Just to spice things up...More borelli prob.

[AdamR]

Hi again

Im having a great day.... My male borelli died today (euthanasia) and now my female who was looking after her eggs, is out and about and has what looks to be internal worms. I have had both of these fish for what would be close to a year now and no problems what-so-ever and now 2 probs within a week.

I recently had a case of internal worms with a bolivian ram (again one of my fish ive had over a year with no problems at all). The ram was in a different tank.

Does anyone know what causes the worms? Whether they stay in a tank or not? Whether they will die without a host? How they would find hosts? WTF im doing wrong lately?

Im incredible frustrated with my fish right now.

[Kribbie]

Hi Adam,

I'm sorry to hear about your fish situations atm. In regards to the internal worms, do you mean a type of worm that's called "Camellanus"? This is a type of common internal worms which they look all red in colour with very thin body shape. They always hang themselves outside the anus of the infected fish and will suck the host's blood as their diet, causing the fish to be very skinny and eventually died if it is seriously infected.

Let us know on whether this is the worms that you are questioning, and we'll see what we can help to save your female borellii.

HTH,

Heidi

[Rod54]

Sterazin seems to be the best treatment for worms? it's not cheap and you could probably buy a new pair of Borelli for the same price?

There are all sorts of diseases bacteria and parasites that live with our fish in small numbers....if the fish get stressed the baddies can take advantage and multiply rapidly...voila...sick fish. it is frustrating but if you keep fish and have never had problems then the fish are probably plastic!

[AdamR]

Thanks for the quick response. Krisbbie that is exactly what they are. I was reading the book Cichlid Atlas by Uwe Romer. He suggests that the apistos are more susceptable to worm medicine than the worms. Has anyone else heard that?

And what else do we know about "Camellanus"?

Thanks for the support and quick responses.

Adam

[Kribbie]

Yep. You are correct. Apisto species are quite sensitive to a lot of medicines..they are just like the catfish species where you really need to becareful when you need to use medicines on them.

From my past experiences, I've found that sterazin is very effective in treating gill and/or body flukes, but I've tried to use it to treat camellanus on my infected guppies, there seem to be no use at all. There's a medicine called "Flagyl" which targets on removing any kinds of internal worms to be very effective in treating camellanus. I've bought 2 tablets from St. George Aquarium and it costs around $1.XX for each tablet.

Firstly, you need to isolate ALL your fish from the original tank into a bare bottom hospital tank, then squash the tablet into power and mix it with some frozen food (eg. frozen brine shrimp) followed by feed them to your fish. But you need to ask the aff about correct dosage since it depends on how many litres of water you've got in the tank.

The worms will be removed from the host body, then eventually will fall to the tank bottom. When you see there are worms on the bottom of the tank, you need to remove them ASAP since the fish might eat them quicker than you can remove them. You need to repeat the treatment for a few days to ensure all the worms are removed from the host, but you also need to do water changes as well as the same thing to your original tank since there might be worm eggs ciculating around in the water.

I hope these information can helps and good luck with your borellii. I really hope that she can get over it and continue to live on.

Heidi

[AdamR]

Thanks for the Reply. Would this suggest i have a possibility of having them spread in my tank already? Well most likely both tanks. Any ideas of how to fix this, taking into account i have possibly only one tank i could set up as a spare.Do you know how i can prevent further infestations in these tanks.

My final problem, if i take her out ill lose the eggs. Is there any way to keep eggs algea free, and likely to hatch without the mother?

Adam

Thanks again Kribbie

[Kribbie]

Yea..I think there is a great chance that these worms are already beening spreaded in your tanks. How many infected fish you've got atm in each tank and are these tanks linked with each other? Because when you can notice there're something red hanging outside the fish anus, it means that the worms are already mature and be able to reproduce. As you might have noticed, there are always at least 2 worms you can see hanging outside of the fish anus, it usually is a pair of adult worms and if time prolongs smaller camellanus will grow inside the fish intestine and the population will increase in a short period of time.

My sugguestion is that maybe you can try to empty one of the tank, then put all the infected fish into that tank for treatment. As for the female borellii who's looking after her eggs atm, is she heavily infected? I suggest you should wait until the eggs are hatched then isolate her immediately for treatment, since it only takes a few days for the eggs to hatch. If she still eats, it means that her health is not that bad , but should do the treatment ASAP though...

Or...there's another option maybe you can have a try. Take out the mother from her cave, then take out the whole cave where the eggs are in and place it in a fry saver/small tank (with original tank water) and make sure that the water in it is circulated with oxgyen to prevent fungus growth on the eggs.

As for to prevent further infestations, you need to make sure that the infected fish are free of worms after the treatment before you put them back into your tanks. This is usually done by leaving the fish in the hospital tank for a longer period of time (about a month or two). Try not to feed them with live / non-sterilized frozen worms (eg. blood worms) as these are the major sources to cause camellanus infection.

I've got something to show you, these pics were taken from my infected female guppy. I bought this female from an LFS, but didn't notice it got worms until I got home. She was heavily infected with the worms and finally I needed to frozen it to minimize the chance of transimition to other fish. This was what I've found inside her gut:

As well as these:

[AdamR]

Those are the worms. Ive had one fish in each tank, the tanks are totally seperate. Could this be from live black worms? I have been feeding them these lately, or from wrigglers (only over the past 2 weeks) (my ram died about 3 weeks ago).

My next question is if i remove the borelli (only infected fish in that tank) what are the chances of any other fish becoming infected. By removing her am i removing the problem. She seems to be moderately infected, the ram was crazy and had at least 12-14 heads worms visable, whereas she has maybe 3.

So for now my plan of attack is remove and treat her as soon as the eggs hatch.

Thank you for your patience,

Adam

[Kribbie]

If you can see at least 12-14 worms visable from the ram, there is a great possiblity that all (or at least 80%) of the other fish in the same tank are already being infected. Feeding fish with live worms is always risky since the worms are contaminated with alot of bacteria and parasites that human eyes cannot see without a microscope.

When you are doing treatment, you also need to clean all the accessories you've tank in the tank, and boil the substrate to kill any worm eggs remain hidden in the gravel. In other words, you need to restart the whole tank and set it up again without any original water left in the tank. Well...I know it is very troublesome but if you want to save your fish, then you really have to do it.

Hope everything will be fine for you and please keep on track for how you go with them during the treatment.

HTH,

Heidi

[AdamR]

Thanks Heidi,

I apprieciate the help. Ive been constantly checking the fish and cant find anything wrong with any of the others. Im going to ask around a few other places for advice (no offence, i just like to arm myself with as much as possible before i do anything). I cannot find any info on the net regarding Camellanus on the net. Is there a more common name for it?

Im pretty stressed regarding this right now, i dont have room for all the stuff in my tank to go else where, whilst im fixing it, i dont have room for the fish in any tanks. im right at the end of my uni semester (exams etc) so im going to try find other options i have first before taking the tank down.

In a couple of words..."this sucks"

[Kribbie]

There's another name (oh..well, I should say 'spelling' maybe?) of this type of worm, it's called "Camallanus cotti". Type in this name in google and you'll see more links that you can take a look.

[AdamR]

Just to let you know of what is going on. Ive asked around a few knowledgable people and ive decided to go with Sterazin. Im dosing that in both tanks over the following 10 days. I apprieciate your advice, i thought id try what most of them suggested before taking the tank apart. Thank you so much for you help. I will tell you how things go.

Thank you Heidi and all the people who have helped me over the past week.

Adam *fingers crossed*

[Kribbie]

No worries, Adam. You can first try the sterazin and see how she goes, if it doesn't work on her..it still won't be too late to try other methods.

[Ant]

Here is a topic that may help you:

http://ace.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=11343

[Ant]

The technique (using the tablets) to treat takes several goes to master because the person treating MUST get the fish to ingest the treatment other wise it WONT work. If the fish has lost it's appetite it is basically dead as it sits and too far gone to survive.

What a lot of people do is treat once and it doesn't work, so they throw out the medication because they won't persevere and try again and again. It's not easy but it works. It took me about 6 goes to successfully treat my discus for the first time. After that i was able to get the discus to ingest the medication every single time as i knew the technique.

A mistake people make is to leave filter sponges in their filters and/or carbon

Another mistake people make is to not repeat the dose to rid the tank of re occurring infection

Another mistake people make is to not do a big 50-60% water change 2 days after treatment.

I am a bit sceptical of Sterazin as i don't know the active ingredient and it isn't ingested.

[AdamR]

I havent taken out the sponges from my canister, should i? I have taken out my purigen. I do plan to do all 10 doses. I did a 30% change before adding it. And fed the fish at the same time as putting in the chemical. I gave both tanks a large gravel clean as well. If you would advise takin out the sponges ill do that tomorrow.

...........And here i was thinking fish were ment to be a stress release hey........

Thanks again Both of you. Im going to try do the full doses, and if i have any problems afterwards i will try different methods.

Just to lay another idea on the table, yesterday i called all the shops where i trusted someones opinion and asked them waht to do. One suggested soaking the food in reptile de-wormers, anyone have any suggestions towards this?

Adam

[Kribbie]

Yea...maybe you should take out the sponges from your canister since the removed worms might be sucked into the filter and the cycle might restarts again. Since sterazin nor flagyl can kill the worms, their function is just to anesthetize the worms and let the fish to remove them along with the poo. In other words, it means that the worms are still alive at that moment and if there's another fish / the same fish see it during the dropping, there's a great chance that the worms will go back inside to the same/new host and reproduce again. You need to make sure that everytime you do water change also perform a full gravel cleaning.

As for the reptile de-wormers, I'm not really sure about this since I'm not a reptile person. I think someone in this herp forum might help you though? But what questioning me is that if you want to try to soak the food in reptile de-wormers, then why don't you try to soak the food in sterazin for a few mins and then feed them to your fish? No offence, just a question out of curiosity.

HTH,

Heidi

[AdamR]

Thanks, im going to take out the foam.

So the suggestions are.....

1.) water change each day/or medication (with a vac)

2.) and marinate the food in the medication to help ensure they digest it

Thanks again for help and suggestions. I do appreciate it.

[Ant]

Using the worm feeders is the trick and the live blackworms, most fish scoff it like theirs no tommorow. If you can't get it you can use other foods in the feeder. You may figure out your own way of getting them to ingest it, as long as they ingest it. Also be sure to remove any bottom feeders because they can over dose on the medication.

Anthony

[AdamR]

Thanks for the reply Anthony.

Im currently on day 5 of treatment. Things seem to be going ok. Ive been changing water everyday........Very sick of water changes right about now. I figured even tho the ground dwellers are more sensitive chances are if anything would pick up worms/eggs on the gravel its them so they need to be treated as well. Anyways ive been keeping a close eye on them.

About ingesting, i put live black worms in the medicine, and then pour the med in. I think it is a sufficient way of doing this.

Thanks agian for the help.

Adam

[Ant]

Good work mate. Keeps us up to date.

Anthony

[AdamR]

Just an update. Yesterday concluded my final dosing. I have been religeous with my water changes (how i hate them now). I am going to do water changes and gravel vacs until friday just to make sure. Im proud of my efforts.

I lost my borelli earlier on in the treatment. She was looking sicker and sicker. I lost 4 celebrese (sp) rainbows. Im not sure why, and 1 harliquin rasbora. All my catfish are alive, even tho i did full doses the whole way (my royal whiptail is alive!). My new pelvicachromis survived the last 4 days of treatment and look very happy about the water changes.

So over all lost a few little fish, a breeding fish, and developed the fastest waterchanges ive ever seen. Still hate them tho.

Thanks for all the help, i might treat for external parasites in a week or so. Still deciding whether its worth doing just to make sure, or whether my old method of only if i absolutely have to. We'll see.

Thanks again

Adam

[BlakeyBoyR]

Better safe than sorry right?