Help- complicated anchor worm case

[emmasH]

Tank size: 30 litres, just an air pump filter with a spray bar, a full spectrum light for the plants and a water heater.
pH: EDIT(7.6) misread it earlier as 6.8 (see below)
ammonia: 0.25ppm
nitrite: 0ppm
nitrate: 5ppm
kH: about 60ppm (I use test strips for kH, the value is between 40-80ppm)
gH: about 70ppm (I use test strips for gH, the value is a tiny bit darker than 60ppm)
tank temp: 24 degrees C
Weekly water change of 25-30% (volume depends on dirtyness tbh)
Dosed weekly with Flourish seachem for the plants, no other added chemicals apart from the water conditioner (Bioactive Tapsafe plus).

My planted nano-tank is new, as in I set it up in late March, cycled (fishless) through to mid-April, added plants and then added 5x dwarf cherry shrimp, 3x Amano shrimp and 2x horned Nerite snails. I then waited a month (3 weeks), before last Tuesday (12/05/20) I added 5 male guppies, delivered from a well-known UK fish store. They all looked healthy and settled in to the tank well after acclimation, displaying typical guppy behaviour and feeding well (Hikari micro pellets and veg).

This morning I noticed that the largest male had something sticking out of his gill. It looked like a forked stick. I assumed it was a worm and research showed it was indeed and anchor worm.

I've removed the worm using forceps, luckily he is a calm guppy and allowed me to do this although I am worried about the effect of the stress on him The other fish were constantly chasing him and nipping at the worm, which is why I chose to remove it. I noticed after removal that he has another tiny stick-like object between his anal fin and his tail. Not sure if this is another worm. I can't remove it (too small to grip). Apart from this, he has no other symptoms. He's eating, pooping and behaving as normal. There is no lesion around where the worm was attached, but considering it was coming out from the gill, it was probably attached inside the gill so he may have an internal lesion. His gill looks OK from the outside.

I know now that due to the life cycle of anchor worms, and the fact that my aquarium hadn't had anything new added for 3 weeks, that he probably came with the worm already inside of him. This means that my tank might now have larvae/eggs in the water column, also the other guppies might have anchor worms too. I need to treat the whole tank, including all of the guppies. I plan on using Lice-Solve from Vetark, (formerly known as Mectinsol, contains 1.4% emamectin) and then possibly something else if the recommended two treatments of that don't work. I'm going to remove the shrimp and snails into a different tank before treatment, and return them after 48hrs, when the drug should have degraded, and after a large (50%?) water change. Will this be OK or will there still be a risk that the shrimp and snails will be affected by the drug?

Also, should I like.... tell the company that their fish had anchor worm? I don't want a refund or anything, I'm just a bit bothered that they're sending wormy fish to people.

I don't have a photo of the large worm as I acted fast. I can 100% say it was anchor worm (former marine & freshwater biologist). The smaller maybe-worm is way too small to capture on camera.

Thanks so much to anyone with advice in advance!!!!

 

[Salty&Onion]

Your pH is too low for guppies. They are hard water fish not soft water.
And your tank is not cycled, you should be getting 0ppm of ammonia, although .25ppm is not potentially deadly to fish, but still.

 

[emmasH]

Your pH is too low for guppies. They are hard water fish not soft water.
And your tank is not cycled, you should be getting 0ppm of ammonia, although .25ppm is not potentially deadly to fish, but still.

All the sources I can find say 6.8 is fine for guppies? However, this made me panic and actually use my test kit and not the strip to test my pH, and the good news is it's actually 7.6 and my test strips are wildly inaccurate. So we're good.

Also- the ammonia reading is literally never below this, to be fair I use the API master test kit, the lowest increment is 0.25ppm and the colour in the test tube is possibly below this. Obviously, there is some ammonia present to give a reading of over 0ppm, however I tested my tapwater and my aquarium water side-by side, tapwater on the left, and they look identical. I might be misreading the colour scale as my eyes are messed up (pics attached). If there is ammonia in my tapwater, what exactly do I do about this?

 

[Salty&Onion]

Now, your pH is fine for guppies. Ammonia in your tap water will not hurt your live stock as you're going to cycle your tank and when the cycle is done, the ammonia is going to disappear.

 

[Essjay]

In the photo your ammonia level looks the zero colour. Some people never see that yellow even in tanks that have been running trouble free for years. Sometimes it's the light the test is read under as fluorescent lights can make the liquid look greener than it really is; in other cases we can only assume that different people see the yellow colour of zero differently and that to some people the yellow in the tube has a greenish tinge.

It's not the pH that matters with livebearers like guppies, it is the hardness. Guppies should ideally be kept in water with a minimum hardness of 200 ppm. If there is only guppies in the tank, you can increase the hardness by adding something like Rift Lake cichlid salts to the new water when you do a water change - but you would need an accurate GH tester to work out how much to add. Some strip testers only go up to 180 ppm. Shrimps and snails will be OK with increased hardness.




The drug for killing the anchor worm - does it say on the pack whether it affects invertebrates? eSHa alx and Waterlife Parazin also treats crustacean parasites but their websites do not contain copies of their leaflet so I can't find out if they would affect your inverts. Maybe contact the manufacturers to ask?

I would tell the seller!

 

[Salty&Onion]

In the photo your ammonia level looks the zero colour. Some people never see that yellow even in tanks that have been running trouble free for years. Sometimes it's the light the test is read under as fluorescent lights can make the liquid look greener than it really is; in other cases we can only assume that different people see the yellow colour of zero differently and that to some people the yellow in the tube has a greenish tinge.

It's not the pH that matters with livebearers like guppies, it is the hardness. Guppies should ideally be kept in water with a minimum hardness of 200 ppm. If there is only guppies in the tank, you can increase the hardness by adding something like Rift Lake cichlid salts to the new water when you do a water change - but you would need an accurate GH tester to work out how much to add. Some strip testers only go up to 180 ppm. Shrimps and snails will be OK with increased hardness.




The drug for killing the anchor worm - does it say on the pack whether it affects invertebrates? eSHa alx and Waterlife Parazin also treats crustacean parasites but their websites do not contain copies of their leaflet so I can't find out if they would affect your inverts. Maybe contact the manufacturers to ask?

I would tell the seller!

Essjay has explained this better than I would

 

[emmasH]

Yeah, I'm unable to see well in low light conditions (and also paranoid), my house lights are therefore super bright. So I'm probably reading green where there isn't any. I read about some issues with the API test showing ambiguous results for some people between 0ppm and 0.25 ppm elsewhere, I guess that's what is happening with me. I should get a more accurate test.
I'll work on raising the hardness then- I wasn't aware of that so thank you! I'll also buy a gH and kH specific test kit, and stop using these rubbish test strips!

The manufacturer doesn't say anything about the effect on inverts, and I can't find any info elsewhere about the specific product. There's been some scientific studies on the active ingredient, and it looks like it does harm wild shrimp and prawns, as well as zooplankton, so I'm imagining it's not great for the shrimp and snails.

I think what concerns me is that even after the active ingredient is rendered inactive and water change is performed, putting the shrimp and snails back into the aquarium could still be dangerous to them? There will still be a small amount of the chemical in the water, so I was wondering if anyone else here had used it in a similar situation and had inverts dying off etc. I'll look into alternative drugs you mentioned above, though I'm pretty sure most pesticides used to treat anchor worm will be dangerous to shrimp and snails.

I also am aware that the fish have just undergone a pretty stressful event (shipping) and that the drug could harm them due to this. I suppose they could also be stressed by the low gH too But also, an anchor worm infestation will also harm them so I can't exactly not treat it. Urgh.

 

[Salty&Onion]

The manufacturer doesn't say anything about the effect on inverts, and I can't find any info elsewhere about the specific product. There's been some scientific studies on the active ingredient, and it looks like it does harm wild shrimp and prawns, as well as zooplankton, so I'm imagining it's not great for the shrimp and snails.

Do they mention ingredients? It could contain Copper which is deadly to snails and shrimp. You always can ask about the meds here on TFF.

 

[Colin_T]

You can treat anchorworm with salt. If you only have livebearers in the tank, add 4 heaped tablespoons of rock salt, sea salt, or swimming pool salt for every 20 litres (5 gallons) of tank water. Keep the salt in there for 4 weeks then stop adding salt.

If you have other types of fish in the tank, then use 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres instead of 4 heaped tablespoons. 2 heaped tablespoons might not work but should.

If you do water changes while using salt, add salt to the new water before adding it to the tank so the salinity (salt level) in the tank remains stable.

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I would contact the shop you bought the fish from and let them know their guppies have anchorworm.

 

[Essjay]

Thanks Colin, I was hoping you'd know a non-medication way of getting rid of anchor worms

 

[Salty&Onion]

Thanks Colin, I was hoping you'd know a non-medication way of getting rid of anchor worms

I knew the salt method... Does it count?

 

[Essjay]

Ah but Colin beat you to it

I know that salt can help with many conditions, but I didn't know if it would help with anchor worms.

 

[Salty&Onion]

I did know about the salt method, but just wasn't sure if I would be right.
I did lots of research on fish diseases about a year ago, and did find some inaccurate information about fish diseases, but learned about it through time.

 

[emmasH]

Thanks everyone! I'll definitely let the shop know then. I already have aquarium salt, I'm guessing that nerite snails will be fine with the salt, but will it harm the cherry shrimp and Amano shrimp? Especially if it needs to be salty for a month?

 

[Essjay]

They should be fine.