Albino BN Pleco red things near vent

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Linwood

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Cape Coral, Florida
We have a very healthy and happy appearing albino BN pleco, who is in a community tank with other plecos, all of whom are happy and some (not sure exactly who) is breeding and having babies.

This (only) albino has something very regular and red in his vent.

This doesn't look like parasites -- at least if they are, they are very regular (all the same length), they move together and stay pretty well aligned. In this photo they are a bit irregular looking but most of the time they stay aligned.

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I have been unable to see under any of the others - they have chosen not to get on the glass in the last day, at least when I was looking. And they are pretty hard to catch due to lots of plants.

Is this just some kind of blood-filled normal part of the body showing in stark contrast to the body?

Or do I have some kind of parasite?
 
Very curious as I have these fish too. Following

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I Wish I Could help.. Looks Either Totally Natural or Scary infected. I'd just like to say that this is the best diagnostic tool one can provide in a post, ample explanation and a bangin pic.. ewwwwwww.

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I ...bangin pic.. ewwwwwww.

Yeah, photography I can do. Raising fish not so much. :hide:

I did get a look (not a pick) briefly at a reglar pleco, and nothing red appeared. Not sure if I am reassured (they aren't all infected), or worried (since this one is different it's bad), or just the lack of transparent skin means I can't see the same stuff.
 
I have the albino bn plecos as well and I have never seen anything like that in my females. (I only have females) I did try googling pleco gonads to see if this has something to do with the reproductive system and I couldn't find any pics during a quick search.
 
These possibly look like Camallanus worms to me?? Google to check if it fits what you are seeing in your fish etc. Hope this helps.


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Found this on web when looking up Camallanus worms......looks very similar? ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1418868613.229073.jpg


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Found this lin.. good luck:(

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It does look similar, though these are very short in comparison. Checking other fish.

Treatments appear inconclusive, every one I find that someone says works someone else says doesn't.

Still reading...
 
Well, shoot... I see it in two angel fish now for sure.

I also lost two serpae tetras over recent months to just a general wasting, which is consistent (though no sign of worms). may be related.

Unfortunately - thinking all were healthy -- I exchanged fish between my two tanks, and now definitely have it in both.

Time to find some de-wormer I guess. Not good.
 
Sorry to hear that :-/ I haven't treated this before but hopefully someone who has can give some tips. Good luck!


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Camallanus worms for sure. Get a dog dewormer like fenbendazole. Many camallanus worms are now resistant to metronidazole and praziquantel. Antibiotics and antifungals do not work on these worms. You can try praziquantel but if you will buy a drug, go buy fenbendazole or similar -azole worm killer. Amazon sells fenbendazole goat dewormer which works and is already in liquid form. Most fenbendazole is in powder or tablet form, very hard to dissolve properly in tank water.
 
If you are going to go with the above suggestion, maybe try to find it at Tractor Supply if you are not in an urban area. I bet they have goat dewormer there.
 
Hate to be negative but from what I have heard and read about these worms you are better off just dumping your whole tank and start from scratch....I feel bad for the fish but it seems borderline incurable. .people have spent allot of time and money trying to get rid of these things only to have them come back....they drop tons of eggs in your gravel and when they are born they pop up and wiggle around till you fish ingest them and start the whole cycle over again...my advice Start over....sorry for your situation.... I feel for you....I would be freaking out right now if it were me...

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Camallanus worms for sure. Get a dog dewormer like fenbendazole.

The problem as I understand it is fenbendazole is mixed into the food. I have 3 kinds of algae eaters plus super-aggressive eaters like congos and angels in the same tank. If I dose food, the congos will OD and the (for example) SAE's will get none.

I'm trying to get Levamisole HCL, which can be mixed in the water as a bath. i have some on order, supposed to be here today but given the holiday (and I think the guy exaggerated on shipping speed) my guess is sometime next week.

Have driven all over looking for it in feed stores, without luck. Also asked a local vet.

I do have a couple more to check but I think ordering is all I can do.

If you are going to go with the above suggestion, maybe try to find it at Tractor Supply if you are not in an urban area. I bet they have goat dewormer there.

I called but no luck; plan to drive out there sometime today and look, but am not hopeful on the Levamisole. I suspect I can get Fenbendazole, but as mentioned... and a bit concerned about dosing with both.

Hate to be negative but from what I have heard and read about these worms you are better off just dumping your whole tank and start from scratch....

I had previously read all those stories when I had Ich (was reading everything I could find) and thinking "gee, ich is not so bad". Cleared up nicely even, but yes... that was my first thought.

One thing I cannot find definitive information though... with ich, it does off (at higher temps) in a week or two if there are no fish. So one could save the tank.

Does Camallanus? For sure? Anyone know?

Sad though it may be, I'd much rather loose JUST the fish and start over, and save all the plants (etc). Disinfecting (for example) a huge piece of driftwood is going to be tough.

Going to try a round of Levamisole if I can get any. But this may be a "dump and start over".

of course, not knowing where they came from (and the very long incubation time) makes it hard to know if I can avoid it next time also. :hide:
 
Levamisole will work too and you can buy it from aquabid dot com. If I were you, I would put all fish in a tank with no gravel and no decor. Treat water with levamisole and treat all food with fenbendazole. Fenbendazole by the way will also kill anything in the water. It will eradicate all worms as long as you treat for a long duration since the worm has a life cycle that involves it being outside the fish. These dewormers will kill all worms. There are several species if camallanus worms but they will all die with these dewormers. I even used fenbendazole on detritus worms and they were completely eradicated. Finally, the good thing about these dewormers is that they do NOT harm the biofilter, plants, and scaleless fish like catfish.

The dose I use for fenbendazole is as follows:
Goat dewormer solution is 100mg/ml solution, which is basically equal to 0.1 gram/ml.

Start treatment at 0.5ml per 10 gallons. After 2 or 3 days increase to 1ml per 10 gallons by adding more fenbendazole. This is a drug that you only administer ONCE, not daily and not many times a day. After 7 days, change 90% of the water using temperature matched totally dechlorinated water so your biofilter does not die. To ensure total dechlorination use double or triple dose dechlorinator. It would be sad if you save fish from worms but kill them with chlorine or nitrite from biofilter disruption. Immediately after water change treat with medications again for another 7 days. The worms will all die after your initial treatment. The second and third rounds are to kill any larva that hatch later.

As for your gravel, I would bake it in the oven at 400 degrees for 4 hours in a deep baking pan. If you prefer to treat in your planted tank with gravel, that could succeed too. I have done that on my 125 gallon dutch style planted tank and eradicated what looked like thousands of harmless (but ugly) detritus worms. This was 4 months ago. The worms died and never came back.
 
If I were you, I would put all fish in a tank with no gravel and no decor. Treat water with levamisole and treat all food with fenbendazole. Fenbendazole by the way will also kill anything in the water.

I've got Levamisole on order, hopefully it will really come (always nervous dealing with paypal and these individual actors as opposed to real stores, but hoping).

I picked up Fenbendazole as a paste (10% if I recall), and will try to soak some food when I can get home for more than 2 minutes. I just don't have hope for it getting into the algae eaters. Even algae tabs tend to get eaten by snails more than them.

Just to the comments about taking the fish out -- not going to happen. I do have one small tank where it may be possible, but the 220G is heavily planted in places, plus rock and (tied down) large driftwood. I've tried catching fish in there before and other than angels and the tetras, I just can't do it short of destroying the plants. The SAE's are too fast, the plecos are too good at hiding. And it's the plecos who are showing the worst symptoms.

I also don't understand what that buys me if the parasite is in the water (in various stages), as even if I could treat the fish in a separate tank successfully, as soon as I introduce them back I assume they get re-infected, if I don't treat the tank completely.

So either this can be done in place (at least in the big tank), or I'll have to steralize and start over.

I'm assuming I could just pull up and discard all the plants and soft filter media, then run a strong chlorine solution through the tank for several hours, stiring the sand. That should kill just about anything and everything. Then rinse with a few water changes and dechlorinator, empty and refil a final time and start the cycle over.

Just hope it doesn't come to that.

By the way -- I use RODI water so water changes are problematic when people say things like 90% of the water. So I'm handicapped there also. I can probably store 130 gallons in a pinch to change at once, the balance gets made about 75G per day. If steralizing the tank I'd use tap water for the initial rinses, then fill the last time with RODI water, but the idea (as some have said elsewhere) of doing 90-100% water changes every few days just isn't going to happen either.
 
Aww man lin, major bummer here.. real sorry.. hope this treatment works and the tank can remain intact.. I'm following. Don't sweat paypal transactions, they reap swift justice on crap vendors/sellers..

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Just to the comments about taking the fish out -- not going to happen. I do have one small tank where it may be possible, but the 220G is heavily planted in places, plus rock and (tied down) large driftwood. I've tried catching fish in there before and other than angels and the tetras, I just can't do it short of destroying the plants. The SAE's are too fast, the plecos are too good at hiding. And it's the plecos who are showing the worst symptoms.

I also don't understand what that buys me if the parasite is in the water (in various stages), as even if I could treat the fish in a separate tank successfully, as soon as I introduce them back I assume they get re-infected, if I don't treat the tank completely.

The reason I advocated moving all fish to a bare glass hospital tank is to allow you to completely break down and sterilize the display tank (for example, bake the gravel in the oven and dip all plants in hydrogen peroxide mix). Going this route, you will need to nitrogen cycle the main tank all over again. No point preserving a biofilter that is infected with worm eggs.

Alternatively you can treat the main tank with all its plants and gravel. The only potential drawback is that the gravel (if deep enough) may prevent extermination of all worms and larva. Water flow is very poor in the bottom of a deep gravel bed and the medication might not reach these locations and continue to harbor worms.
 
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