How long would you treat?

[fearlessfisch]

I posted about this a while back....I have had a nasty parasite in my tank, that has been killing one fish at a time for months. The fish develop one or two pale or bloody spots on their bodies, with a tiny white thing sticking out of the middle.

I finally figured out that it must be a worm-ish parasite of some sort. It was not long enough to look like pictures of anchor worms I have seen, and for a while I wondered if it was really just a white pustule and not a parasite.

However, I did an amateur autopsy on the latest victim, and there is a perfect little hole in the middle of the spot--I am sure something is burrowing into or out of my fish.

Over the past few months I have treated with Jungle Parasite Cure, levamisole, and antibiotics, and still they were dying, one after another.

It is a slow process and only affects one fish at a time. It develops the spots with the white things, then lives for about a week after they appear. When the fish dies, its belly looks a little bit fat. Then within another week, a new fish will develop the same thing.

A few days ago I finally decided to try using Rid-Ich (formalin and malachite green). I looked at Coppersafe, but was worried about my BN pleco and corycats.

I have been treating with Rid-Ich at a half dose (found it recommended online, and had disastrous results when I treated at full dose years ago). So far the fish have had three days of it, with a 50 percent water change before each dose.

The instructions on the bottle say to treat for 3 days for ich. This is not ich, and anyway, am I not supposed to be worried about the life cycle? I am wondering if I should treat longer, given how persistent this nasty problem has been. Or should I give them a little rest between treatments? If so, how long? I realize I may be messing with my bio filter, so I will be changing water anyway. I want to keep medicating if it will help, but I also don't want to stress them out too much.

Any advice would be much appreciated. So far they are tolerating a half-dose just fine. Now I am even wondering if it is enough.

Thanks in advance for any comments.


On Edit: Ugh, I don't know if Rid-Ich is even going to work. It says on the bottle it kills protozoan parasites. I think I have a worm.

I treated with Jungle Parasite Cure for a long time and it did nothing. Levamisole didn't help.

I am at a loss.

[petunia100]

I don't know if it will help at all but I had a similar thing in my tank, that I also posted about. I wasn't sure what it was so I didn't want to put a bunch of meds in with it. I did ~3% salt baths daily for 45 minutes. I was just doing this until I saw some change and could try and treat it better. After a couple of days the red open wound healed up and I saw some other white spots on the inside of the fish. Just like the first one before it erupted through the surface. However those never came through the surface (there were two, one larger than the other), and have now gone away. I don't know if the salt killed whatever it was or just helped the fish out enough that it could take care of it. However he is looking much better and i haven't seen this spot on any other fish so I'm hoping it died before getting passed on.

[fearlessfisch]

Thanks a lot for describing this; it does sound very similar. I will look into salt as a treatment, if what I am doing now doesn't work. I don't actually have a fish to bathe now, as the last one with symptoms died and nobody else is showing symptoms yet. If it recurs, I will definitely try this.

I'm glad your fish look healthy now.

[BillD]

Malachite green is not recommended for use on scaless fish such as loaches and catfish. I would try an antiparasitic food such as that marketed by Jungle or Tetra.