White "thread" on Emperor Tetras

[DTWGulo]

Short version of the story: ordered a batch of Emperors last summer (June), all of which died in quarantine at the LFS. Images attached are what was on them. Distributor was unable to help, LFS unable to pay for a vet to diagnose. Decided to try again this year. Got 5 from the store, literally right out of the bag they were shipped in and put them in my QT tank. Two days later, one of the fish is showing similar spots.

Has anyone seen anything like this before? What is it? What successfully treated it?

Thanks in advance for any help!

PS -- the 'worm' looking things are the white thready stuff under a microscope that I have access to.

 

[Fresh2o]

Any chance that these might be anchor worms?


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[DTWGulo]

Any chance that these might be anchor worms?

Good thought, but there were no structures like the forked bit or the sort of medusa head. Also the fish didn't get better with treatment aimed at killing anchor worm. The lesions I saw also VERY easily were scraped off with a glass cover slip. They weren't attached firmly.

 

[Fresh2o]

Good thought, but there were no structures like the forked bit or the sort of medusa head. Also the fish didn't get better with treatment aimed at killing anchor worm. The lesions I saw also VERY easily were scraped off with a glass cover slip. They weren't attached firmly.

Bummer. Yes, they lack the classic anchor worm features.
Hope you get a diagnosis and treatment for this soon.


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[Delapool]

White "thread" on Emperor Tetras

I had a white, string-like 'parasite worm' on a betta which I treated at 0.8% salt roughly. I've called it a worm but I don't know what it was. It wasn't a bacterial infection as it was too long and localised. No features on it and quite small. No real signs of infection on scales around it.

Don't have a photo unfortunately.

After salt treatment seemed to wither and vanished a few days later.

 

[DTWGulo]

I had a white, string-like 'parasite worm' on a betta which I treated at 0.8% salt roughly. I've called it a worm but I don't know what it was. It wasn't a bacterial infection as it was too long and localised. No features on it and quite small. No real signs of infection on scales around it.

Don't have a photo unfortunately.

After salt treatment seemed to wither and vanished a few days later.

Thanks for the input on this! Didn't salt my tank, but I've had some success with a shotgun approach to meds. I hate doing that, as it's overkill and bad medical practice, but it saved the fish. Check out my next post...

 

[DTWGulo]

Got some help from a veterinarian. He said that there have been some nasty, difficult-to-kill bacterial infections from fish from southern farms/suppliers. Erysipelothrix bacteria, to be exact. He said they had luck with baths in oxytetracycline and erythromycin. Erysipelothrix is known for diamond skin disease in pigs, and some species are transmissible to humans. The photos I got from the microscope don't match any bacteria, not even the erysipelothrix (which are short rod-shaped bacteria), but it could be a secondary infection from a fungus or something similar once the bacteria compromises the fish.

Scary stuff. Just more support for buying fish that have been in quarantine at the LFS for a while, and for having a quarantine tank at home before you add fish to your community.

Thanks for the input, everyone. It helps the community to get information out there.

 

[Autumnsky]

Did you do a treatment of the whole tank? I would be concerned it would have left eggs in the tank or in the fish. Might want to treat with medicated flake in case of worms/parasites internally. Yuck!

 

[DTWGulo]

Spoke to the distributor of these fish. They said that sometimes, columnaris bacteria is to blame. They also felt that it could be Erysipelothrix. Suggested a combination of Furan and Oxytetracycline baths to treat it.

Thanks for all of the input, everyone! Hopefully the thread can help someone else if this comes up.

I ended up losing 3/6 of my fish, but the LFS saved all of theirs. I had some additional issues in my QT tank at the time, so I think that's why I lost a few.

 

[Delapool]

Did the worms move at all? I'm just trying to get my head around columnaris as I've never seen it look like the photos (although that's not to say it could )

 

[DTWGulo]

Nope, no movement at all. I'm thinking at this point that it's some kind of secondary infection after the primary bacterial infection on the fish. Environmental fungus or something.