Sophia

awww I like my trumpet snails and they are helpful workers who stir up the sand for me! There are however some mini ramshorn snails in there that must have been attached to a plant that can die and I won't miss them! Hi Jennifer I plan on giving another dose in 7 days, then 14 as one of the books recommended and there will be larger than usual water changes once a week. The other snails don't seem to be dying so I guess if they don't die in the next day or 2 when I anticipate the drugs will be well through their system that it must be reasonably OK. This morning there is no more cloudiness in the water. I could be imagining it but it looks like the worm bubble is slightly smaller.

so how will the worm die? It's now literally a pillion passenger hanging off the bottom side of the fish but suspended in the bubble. I have taken about 100 photos trying to get a better pic for you but no joy. The ones at the beginning of the thread are the best. So anyway, got the stuff from the vet, it's Panacur 100 and it's in a whopping big brown glass bottle. I put about a tip of a teaspoon in a container with a couple of shrimp pellets and let it soak and then dropped some in. Because I purposely made them skip breakfast they were all in there gobbling it up. Went out for a couple of hours and came back and put the rest in. It cloudied up the water which did not impress them but once they realised it was laced with food back they went haha! I can see no sign of any of them reacting to the medicine. It's feels like a haphazard way to work so I hope it works! The vet also wants to know if it works so they can note it as OK for fish as I will be their first customer to buy it for that purpose. He couldn't give any proper advice except to say it's been known to kill snails so I have removed my treasured trumpet snails. Next question for the Fishy Medicinal Oracle : when can I put the snails back in ?

Someone needs to start a Fish Vet on the North Shore - I just rang the vet to see about Levamisole and they didn't have it and told me to do some more research on products I could use - it can't be that random as the Fishlopedia is an English book. Glad I didn't pay for that advice! geeez

that sounds easy enough - this fish is a pretty good eater I have got 150ml waiting for me at the vets to pick up tomorrow, probably way too much then as I was following the advice of the Fishlopedia, it said I need 2mg per litre of tank water. ??? Also the gooby worm is still in the bubble too - will it squirm back into the fish to die and be pooped out or should I expect to see it disappear a different way?

good news (sort of :-? haha) the 'thing' has evolved further, now I can see a loop of creature present and from the side it looks as if there is a bubble on or near the gill flap. I didn't add the second dose of formalin as planned but the original has done some good anyway (previously the swordtails were occasionally flashing, now no more). So now I will treat as per the start of the thread with some fenbendazole if I can find some! :bounce:

if a fish has been attacked by an internal worm or parasite, when the worm starts to emerge from the fish's body, can it then be treated as an external parasite? the gill thing has changed slightly, the one inside that pushes the gill out is still there and there is something else just off to the side as well, same sort of thing. it is starting to look like a worm under there this one shows how the gill sticks out

apparently forever as it's fully coated in epoxy

i dosed it in the first place to try and give the plants a boost to fight off the staghorn algae. then since last weekend I started putting the tanklight on for a few more hours after I learnt that the zealandia grass thingy needs more light so will see how it goes. As the room does get some sunlight and general daylight I had hoped the light was enough without too much artificial, it was on from about 3 in the afternoon till 8pm. Now it's on from before 12 so will see what happens. anyway thanks for answering my question

can my other fish have salt? Oto, cories, swordtails - is a community tank

there is very little sand seepage around the edges, when I siphon the gravel once a week I get maybe a quarter of a tsp of sand out of the gravel so i'm quite happy with that.

NPK on the packet says 0-0-3

Hi Here is what we did to make a barrier for my tank that is 60cm x 30cm x 33cm so I could give the corydoras a play area. Original substrate was a fine chip gravel overlaid with small brightwater gravel. Later I introduced corydora and subsequent to doing homework after purchase instead of before, learned that they would be happier in sand. Came up with a compromise that keeps the gravel for the plants and keeps the sand some distance from the big filter that almost touches the bottom. Notice the planting in the Before shots - there were pockets of more dense planting and there was always a cardinal tetra hiding somewhere. After spreading the twisted val and dividing the zealandia grass so fish could actually swim through it, the tetra now school together and don't hide so much. This has been set up now for approx a month and is working well. The 3 corydora love to snuffle in the sand and I've since bought 4 younger ones to keep them company. Silicone used was black Juwel aquarium rtv silicone Glue for sticking polystyrene and stones was West System Epoxy

I thought I should 'do the right thing' and fertilise the plants as I haven't done so since I set the tank up (August, and then a partial reset a month ago when swapping out half the gravel for sand).... the levels were between 0 and 0.5 and now they are 10. When I changed the gravel out I made sure not to wash the stuff that was staying behind and I didn't clean the filter, also kept at least half of the old water to try and maintain as much bacteria as possible. When I changed it the ammonia stayed at 0, nitrite went up very slightly and then returned to zero a few days later. Fertiliser is the only thing that has changed since then. :bounce:

managed to get some pics after lights out see what you think! it's just the little white edge or sticky out bit at the bottom edge of the gill and this was last week's critter!

i have 2 young black swordtail males - I thought they were a rare colour so googled it to see if worth anything and read that black swordtails with black in their fins may not be healthy. here is the link - http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/bre ... words.html some others may have better knowledge but otherwise this might be a bit depressing to read :oops: they are cute fish though 8)

thank you, this is the best definitive advice I've had so far. Today the fish is possibly more at ease than yesterday but the 'thing' is there, has not developed or changed and is very difficult to see whether it is something attached to the gill flap, protruding or something else. Noone has had a bad reaction to the formalin either, so I'm happy to observe and look into the medication you mention. I take it that I have to buy from the vet, can't get from the fish shop?

what does that mean in english?? and are you referring to my post or the original ones? thanks

the original worm looked like it was partly in a bubble but when I took it apart it wasn't, so had either emerged during the night or was a protruding scale only. Mine was thinner and straighter than yours also, which is why I thought it was a leech. So today, a week later, I see this other thing on the side of the gill flap of another tetra and so have dosed the tank with formalin - this is the Wunder 5% stuff that supposedly needs 3 drops per litre or 3ml per 20 litres, so I erred on the side of caution and added approx 6-7ml for a 50+ litre tank - it's a 60x30x33 but the substrate is over an inch thick in places. Anyway no-one has complained, but the 'thing' on the gill is still there, though it's only been an hour or so. If it hasn't gone by Tuesday (it says to do again if no improvement in 3 days) I will dose again a bit stronger and see what happens.

hey, what was the outcome of this in the end - did the fish live - did anyone else get the worms? Last week I had a cardinal tetra that had something very similar, it looked like a tiny white leech stuck to the back near the tail and I couldn't find anything on google that looked like it. Ended up euthanising the fish and pulling the thing off for a look but still no further enlightened - it wasn't an anchor or camallanus worm, nothing usual. I was hoping that was the end of it but today I have discovered another of the cardinals has something wrong with it's gill - it looks like something is protruding slightly from there and he/she yawns occasionally but is otherwise fine. LFS has sold me some formalin that I intend to treat the whole tank with - if there are parasites in the tank I don't just want to bath one or 2. Am a bit stuck really. I want to kill the bugs but I don't want to hurt the fish or cull any more of them!

thanks, i will try that!

hmm the reason I'm asking is because on a fish compatibility chart it has cory and rams as not compatible, I presume because they compete for the bottom. I did have a bristlenose that didn't get on with the cory as they liked the same food he did - they weren't aggressive about it though (he was!)