Angel With Worms

[jimbooo]

Hi there,

tank = rio180, heavily planted, excellent water quality. under stocked and double filtered so no apparent problems there.

i messed up a few weeks ago and had the lights on 24/7 for 3 weeks. schedule returned to normal for 3 weeks now.

this tank is at work so on coming in this morning my adult angel (see avatar) has what looks like 10 bloodworms hanging from his anus. about 2cm long. i am about to perform a 50% water change but do not know what else to do. in 3 1/2 years my fish have got whitespot once and no other problems.

any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
James

 

[Imber]

I'm in the US so I'm not absolutely sure about the meds available to you, but I do believe that the two major IP treatments in the UK are Wormer Plus and Flubenol 15. I think the flubenol is preferable because it's something that they ingest, but I've also read that people have had a hard time finding it so I don't know if it's available anymore. The wormer plus is probably your best bet unless you can find a food that treats internal parasites or a wormer that you soak the food in. In the US I would recommend getting gel-tek ultra cure px, but I don't know if that's available to you. I hope this helps!

 

[jimbooo]

thanks for the pronpt reply. i'll take a look in the LFS for those remedies you mention.

does my description sound like worms though? i cant think what else it could be. they are not wriggling though, just 10 red strands 2cm long hanging in a bunch from his swollen vent. he is eating and swimming as normal.

please could you clarify if this is infact internal worms (as far as you can without a pic obviously).

thanks again
James

 

[Thaifighter]

Hi, Jimbooo!
What your angel got is a parasitic nematod (roundworm) called Camallanus cotti!
It's a real nuisance and can be difficult to get rid off unless you got the right medicin as mentioned by Imber!
It starts with that the fish will eat small microscopic babyworms that then will thrive in the stomach of the fish and get it self attached to the inside wall of the intestines and live of the fish's blood, it can take months before you will notice anything, not until the female worms are mature about 2 cm and hang out of the anus of the fish, like red threads or spikes, they give birth to live microskopic baby worms that will infest the aquarium and be eaten by other fish!
The infected fish will eventuelly start to loose weight and slowly fade away and die, if no medication is given!
There is another medicament available called
Camacell



It's made by a Dutch firm and supposed to be active against Camallanus as well.
Only problem is that it is available in Holland, Belgium, Italy and Sweden only!

Thaifighter

 

[Tomasz]

From what I can gather from the retailer (Plymouth Discus), wormer plus is no longer the same as what was flubenol 15 as new....wormer plus is made by another company (Kusuri) and it only has 5% flubendazole in it, not 15% as Plymouth discus himself advised a few months ago in PFK as what should be used and the packing material is apparently calcium carbonate (chalk)..... he must have got a bulk discount of the new stuff and maybe lost his morals

Have a look on ebay, I saw some fish wormer advertised on there

 

[jimbooo]

right then, my angel has been moved to a 10G tank which i overdosed with flubenol. the instructions say 10x overdose is okay and the sachet does 100G of water. i have used about 3/4 of it in two stages.

he's been in there just over 24 hours now and i can still see the worms but there is one gigantic turd working it's way past the side of the worms. definatly poo and not just a big worm.

i haven't seen him poo for a week so that has to be a good thing (oh the relief lol).

unfortunatly it's now the weekend so i will leave him in there and pop into the office tomorrow to check up on him. only a fish could get me in work on a saturday lol.

thanks for the help people and i'll update this when something noticeable happens. seems to be going the right way though and i'm quite relieved.

James

 

[Polenth]

right then, my angel has been moved to a 10G tank which i overdosed with flubenol. the instructions say 10x overdose is okay and the sachet does 100G of water. i have used about 3/4 of it in two stages.

he's been in there just over 24 hours now and i can still see the worms but there is one gigantic turd working it's way past the side of the worms. definatly poo and not just a big worm.

You'd be better off treating the entire tank. If you've seen the worms, that means that every tank you've had the angel in is infected. Seeing the worms means it was a female who has now released the new generation of worms. Most likely all the fish are infected by now. You've just not seen the signs yet.

The treatment also needs to be repeated once a week for a few weeks (four weeks is a good number). This ensures that every worm is killed. Treating once risks the worms returning.

Dosing with an anti-internal bacteria med will help the fish whilst it's trying to pass the dead worms. I fed my wormed danios on a high veg diet and used interpret's anti-internal bacteria. The worms do a nasty amount of damage inside, so be ready for other problems in the following weeks. About half my fish got swim bladder problems in the week following the first worming.

 

[jimbooo]

hi there. i do realise that however the original 180L tank has at least 20 amano shrimp in it which i do not want to loose and the flubenol will kill them. there is no way i could net them out as it is really heavily planted. the only way would be a total strip down.

if i notice other infected fish (quite likley i know) then i will have to do this but only as a last resort. thanks for the veg tip. he loves brocoli (the stem we throw away!) so i will chop up some and take it into work on monday.