Dear Cindy:
When treating for hydroids with fenbendazole (Panacur), it’s customary to treat the tank every other day until you have administered a total of three treatments. So if you treated the nursery tank yesterday (Monday), just leave it be today, and treat it again on Wednesday, skip Thursday, and then give it a final dose of fenbendazole on Friday. It’s a little more difficult to get consistent doses using the paste since the medication can sort of settle out within the paste, but it certainly is equally effective if you can overcome that tendency.
Sterilizing the utensils and aquarium implements in freshwater with a little Clorox bleach is fine. As long as you do that, there’s no need to soak them in fenbendazole as well. Don’t worry about hydroids getting introduced into the main tank — they don’t bother mature seahorses in the least.
Fenbendazole works great for killing worms of all sort and eradicating hydroids and certain other cnidarians, but it’s not at all effective against protozoan parasites or the usual ectoparasites that plague seahorses and other fish. So in order to cover all your bases, I would treat the fry with a series of one-hour formalin baths as previously described to eradicate any gill parasites that may be involved. (Methylene blue can be used quite safely with formalin, but I have never tried using it with fenbendazole and that may not be safe. I would avoid treating the nursery tank with methylene blue while it is being treated with the Panacur.) So I think the formalin baths are your best caption for addressing the possibility of parasites.
Best of luck providing some relief to the itching fry, Cindy!
Respectfully,
Pete Giwojna
Ocean Rider, Inc. is an Organic Hawaiian-Based Seahorse Aqua-Farm & Aquarium that Follows Strict Good Farming Practices in Raising Seahorses and Other Aquatic Life.
