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<br />Field tests.- No mortality or abnormal behavior was noted in any of the 30 humpback chub <br /> <br /> <br />removed from the Little Colorado River and treated in a Praziquantel bath at 1.5 mg/L for 24 h. <br /> <br /> <br />Tapeworm infestation in humpback chub from the Little Colorado River was highly variable. <br /> <br /> <br />Small humpback chub ~ 150 mm TL) had few tapeworms but juvenile and adult humpback <br /> <br /> <br />chub infestation was highly variable from 0 to 183 worms per fish (Figure 1). Tapeworm <br /> <br /> <br />infestation appeared to increase dramatically in fish >200 mm TL. <br /> <br />Discussion <br /> <br />Commonly used low dosages ofPraziquantel (0.7 mg/L) are inadequate to remove 100% of <br /> <br />Asian tapeworm. Although tapeworms are removed at these dosages some tapeworms <br /> <br />commonly survive treatment within the host (Table 3&4). The minimum effective dosage is 1.5 <br /> <br />mg/L and minimum effective duration of treatment is 24 hrs. Even at very high dosages (36 <br /> <br />mg/L) one bonytail still had 3 live tapeworms after a 24-h treatment (Table 4). This indicates <br /> <br />that even at high doses, Praziquantel bath treatments may not be 100 % effective at removing <br /> <br />tapeworms. In heavily infected fish some tapeworms may not be exposed to the drug and <br /> <br />survive treatment (Mitchell 2004). Fish that are being treated prior to translocation into areas <br /> <br />where Asian tapeworm is not present should probably be treated multiple times to ensure no <br /> <br />tapeworms survive treatment. No more than 65g offish per liter of water should be used in bath <br /> <br />treatments (UDAF 1987) because fish density has been documented to impact treatment <br /> <br />effectiveness (Mitchell 2004). Fish biomass loads during our tests were all below Ig offish per <br /> <br />liter of water so it is unlikely that fish densities affected our results. <br /> <br />Mitchell (1995) indicates higher dosages of Praziquantel and shorter holding times may be <br /> <br />equally effective at removing tapeworms. Our results show some evidence that higher dosages <br /> <br />of Praziquantel do lead to slightly faster evacuation of tapeworms. It is likely that this is <br />