discus worms: Myth or truth help

[henward]

ok

i jsut got told by a LFS that i discus gets worms naturally or always.

that i have to get some sort of med and medicate the water for worms every 3 months.

he also said this med is not harmful to bio filter, and other fish and 5 ml treats 100 litres?

i forgot the name.

but he said that keeping discus, i must treat the water every quarter to ensure there are no worms.

is this true?

garlic guard help?

how bout the occasional discus tucker which has garlic?

any feedback would be awesome!

ima relative newbie to discus

[Morcs]

I had a customer who treated his discus for worms, and after treatment all of them had an indent in the middle of their body.

I personally just say just keep pristine water and feed well. Hopefully the discus pros can enlighten us though as I am curious re the whole worms thing.

[henward]

yeah, i have seen adult with indent in the body.

i am not too keen on treating universally.

i think wtih a good diet, with good vitamins, their bodies can fend off worms before onset?

correct me if i am wrong (calling all discus gurus out there)

[Moya]

Discus are certainly more susceptible to worms than a lot of other community fishes, so your LFS is right in alerting you to the need to de-worm your discus. I do this whenever I get new ones, as your never quite sure what they may be bringing with them. As to the whole every 3 month thing? I'm not so sure. Other discus keepers may have different practices, but I will only treat when I am aware of, or suspicious of the presence of parasites.

The drug is called Praziquantel, and is available from vets in the form of a tablet (Droncit) or also as a product called Adtape (what I use). The recommended dose rate you were advised is correct, at 5ml per 100L, however I have been told that Discus do fine at a dose rate of 15ml per 100L, and thus is the rate that I adhere to. It does not harm your bio-filter

Garlic is a natural anti-parasitic, and so if your feeding discus tucker as part of their diet, fantastic!

[henward]

should i make 'discus tucker' part of their diet?

i hear that garlic once chopped and exposed to air too long the anti parasitic stuff becomes null?

true?

adtape - where does one obtain such alchemical concoctions? also, does that deform their bodies? as someone said, one dented its body, is this adtape? or adtape a not very invasive?

[henward]

also

i have a auto water changer, i assumei turn this off to ensure the meds work?

how long do i keep th emeds in there for and start water changing again?

does it work with in hours?

full details of how to use and what to do would be awesome.

side effects that are observed too.

does it stunt growth to medicate them?

[Moya]

Variety is the spice of life as they say! Giving them discus tucker every now and then is a good idea. Though mine don't really seem to like it

Apparently the all round anti parasitic/bacterial/fungal compound produced by garlic is called allicin, and is produced/made available when garlic is crushed or chewed. Allicin has been found to be lacking in old garlic. So fresh is best!

Adtape can be bought from your vet. Hollywood may sell it too? Ive always gotten mine from the vet though. I myself have never picked up on any adverse reactions in my discus, and as far as I'm aware is considered very safe for fish.

Treatment I follow is

Day 1: Dose

Day 3: Water change and Re-dose

Day 6: Water change and Re-dose

Day 14: Water change and Re-dose

Apparently the tapeworms are reasonably easy to kill, and so two doses is sufficient. If dosing for flukes however, several repeat doses are advised to keep on top of possible fluke eggs that may be in your system that hatch later. Fluke eggs are pretty tough, so the meds wont act directly on them, you have to wait till they hatch. This is why we do the dose-wait-waterchange-dose routine.

Like I said, Ive never had any problems as to side effects or growth stunting, but others may have found different..

[henward]

cool

moya, can you email me some pics of your discus? curious to knwo what others have:D

im becoming a discus addict.

[email protected]

anyways, thanks for advice, hope more will give advice here.

i will go to HFF tomorrow and get that.

[henward]

discus tucker, does anyone here find that when you open it, its all nice and fresh, then it starts to get freezer burn and gets all crusty.

also, the good stuff in garlic, freezing it preserves the goodness?

or does it destroy it?

[Jennifer]

I personally don't deworm that often. Parasites don't just magically appear, they are introduced and if you deworm any new fish before adding them and you don't feed high risk live foods that can act as a vector then you won't be introducing worms into your closed environment. Frequent high doses of dewormers are the quickest way to get resistant worms and that CAN be a problem.

When you don't have resistant worms you can use a normal dose rate (2mg/L for praziquantel and levamisole) and treat for a normal duration of time (6 to 24 hours). If you ever have a problem you can safely double or triple the dose if needed (or better yet use a different drug like fenbendazole) but if you start out with double or triple the dose then you don't have far to go before toxicities and resistance start becoming an issue.

Remember, praziquantel treats for tapeworms and flukes. Levamisole treats for roundworms. Fenbendazole treats for both. There are many other chemicals that can be used.

Garlic is effective in helping to prevent high worm burdens but it won't kill large worm burdens. Freshness is key.

HTH

[henward]

ok, so adtape is the one that is a general wiper out of bugs?

is there an all in one thing i can dose the water with?

as for the garlic, the dicus tucker, its frozen - does that retain the garlics goodness?

i assume mike from bio suppliers uses fresh stuff, he has a good reputation.

[Moya]

Adtape is Praziquantel based only, and so only effective on for flukes/tapeworm. I've never used Fenbendazole, though I think now I might grab some to have on hand (cheers Jen!).

I know the Allicin is broken down by cooking, but I'm not sure about freezing. The enzyme that makes it certainly becomes inactive but not sure about the compound itself.

[Jennifer]

Adtape is praziquantel. I have not used that brand but I have used the same drug under the brand name of Droncit. Praziquantel is the most effective drug against tapeworms/flukes but these worms are less common than roundworms.

Roundworms are eliminated with the drug Levamisole (brand name Aviverm) but there are many other drugs that can also work.

Praziquantel and Levamisole are your safest bets. Avoid any combo drugs as they often contain other ingredients that can kill fish.

I do not know how garlic's effectiveness is altered by freezing but I would guess that if the fresh garlic is frozen quickly it should be fine.

[henward]

what isthe most common worm for discus?

aviverm is commonly avail in petshops.

do you dose the water?

or the food?

[Jennifer]

I know there seems to be a lot of theories about discus getting worms that other species do not, or whatever, but in my experience, lab tests show that they tend to get the same things that other fish get but perhaps are more susceptible to higher parasite burdens.

The most common parasites by far are nematodes of various orders but they almost never produce clinical signs in the host (in fact most humans have nematodes and will never know it). The most common clinical signs of heavy nematode burdens are intestinal blockage or chronic weight loss but these most commonly occur in unwell or debilitated individuals. The faecal oral route is the most common transmission mode.

The second most common fish parasites are protozoans (mostly ciliates with a few flagellates as well). These can be present in subclinical levels for some time and then become quite a problem in times of stress.

Lastly, the trematodes (flukes and tapeworms) are not as common but they do tend to show severe clinical signs. They are mostly transmitted by an intermediate host (e.g. crustacean).

The best route of treatment is the oral route (injecting a dose into a feeder worm or putting the meds into gelatinised foods). However, some medications are quite soluble in water so you can dose the fish using a medicated bath but absorption through the gills can sometimes be a problem.

[henward]

what are the symtoms of these worms in discus apart from severe thin ness?

lack of growth obviously but what else?

my discus are all eating now - should i soak the colourbits in something?

or just feed them up and see how i go?

i might pick up a pack of discus tucker tomorrow - give them a treat every few days.

but i want to ensure that the discus are used to pelleted food and not spoil them.

[Jennifer]

That's the problem. Parasites can cause a huge array of clinical signs that are also commonly seen with other conditions. Unfortunately people assume that those signs are parasites but I have seen many fish with these signs undergo a myriad of parasite tests only to come up clean. Often the signs are cleared up when nutrient deficiencies are addressed.

Based on the above, my personal feeling for discus is that you should always deworm any new fish coming in. Usually a three pronged approach is best (prazi/levam/metro). Then feed a huge variety of food but only feed live food from 'safe' closed colonies. Frozen and prepared foods are safest but you really should aim for the best quality. I am no discus expert but I used to keep a number of discus and really never had any issue with parasites. That is not to say that they can't get parasites though. The problem is that we often don't test fish so we never really know what they have or don't have.

[henward]

fair enough.

those parasites transfer to other fish also i take it.

but perhaps discus are just more vulnerable to it.

well, see how i go.

how about pimafix?

supposedly one of the wonder meds around lol

[livingart]

how about pimafix?

supposedly one of the wonder meds around lol

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Pars ... /6,537,591

[Dave+Amy]

one thing I found with treating a planted tank was...my huge tiger lotus died and other plants were getting the deteriorating effect too :-? and you have to gravel vac VERY THOROUGHLY after every treatment during waterchanges..seen a big fat white worm pop out of one discus I got from a petshop, felt completely disgusted lol.

[Jennifer]

I have no experience with Primafix although I have used Seachem Para Guard. A lot of these types of products are useful in preventing high parasite bioloads but they won't generally kill all the parasites so aren't the best choice when seeking to eliminate confirmed parasite loads.