Ich....and Some Clear Looking Little Worm!

[tinky]

Hello all!

I have a purple/yellow....umm...something chromium guy, I should know his species I'm a bad man. On to the point! Recently found some little Ich guys hitching a ride on my gobi and the chromium so I added some Copper Power...no reef. My girlfriend was looking at the purple guy and noticed a little clear worm about 1mm long...until he sucked himself into a little ball and looked like a dot again. He is by the gill and kinda F's with his eye. What do I need to do to rid the tank of these guys? Poor little Tinky (fish's name) is rubbing up on the ship frequently and I feel bad. Any info would be great, I'm frustrated with the search on this forum as the one on my car forum is a tad easier. Sorry for giving up so easily, I'm concerned and wanted to post. Thanks for the help,

Kyle
Sgt USMC

 

[WILDER]

Sounds like gill flukes to me, are the gills red and inflamed, any laboured breathing by the fish.

Read this just to be sure.
http/article.dphnet.com/cat-02/flukes.shtml

 

[andywg]

Hmm, sounds like a Pseduochromis sp to me.

Being saltwater fish I would assume it is not gill flukes as I do not know of any pathogen that can exist in both salt and freshwater (while we call it ich in marine fish, it is in fact a Cryptocerns sp)

I would recommend a hyposaline treatment for the fish, it is a nice easy way to do it.

Assuming there are no inverts just drop the SG of the tank to around 1.012-1.014 for a couple of weeks through RO water changes (try and drop it by about 1.001 per day to not stress the filtrer bacteria too much. It will not have a detrimental affect on the fish, but will eradicate the pathogen.

If you have a spare tank then you can do hyposaline baths (dip the fish for up to 15 mins at a time in freshwater) to try and get rid of the pathogen, or even move the fish into another tank running at an SG of 1.012 to 1.014 to help protect the the bacteria colonies on any live rock you may have.

 

[tinky]

Thanks for the info I appreciate it. This is the current situation as I'm not home now my girlfriend was informed to put "Parasite-Clear" in the tank. The hermit crabs we had....had are no longer about 5 min after that. HOWEVER, the clear worm (gill fluke) if it was...in not on the fish anymore. BUT, the ICH is more present than ever and Copper Power has been in the tank for about 4 days now. The tank temp has been a steady 79-80, but I'm going to try to bump it up to 80-82. As for the salinity Im going to work on that but I'm kind of nervous as this is our first tank and its 6 weeks cycled. We had no problems with the tester fish....but our "keeper" fish do not look like they are going to make it. I'm somewhat thinking it was the store we got them from....not going to that store again cuzz he's shady dirty.

Secondly, if the fish die I assume that I have to replace all of my media, filters and wash all decor in the tank and start over correct???

Thanks,
Kyle

 

[WILDER]

Don't strip the tank down yet, keep going with the med and yes bump the temp up.
Increase aeration as it important with med and high temp as it reduces 02 in the tank.

 

[tinky]

Alrighty, status is that the little white Ich guys have seemed to abandon ship I can't see them. HOWEVER, the tank is soooooo dirty and the I did a water change this past monday. I guess the med stuff we added, temp rise, and lower salinity all came into play here right? The med for the fluke worms said to do a 1/4 change every two days...but the copper power said not to do anything for 4 weeks. Advice???

 

[andywg]

Let me get something straight, are you keeping saltwater or FW fishes?

If SW then don't use the gill fluke med. Gill flukes are a FW parasite and will not survive in SW. Also, make sure it is a SW ich med and not FW.

 

[tinky]

Its a saltwater tank sorry, so if it is not a gill fluke I what else was it because it was not an anchor worm either. We took our Gobi back because we didn't know that he only ate pods (Thanks LFS owner), so he'll be in a better home now since he'll be in a reef tank with pods now. Our Peusdochromis is doing A LOT BETTER!!! The Ich have gone now and the tank is cleaner since the change yesterday, we'll see how things go this week. I took some pics, do I have to have a host or can I upload them straight from my PC?

 

[andywg]

I can't help on what you saw, I'm not great on SW pathogen ID.

It may have been a pod of somesort that came in on your live rock.

Good to hear it's getting better. If you want more info on marine Ich, try this good article: http/reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php