Parasites on fish (flatworms???)

[hartgirl]

I have a problem with some new fish that are in quarantine right now. My QT tank is a cycled 30 gallon and has been running a long time (0 am,0 nitrite, 20ish nitrate, 7.4ph )It seems they've got some kind of worm (I think a type of unsegmented parasitic flatworm) ....but I can't seem to find any data that confirms this. Has anyone ever had anything like this that can point me in the right direction??!! I'll post a couple of videos and the best pics I can get. Currently the fish that are alive are hard to photograph and I took the videos and pictures of the dead ones at the store where I bought them. Every person, group, forum I've asked hasn't had answers and I have been researching but no luck! I'm crossing my fingers!! From the pics it's hard to tell exactly but you're looking for the white spots that are visible through the scales, almost protruding in some cases (they look like cysts). Also, for meds I have Prazipro, metronidazole, and fenbenzadole on hand at the moment.


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[Matt68005]

I trust your diagnosis, never had a flatworm. Use some product containing praziquentel and the problem should resolve.

 

[hartgirl]

I didn't even think a parasitic flat worm even existed!? I have had three more deaths today. Did a large water change and dosed Prazi Pro. I am looking into the contradictions (I think it's safe though) to also use fenbenzadole. That drug kills callamanus worms like a pro- maybe these too....

It's gonna get pretty descriptive (ie gross) past this point....just to warm people....

The fish that died this morning had a white cyst in its chin. I kinda squeezed it a little and out popped a worm (so gross!!)

Then this afternoon back to back i lost two more. One had a cyst thing on its side near the tail and I was able to squeeze out a worm (also gross but less than the one this morning!) it was a much smaller worm.

THEN the grossest part.....the last fish that died exploded upon touching it. I don't know what fish guts look like but I am pretty convinced it was eggs or something (from the parasites or the fish idk)...


This is why we quarantine. So so so so so glad I quarantine new fish ???



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[Matt68005]

Yes, the fenbendazole or Levimasole would work for internal worms. Don't buy medicated dewormer food, it takes forever and its weak.
Get the powder from amazon and mix the appropriate amount with some bloodworms and tiny bit of water, let it absorb for 30 minutes, or an hour in the fridge, and starve them for a day before, so when they eat, all that dewormer will go right to their intestines and be absorbed, and push out the parasitic worms.
Calamunus is tough to beat, because there is a "egg" stage, like a larve, idk some weird egg or something, that are impossible to kill, and then there is the adult stage that is less deadly but slowly kills them. Levimasole and fenbendazole are two different types of drugs, and levimasole is no longer sold, tho you might be able to find some. I have heard people have better results with levimasole because it actually kills them or something, while fenbendazole *(a cattle dewormer) only paralysises them, they you got to vacuum up the worms. It is tough battle, I lost mine because I just didn't have the money, and the dewormer flake food I had only partially worked......

 

[hartgirl]

I had callamanus worms in another tank and beat them with the fenbenzadole. These are a whole different ball game! So much worse- much larger- and are appearing throughout the muscle tissue in the fish :-/




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[Matt68005]

Weird, never had that before on any fish.
Prazipro @2.5ml per ten gallons should do the trick.

 

[hartgirl]

I dosed the Prazipro yesterday and lost 5 more. It may be too late for them but I'll try. Who knows how long they've been affected....the store refunded me all the money for all the fish. We will see how many I can save! The store I got them from thinks they're leeches....still researching what these are!


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[Matt68005]

Weird. Some "mom and pop" stores can sometimes be "cool guys" but filthy and have disease problems. I got guppies from this one store, and they were really nice cool people, but their guppies had Tetrahyemena because they broght in feeders with it and I think the lady would take a few of the biggest feeders and put them in their fancy tank, I had a heck of a time figuring out what it was, quite depressing watching them die like that one at a time thinking its "columnaris" and they don't respond to meds, when the whole time it was NTD.
They eventually got closed down because of unsanitary conditions. Not saying your store is like this, just throwing that out there that some places are not the best even tho their friendly and mean well.