Parrot fish is sick and dying

Question
QUESTION: hello,
i have a parrot fish that has been sick for the past 3 weeks. I am afraid he is going to die soon. he had white spots all over him which i believe was ich and he still has it. I treated with ich medicine and my other fish that had it are fine now. Although a few loaches and other tetras have died. Also He has these red like worms growing inside his gills, i think it is fluke so i have been treating him with fluke medicine and doing partial water changes. he mostly stays at the top of the tank but has been eating.  Today i noticed that he has like these long white strands growing on him, looks like cotton treads and like a blackish discoloration on the top of his spine. what is it? i really dont want him to suffer.

ANSWER: Hi Delisha,

My advice is to go get Prazi Pro to treat the flukes.  Treat the entire tank.  Everyone will get them eventually and the prazi pro will also kill the ich.

Once done treating the parasites, change out the water.  

Raise the temp to 80 during treatment.

Poor fish!  He sounds terribly infected.  The threads are also flukes.  You've got to treat this fish asap.  They are sucking the life out of him. :)

Ich medication has zero effect against flukes.  You need the prazi pro.

Good luck and please let me know how it goes.

PS- I found this message in a pool of messages.  The expert you originally asked must have referred it to others to answer, so I just got it this morning and am answering quick as I can.  I don't know how long it's been since you originally asked.  Either way, I got to it immediately once it has arrived.

Happy fish-keeping.

Renee

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your response Renee. I have tried Prazi Pro as well as coppersafe and the flukes are still there. Any other suggestions? My poor parrot has been sick for about 3 weeks now and is losing his appetite and lingering at the surface of the tank :(

Answer
Hi,

I'm so sorry for your fish!  He may have the super-strain of flukes that is going around the pet trade, both in saltwater and in fresh.

Horrible.

They are very resistent to things like Prazipro.  

Here is a forum thread about it.  

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1822917

I advise you to use the PraziPro for three weeks.  It will take this long to kill the little boogers, and I know that's a long time, but there isn't anything else you can do but to keep treating them and hope they die.

Read the thread in the forum above.  It talks about this situation.  They give proper dosing instructions for prazipro for this particular strain of parasites in the thread.  Please follow those dosing instructions.

I, fortunately, have not dealt with these flukes!  The advice I can give you is to use the right medication, but not what dose to use in this case.  Fortunately, one of the other experts, who is on that forum, can help you by reading his post regarding the dose.

Please don't give up.  After the flukes hatch they should die.  It takes awhile.  Sometimes with cases like this, it can take a month.

Renee