Sunken in Bellies?

[Espi]

Not to sure what type of parasite my fish have here but there showing sunken in bellies and their anus is slightly protruding, they have been like this for awhile as i just can't figure out what they have. I did have 3 angel pairs but i lost one of my male angels after it paired up and spawned while there was another angel pair in the tank, the stress must have caused the parasite to take hold, he began to spit out his food then dyed with bloated stomach. There poo is sometimes stringing, in segments and light coloured. most of the time food colour and normal, however i did buy some NLS anti parasitic garlic pellets, but only one of my angel pairs eat them, the pair that does eat them i feed them exclusively on the pellet for ages and there bellies did not improve. The angels have been spawning in this condition and i do lose some of the fry with bloated stomachs. Have never seen a worm protruding from my fish besides my guppies which i believe i have somehow managed to pass what my angels have into my guppy tank as some of the males have long white worm like things that appear attached to there gonopodium, as i have seen a male stretching his gonopodium forward and the worm followed, plus a few of the males have become skinny. I treated the guppies in the pic with Praziquantel, did not affect the "worm". I treated some young angels from one of my pairs with Levamisole in a bare bottom tank and didn't notice any worms on the bottom. When i culled some of these young angels for deformed fins, i put them in the freezer and when i pulled them out they all had real big red/white worms that came out of there gills area. Im at a loss of what to do, i have 5 tanks biggest being 400L, not keen to unnecessarily treat all the tanks with all the different types of wormers. Ill attach some pics of the symptoms and hopefully someone can help, i have a angel pair that are raising around 100 fry and im gonna need this problem solved for their sake! I have spent many many hours researching with no luck.

I did find this online about Nematode that sound about right but treatment is difficult and cant find any of the treatments.

The threadworms infect the entire body of infected fish but the only visible sign of the infection will be worms hanging out of the anus of the infected fish. Severe cases can cause the belly of the fish to sink in but most cases don't cause any external signs other then the anal worms and usually don't cause any real problems for the fish. It should be treated none the less. Nematodes are hard to treat but there are a couple of methods that might or might not be successful. One is to treat the fish using parachlorometaxylenol. The second method to treat nematodes is to feed you fish medicated fish food containing thiabendazole.

First pair:

Female, photo taking just befor she spawned thats why she looks bloated and nips in fins are from her partner ( they went through a rough patch lol )

Male

http://s1357.photobucket.com/user/Espi_ ... b.jpg.html

Second Pair: ( eating NLS Garlic pellets ) and raising fry excuse my crappy crack fix

Female

http://s1357.photobucket.com/user/Espi_ ... e.jpg.html

Male

http://s1357.photobucket.com/user/Espi_ ... 1.jpg.html

Guppy

http://s1357.photobucket.com/user/Espi_ ... 2.jpg.html

[Ira]

Hard to say for sure based on the pictures, but the angels look normal.

And I think what you have with that guppy is "Poop"

[JaSa]

Hi,

What was the dose rate for Parzi and Levamisole and how old was the stuff?

Did you repeat the treatment after 14 days?

Cheers,

JaSa

[Espi]

Only just brought the Droncit and Aviverm.

Both treatments were done in bare bottom tank so i could see if any worms came out, after both treatments nothing so haven't done repeat treatments.

few weeks ago I put 3 guppies showing these worms like things in 25lter and added one 50mg Droncit tablet. It did not dissolve well in the water so left fish in there for 24hrs before putting them back in there tank. worm still there

And on sat i overdosed on the Levamisole at 12.5mg per liter ( added 3 ml to a 55ltr ) , i did that by mistake so did 50% WC on sun and today. This was done on some young angels and nothing.

I am rather new to angels and maby thats how they are meant to look, they just seem to curve / cave in between there Ventral and anus, my two breeding females are the worst, my lone female looks fine she has no curve / sunken in belly at all.

My fish have had live food at one stage, i brought some riccia moss off TM to float and just threw it in the tank cause it looked so clean and healthy, then noticed my fish were eating bloodworms that were coming out of the moss like it came from some pond or somthing!

[JaSa]

What you have done sounds all good to me.

Just quickly confirming the rate for Aviverm you should use:

Aviverm comes usually at a strenght of 24%. Means 1ml contains 240mg of Levamisole. With the recommended dose rate for Levamisole of 2.4mg per 1ltr of water you have to use 0.1ml of Aviverm per 10ltr tank water. And since technically Levamisole is an acid, make sure your pH is 7 or below otherwise the acid (Levamisole) gets deactivated and can't do it's job.

Always grind / crush Droncit to a fine powder and put that in your tank.

I used emamectin benzoate in the past when the other two were failing. Not too sure if it is registered in New Zealand. It not only kills the adult, it also gets the larvae so you only have to use it once for four days and job done.

Good luck,

JaSa

[Espi]

Thanks for the info on the Aviverm / Levamisole JaSa, tap water here has a rather high Ph of around 7.8, tanks sit a bit lower so will give another crack at it with lower Ph.

Did a quick search emamectin benzoate, didn't find much.

Anyone had much luck with Flubendazole-based wormers like Kusuri Wormer Plus?

[Adrienne]

I tried the Kusuri Wormer plus when I got my discus and again when I had an issue a few weeks ago. First time was just as a precaution, second time as a treatment. No noticeable change in the condition of the fish when I used it as a treatment and yesterday I started a course of metro which requires a vet to sight the fish, diagnose and do a prescription for the stuff. I supplied quantities of information from the net on it as well. I wouldn't bother with kusuri again

Will it work, I don't know, I hope so as discus at 15cm are expensive to replace.

Good luck with your angels. I just fed mine and looked at them - there is a slight hollow behind their stomach and before the anal fin however you should not be seeing worms in the tank. I suspect yours have camellanus worms - have a read of this link http://www.petfish.net/kb/entry/154/

[Espi]

I do have some tetra parasite guard which contains Metro but only have enough tablets to treat 60L, so have been hesitant to try it.

I haven't seen any worms in the tank, just the sunken in bellies and whatever is attached to some of my male guppies gonopodium, which are big and white.

[Adrienne]

That will teach me not to read your posts more slowly. :oops: Well all your photos look normal. If the fish are eating its unlikely to be a worm infestation. Angels - As for looking skinny, what are you feeding, how often and how much at a time? How many angels in what sized tank?

Guppies - often (but not always), imports come in carrying a disease that they are immune to but NZ bred guppies are not. Sometimes this doesn't show up for months. If you mix the two in the same tank the NZ bred ones will die off first. This causing wasting away and as far as I know there is nothing that will treat it.

[Espi]

1 Angel pair, 1 female angel in a 400L planted community tank - 13 other fish inc teras, cory, BN & Rams. 1 tera and both rams look skinny like the angels.

1 pair with their fry in a 80L, which i'm on the hunt for a bigger tank for them, not many tall tanks around. the 80L was all i had on hand that was cycled. Wasnt planning on keeping the babies but the parents did such a great job i real wanted to see them raise the cuties.

The pair with fry are always munching on the frys BBS :facepalm: and feed twice a day sometimes more, all they can consume in 1min. They mainly eat NLS Thera A, odd time a bit of flake.

The ones in 400L I used to feed them twice a day but cut back to 1 due to algae issues, figured i was overfeeding, feed them as much as they can consume in 1-2 mins, they eat JBL granulat (small for my rams) , JBL flakes for 10-20cm, lone female eats NLS pellets, shrimp pellets (for corys) and the odd frozen bloodworms.