Started to feed frozen blood worm and now fish is sick.

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Caliban07

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I was under the impression that frozen blood worm carried no risk of disease. This is the second time of starting to feed regular bloodworm (twice a week) that I have noticed poor health in my neons.

Two of my ten neons are turning white as the parasite/bacteria eats away it's flesh from the inside and one now has erratic breathing. The first time this happened the disease cleared up on its own after I stopped feeding bloodworm but this time I have my doubts.

I know NTD can be contracted this way and the symptoms match.

Everything runs fine when I just feed dry food. I try to add variety and now this.

My water parameters are fine and I keep up on the maintenance changing 30% a week. The tank is under stocked and is filtered with a fluval 206 it's a 47 US gallon.

Anybody else had problems with live foods and disease?


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Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. I would doubt that it's the frozen foods causing sickness in your fish.

If you didn't do anything to medicate then it's possible however unlikely that if there was a parasitic infection that it still lives in the tank. Possibly the different food is more nutritious to the parasite allowing it to thrive more easily.

Do you thaw out the food before feeding them?
How do you know their flesh is being eaten away from the inside?

If you're feeding frozen blood worms then they don't carry the same risk of disease transmission as live foods. Most commonly they are sterilized in some fashion before being packaged and shipped. What brand are they?
 
Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. I would doubt that it's the frozen foods causing sickness in your fish.

If you didn't do anything to medicate then it's possible however unlikely that if there was a parasitic infection that it still lives in the tank. Possibly the different food is more nutritious to the parasite allowing it to thrive more easily.

Do you thaw out the food before feeding them?
How do you know their flesh is being eaten away from the inside?

If you're feeding frozen blood worms then they don't carry the same risk of disease transmission as live foods. Most commonly they are sterilized in some fashion before being packaged and shipped. What brand are they?


Well that is what I am trying to find out, whether or not they are risk free.

It does make sense about the nutritious bit. I can't remember the make I threw the top package away.

They are losing the pigmentation on their red patch. It is definitely a bacteria/parasite from the inside.

I thaw them out then feed via a pipette.

I don't medicate anymore or quarantine. The meds here in the UK are pants and it's debatable whether or not they are causing more harm.

Last time they looked sure to die with cotton mouth and lesions in the likeness of columnaris but they came back to full health and regained their colour. If they heal up again without being fed bloodworms I won't be feeding them again.

ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1407182276.421865.jpg

The one in the centre with the colour loss and chewed tail. Tail goes like this when muscle tissues deteriorate from inside.


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Do you have other fish/crayfish in the tank


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I also doubt it is from the blood worms. I have been using Hikari brand which they advertise as "triple sterilized" yet they don't elaborate.
I know that the majority of frozen foods are gamma irradiated to kill any pathogens.
The only way a parasite could be introduced would be as a cyst, and if it can survive the irradiation and freezing, that is one tough MOFO and we should all be scared. :eek:

I remember waaaayy back before they used gamma radiation to sterilize frozen food and you would occasionally get some nasty from it, but that was literally about 30-35 years ago and I believe it is now an industry wide practice.
 
I also doubt it is from the blood worms. I have been using Hikari brand which they advertise as "triple sterilized" yet they don't elaborate.
I know that the majority of frozen foods are gamma irradiated to kill any pathogens.
The only way a parasite could be introduced would be as a cyst, and if it can survive the irradiation and freezing, that is one tough MOFO and we should all be scared. :eek:

I remember waaaayy back before they used gamma radiation to sterilize frozen food and you would occasionally get some nasty from it, but that was literally about 30-35 years ago and I believe it is now an industry wide practice.


I totally agree with this. I have some incredible doubts it is in fact the wermz themselves.


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There are more than a few people, who I would call expert, that would never feed frozen blood worms. Their claim is that, eventually, the fish will contract a tape worm. Having said that, I feed any live ones I find to my fish. However, I know the source and they aren't coming from waters that have fish or ducks raised in them. As well, the frozen ones don't look anything like the live ones. It is highly unlikely that any food taken from waters that don't contain fish will have parasites.
 
There are more than a few people, who I would call expert, that would never feed frozen blood worms. Their claim is that, eventually, the fish will contract a tape worm. Having said that, I feed any live ones I find to my fish. However, I know the source and they aren't coming from waters that have fish or ducks raised in them. As well, the frozen ones don't look anything like the live ones. It is highly unlikely that any food taken from waters that don't contain fish will have parasites.

The problem with that is that almost all parasites including any form of tape worm is killed by the freezing process. This is why it's illegal to sell sushi in america that hasn't first been frozen and also why pork is now a much safer product.

I would assume the "triple sterilization" is a mixture of the irradiation, UV sterilization, and deep freezing to kill anything living.
 
There are more than a few people, who I would call expert, that would never feed frozen blood worms. Their claim is that, eventually, the fish will contract a tape worm. Having said that, I feed any live ones I find to my fish. However, I know the source and they aren't coming from waters that have fish or ducks raised in them. As well, the frozen ones don't look anything like the live ones. It is highly unlikely that any food taken from waters that don't contain fish will have parasites.

You are making some rather big assumptions there.
and a fish contracting a tapeworm from frozen food...:ROFLMAO:

Maybe you should read up on them and their lifecycle;
Diphyllobothrium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I feel much better now that I know I'm feeding my fish irradiated food sources...lol

There's a lot of information on wiki about this process saying that it may alter the chemical makeup of the product reducing nutritional benefit. It's only practiced in 50 countries worldwide and even then most limit it to herbs, spices and fruit and the doses varies.

It does say that chemical alteration of food is not unique to irradiation as this happens In cooking etc.

The bloodworms I use are made by nutra and advertised as gamma irradiated.




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I only feed two freeze worms to my betta fish. While she does love them, it's not the only food that she gets.
 
Out of interest do they poop ok? If nothing else had changed apart from blood worms, could it be they just don't appreciate the diet change? The raggedness to the colouring is quite odd, don't think I've seen that before.
 
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