Fish lice treatment?

Question

I just 'diagnosed' my fish with fish lice today, since I was pretty set on the guess that they had nitrite poisoning.. but anyway. I picked off the lice with tweezers and I added a tablet of Jungle Parasite Clear to the water. I was just wondering if that is a good product to treat the tank with?

I have two goldfish and a plecostomus in a 10 gallon tank (yeah, overcrowding, I'm getting a 20 gallon tank from a friend soon), and the plecostomus doesn't have the lice. But, I also have rock decorations that I added and two fake plants in the tank.

Will treating the tank with 1 tablet per week along with a 25% water change twice a week help?

I also have Stress Coat and Aquarium Salt that I've been adding.

* It is not ich/ick. I had someone tell me that, and it's not. It's definitely fish lice.

Answer 1

the parasite clear will work but you should use more then once a week, more like once a day. Make sure that when you treat the water with the parasite clear that you remove the carbon filter as this will just filter the treatment out. As for the stress coat i also use this but just use it when you do your 25% water change.

Answer 2

Name of disease: Fish Lice.

Other names::Argulus

Type of disease:

Occurrence: Very common parasite, can be found in pet stores all over the world.

Symptoms include:Fish lice are one of the very few parasites that are visible with the naked eye. Easily recognized in its green disk like shape, often with 2 visible eyes, and can move around on the fish. Symptoms, besides the obviously visible disk, are scratching and rubbing against objects, and tiny red spots where the hooks held on to the body and gills.

Background:

The fish louse is a very dangerous parasite. Its hooks can go into the fishes skin and gills and causes extreme irritation. Due to the open wound the fish is suspectible to secondary infections like bacterial gill disease and ulcers. Besides the physical injuries to the fish, the constant irritation causes stress, which might lead to secondary parasite attacks like Ich and Costia. The fish lice will lay eggs all over the tank on plants and ornaments, and after a few days those mini lice will go out and try to find a host on their own. the whole process take 30-100 days, depending on the temperature. It is therfore very important, to have follow up treatments.

Treatment:Best treated with medication containing Diflubenzuron, like Anchors Away (treat as directed on the package) or Dimillin (3 times with 6 days apart). The visible fish lice should be taken off of the fishes body with tweezers, the red spot that the hooks leave behind, needs to be treated with neosporin or Panalog..

Medications: Life Bearer, Anchors Away, Dimilin, and Parasite Clear (Jungle Labs).