Worms coming out of guppies?

[basketballqt]

Ok guys.. Here's my story.. I have a fish tank that I have been using for guppies for a while. I'm pretty sure that it is fully cycled as I've had it for about 2 months with no nitrites or ammonia.. and my nitrate readings are good. It never actually had an ammonia spike though, so I'm not sure what's going on with that.

Anyway I've had a really hard time getting these guppies to stay alive. I'd say I've probably killed about 5 or 6 of them in the 2 months that I've had the aquarium. Long story made short, I haven't been able to figure out why they are dieing when all my readings are good...

Then this morning I went in to look at my tanks and 2 of my 3 guppies that I have some sort of worms or something hanging out of them... They aren't actually moving and they are like black in color.. maybe brown but they are really dark... I saw on here that there is a kind of worm (camallanus) that comes out of the anus area but this is coming out of their sides... by their fins. I will attatch pictures. If you know what this is PLEASEEEE help me! I need to know exactly what products to buy and how to treat it! Thanks so much in advance!

 

[Scalare]

they are certainly a parasite of some kind, could be Hydra, they do attach themselves to the fish. not sure how to get rid of them, they are pretty difficult to eradicate, hopefully someone will be able to help soon. Good Luck

Pete

 

[basketballqt]

thanks for at least a suggestion as to what it might be... I'm looking that up right now to see if it looks like something that it could be. I'm so frustrated and these worm things on the sides of both of these guppies are now a lot larger... I need to figure out what it is and treat it fast!

 

[wabbitbugs]

Could they be Anchorworm? If so, the only thing that worked for me is to yank em out with tweezers. I lost a couple of fish but got rd of the issue. Nasty buggers!

 

[basketballqt]

wabbitbugs - thanks for that suggestion. I am actually about to go to the pet store and get the stuff to treat it like it is camallanus... Then in a couple of days I will try to pick it off with tweezers... I honestly have no idea how I would get the fish to be still enough to grab the worm with tweezers, so I'm hoping that this stuff just "accidently" kills whatever I have going on in there right now! Wish me luck!!!

 

[angloe1]

Good luck! Keep us posted! I've never heard of worms that act like that but I'm pretty new to all of this!

 

[basketballqt]

ok this is what I have done so far.. I noticed that another fish had one on her so I went to the pet store and described it, he said that it sounded like anchor worm to him. He gave me ick meds that turn my entire fish tank blue and since I didn't want to put it in there, I took an old storage bin that I have and put the fish that I could tell were infected in there and treated the water. I have to leave them in it for 3 days he said, then I need to take tweezers and try to pluck these worms out..

I still have the problem tho that I have no idea how im going to get these fish to stay still enough to grab a worm that's hanging out of them and tug on it.. I guess we will see tho...

 

[wabbitbugs]

Get a small net and grab the fish in it. Bring the net to the surface but not all the way out. The fish should naturally flip to it's side and you should be able to grab the worm. They are nasty buggers though and guppies are delicate so success is far from guaranteed. The med recommended are unlikely to work in my opinion. Few other tips. Don't grab the fish directly by hand. Also anchorworms can stay in the water and find a host later so you may be in for more than one outbreak. Not sure but salt dips may work on the fish as well but I'm not that experienced with guppies so read up before you try it.

 

[Tasha]

GL!! Worms suck!!

 

[basketballqt]

Quick question for you guys.... I'm treating these fish in this makeshift hospital tank.. I noticed today that one of my fry's was practically deformed because the worm thing was bigger than him...

Anyway, i have a lot of RCS and some ghost shrimp in this tank and I feel like I probably wouldn't notice these worms on them.. can they survive on those and my snails? If so I should probably just go ahead and treat the whole aquarium I guess

 

[wabbitbugs]

Have not heard of them infecting snails and shrimp. Moreover check that the meds you are using don't have copper otherwise the inverts won't survive it.

 

[basketballqt]

ahhh okay so today I looked at my guppies and idk what happened but in the past day since I put them in my "hospital tank" and added the meds the guy at the petstore gave me, seriously there were like 10 on each fish.. They could barely move they had so many.. So I took two of my larger guppies out of the tank and pulled them all off.. These things were impossible to pull off, and now both of my guppies are bleeding and can hardly swim. I feel so awful for them..

When I looked at the worm thingys up close they were greenish in color and at the end they had a star like hook thing.. is this in face anchor worm? I attached a picture but idk if you can really tell anything by it...

 

[Tasha]

it sounds like an ancor worm.... maybe you need to google ancor worm pictures in fish and see if it looks the same to you. I hope your fishes do alright, it sounds awfull! GL

 

[wabbitbugs]

Can't tell much from the picture but the description sure did sound like anchorworm. They bury the head inside the fish and indeed hard to pull out. Looks like you have a bad outbreak. How many of ur fish have it in total?

 

[basketballqt]

Thanks Tasha! It is awful!

And it is on 4 on my fish... A lot of my other fish kept dieing randomly tho and I couldnt figure out why.. I'm guessing it had something to do with this.. I hate pet store fish =( lol After I pulled those off of the two I put them back in the main tank because I just felt so sorry for them. Hopefully it doesn't spread as there aren't any visible "worms" left on them. The other two that have it are endlers which idk if u know but they are tiny fish and when I take them out of the water they flop around like crazy! There's no way i can get them off of those..