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Is it necessary to deworm plecos every once in a while, eg once a year or even once every few months, to help "clean" their stomach? I know many people who are keeping discus do that, but what about plecos? Will any parasites naturally die off with good water conditions, or do they stay with the fish till they die?

Hi im not that sure but I guess its not bad to deworm your plecs once in a while. I do mine once every two months. I only use a certain fish food with deworming medecine sparyed onto it! And the medicine chloromycetin seems to be helpful especially plecs with large tommys

Hi!

It is useful to do so if you introduce new fish in the tank and have not been deworms while quarantined.
If you feed live or frozen food such as blood worms regulary it could be useful to do so as well.
Cheers
Yann

i would say that the use of deworming medication on the same fish more than during quarintine or obvious infection would be a bad idea. the more you use medicine the more resistant organisms become to it and exessive or unrequired use of deworming medication could lead to some of the same problems we are seeing with antibiotic resistant bacteria with the organisms in our fish tank and in the water sysytems we dump our waste fish tank water.

there an interesting section at: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/medica ... hardinrant