seem like Cherrys eat rainbowfish eggs though. I've had numerous people tell me that they've caused problems and they were pretty sure that the shrimp were eating the eggs. This is especially true for Amanos. So if you are moving a mop to a hatching tank you'll have to wait for all of the fry to hatch (7-14 days for most large rainbowfish) before pulling the mop and then adding the shrimp. Maybe I'll have to go get some more cherrys and try this out.

Gary

[Luca]

Wondering if anyone has purchased a large bottle of Fluke Tabs and would be willing to sell me 20-30 and ship USPS Priority on Monday morning? I am having trouble finding them in stock at online stores and need ASAP.

I have hydra coming out of my ears, myst be in the brine shrimp eggs.

[Colin_T]

The brand of fluke tabs I use contains Praziquantel, which is available from most vets & petshops as a dog wormer. However, if you are talking about another ingredient in a different type of fluke tabs I can't help.

And the hydra won't be coming from brineshrimp or their eggs. Hydra are purely freshwater and brineshrimp & their eggs are salty. The hydra are usually brought in on plants and don't show up until you start feeding the tank with newly hatched brineshrimp. Then the hydra get lots of nutritious food and start to multiply.

[mikev]

Prazi would not work on hydra. The active ingredient in Fluke Tabs that Luca needs is Mebendazole (cf. Flubendazole, Fenbendazole etc --- they are all slight modifications of the same molecule.)

There is an excellent chance that Fenbendazole would work too..... and it is cheap and readily available.

[Colin_T]

cool, gotcha