fish lice (argulus) and plant & snail safe treatment options?
Jay Veillard
Just the other day, I noticed this flat, clear, green thingy attached
to one of my goldfish in my pond. So I got this poor infected chap
out of the water, and scraped this thing off. As soon as I got it
off, it started scurrying around the water like a little torpedo. I
got my poor goldfish back into the pond after a quick dab of "slime
coat restorer" (novaqua). At any rate, I haven't seen any of the
other goldfish affected by this nasty little critter (fish
lice/argulus) but just to make sure I wanted to treat my pond. It's a
small pond at just under 100 gallons. There is a LOT of plant life
(water iris, elodea, water hyacinth, canna lilies, water lilies), and
a handful of fantails (3) and a few japanese trapdoor snails (maybe
4).
So, what can I use to treat this pond? I went out and bought some
Paragon but after doing some research, I found out that this stuff has
antibiotics that kill off the biofilter (bad). I also don't want to
use antibiotics if I don't have to. So I went to the LFS again (the
people there are clueless, sorry no offense to any of you LFS people),
and this time bought some "Clout." It doesn't have any antibiotics in
it however, I'm worried about the snails. Will this stuff hurt my
snails? (or even my plants for that matter?).
Does anyone have any experience with Clout or anything similar that
treats fish for argulus AND is snail+plant friendly? Am I asking for
too much here?
Thanks!
Tammie
Use Program, the dog flea treatment. Use one Large tab per 1000 gal. I
used it, it worked great, no problem with plants or Bio Filter. For
more info go to Koivet.com Tammie
William Tang
name of the bug. Here's a link incase you have not found it:
http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/argulus.htm
We had a case of it just a few weeks ago in my aunt's 1200 gal pond.
The water looked very clear since I build a big bio filter for it this
spring, so she neglected to change water and monitor the fish. In late
summer (in central valley of CA), she noticed bean sized bumps on
large fish tails and all over the 10 inch fantails.
On a Saturday afternoon, we spend hours catching the larger fishes one
by one to pull the adult sized bugs off them with a tweezer.
We found the best way to control the fish is to use a dark color, fine
net to hold the fish in just enough water to cover the body. Have a
helper cover the fish's head & eye with a hand also helps to reduce
fish fighting.
We managed to remove 150+ of these bugs from the larger koi and gold
fish (~7 12-15 in). 1/3 of them were from two slower swimming
fantails. We noticed immediate improvement in fish behavior after the
bugs are gone from their body. They are instantly more playful, swim
and feed more regularly and stoped 'flashing'.
After that, I added a few cups of salt in the water to help skin
recovery and reduce stress. Test in the bowl with the bugs show a high
level of salt is needed to kill them. We didn't have enough salt to
treat the 1,200 gal pond if I wanted to. The concentration of salt
will for sure kill all of the plants she had there too... this from
personal experience treating Ick in a smaller tank :(
I brought the bug in a cup to LFS for help. The inhouse 'expert'
mistakently identified as fluke (Gyrodactylus) but correctly
recommended a bottle of 'anchor-away' (don't remember the exact name)
that treats anchor worm as well as other larger parasites. The cost of
the 4 oz bottle powder was $20... Not enough to treat the pond twice
(recomended to treat 3 times over 3 weeks period with 30% water change
in between each treatment).
The label says it's safe with bio filter. The store expert said salt
have no effect on these bugs, but a minute later, I read from the
label that one of the two main active ingredient is NaCl >8-(, and
it's listed 1st. (I didn't reconize the other ingredient and don't
have the bottle with me.) I hate to think I just paid $20 for a bottle
of salt plus some snke oil :(
To save the other $20, I lowered the water level in the pond by a feet
(~ 2 feet left) and dumped in 1/3 of the bottle :) ... Now 4 weeks
after the treatment, we have not found any more bugs on the fish. The
water change was a pain since the pond does not have a drain.
During the treatment with the drug and salt, I removed the plants and
put them into two large tubs and added some lawn fertilizer and put
them in a bright place. The reasoning behind it is that parasites
don't survive without a host. I think 3 weeks is enought to starve the
newly hatched bugs in the warm CA weather. You can treat the plants
with bleach to be sure left over bugs are killed before you put them
back in the pond. The plants grew better in the tubs with the added
fertilizer than they did in the pond too :)
It should be a lot easier for your 100 gal pond since water change for
you is much easier. You'll have to remove the snails during
treatment... in my experience, most parasite drugs will kill snails.
Good luck!
William
Jay Veillard
like it would kill off the snails also :(.... Oh well, I can always
try to scoop out as many of the snails as possible before starting the
treatment.