# Help I don't know how to treat worms!



## Cat (26 Feb 2017)

Hello,

I have a Rummy Nose Tetra with two white worms on its face. I tried to get a photo but its just too quick for my camera. It seems unaffected by them, colour is good swimming and eating well. I have also, however, lost two Diamond Neon Tetra to some sort of wasting disease. I haven't tried to treat them as they looked quite far gone and I just couldn't identify the condition, I'm worried about another couple of Diamonds as they have lumpy bellies. I have 5 extremely fussy dwarf puffer fish which will only eat bloodworm. I have starved them for three days and they still wont except anything other than bloodworm. This means all of the other fish are eating a lot more bloodworm than I would normally feed and I'm not sure if this is contributing to my problems.

I have a 420 litre heavy planted tank with a massive turnover, a fluidized bed filter and a large external sponge filter and chlorine/chloramine and sediment cartidge filters on the inlet for water changes, Co2 fire extinguisher injection system and homemade led lights.

I don't know whether to try and dose the whole tank for the Rummy Nose, if it is round worm I can't seem to find much info of them, like whether they need to be treated in the first place, whether or not they are contagious etc. I can't tell if the tetra with the lumpy bellies are indicative of another worm problem but as far as I can tell you can't treat external and internal worms with the same drug anyway. The tank has been up and running for a couple of years, the fish have only been in a few months. 

Any ideas about any of it would be greatly appreciated!


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## three-fingers (26 Feb 2017)

First step is to identify the species of parasite.  No pictures/video, so we will have to leave this to you.

The neons tetras could be suffering from internal worms/bacteria...without a picture or video we would only be guessing though.

With visible worms on the fish, a treatment will certainly be needed. Are the worms Y-shaped?

Have you been gut-loading/soaking the bloodowrms in vitamins/spirulina or anything? If not, the  limited nutrition provided will have certainly degraded their immune systems contributing to the current problem. Three days is nothing for a fish, think about starving them of bloodworms for three weeks or longer and providing various live/frozen foods in it's place. Live snails, for example, are pretty much essential for puffers to stop their teeth overgrowing - have you tried these?


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## Cat (26 Feb 2017)

Hello,

I've been feeding other things with the blood worm, brineshrimp, mysis, prawn, muscles, occasional granules. I was concerned with the lack of nutrition so have been experimenting although I only feed them once a day. I did have some assassin snails but I think they only come out at night so not sure if there are any left. I could put in some snails from my pond and see how they do but that would be introducing possibly more live parasites to the tank, also my experience with dwarf puffers is that they just pick the snails out off the shells and so it doesn't grind down their teeth anyway!

The worms on the Rummy Nose are very clear small white worms, this picture from someone else looks identical them if that helps?


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## three-fingers (26 Feb 2017)

Does your pond have fish in it? Do your pond fish have parasites? If not, I wouldn't worry about the risk of introducing them too much, nutrition is more important to boost the immune system .

If you haven't been feeding snails before, definitely start now.  Maybe try a harder to reach species of snail for your puffers if they don't have to crunch the shells, or provide smaller snails they can eat whole.

Hmmm... that's dermosporidia rather than a worm...if so, you will want to remove that fish before the worm-like cyst bursts and infects other fish sadly.  Unfortunately, the following thread may be the most useful resource for you at the moment, as it is incurable:

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/is-there-a-perfect-way-to-euthanise.48754/

Really sorry to hear if that's the case.


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## xim (27 Feb 2017)

According to this post, euthanasia may be unnecessary.
http://www.badmanstropicalfish.com/forum/index.php?topic=35301.0


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## Cat (27 Feb 2017)

Hello Three-fingers,

Thank you for the response. My pond has two virtually impossible to see goldfish in there, they've been there for 6 years so I presume they are healthy enough? I'll see if I can find a couple of snails and put them in. I've soaked the bloodworm in vits but hadn't thought spirulina so I'll try that too. I really hope I don't have to euthanise partly bc I'm terrible at it, hard a hard time with one particular discus fish where I tried to do a autospy afterwards in a naive attempt to learn more and be a better fish keeper. It was carnage, my friend helped, I cried a lot, and never determined what was wrong with it.

And,
Thank you Xim, I read the link and am now totally holding out for that possibility! It does sound like the same thing, I'm pretty sure a cyst has already burst and the thing disappeared. 

I wish I could tell whats wrong with the other Diamonds. The puffers seem the happiest fish in there but being scaleless I assume that limits what meds I can use if I don't remove the affected fish to a hospital tank, thats assuming I could catch them, its a big tank with lots of plants......


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## Sonsey (12 Mar 2017)

Dwarf puffers are notorious for turning their noses up at anything but frozen and live meaty foods, with bloodworms being a particular favourite. They don't seem to suffer as badly with the constantly growing teeth issue as other puffers but if you have access to any baby pond snails then they will most likely make short work of them for you. You might want to try a live worm culture like whiteworms, your other fish will certainly enjoy them too!

If you feel that the larger amount of bloodworm you're feeding is starting to negatively effect the other fish then I would suggest feeding some frozen Daphnia the next day, it's known as a natural laxative and will help keep your fish 'regular'. 

...sorry I can't help with the Rummynose issue, I've never experienced this so wouldn't want to speak on it, I hope you get it sorted.


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## Cat (12 Mar 2017)

Hello,


xim said:


> According to this post, euthanasia may be unnecessary.
> http://www.badmanstropicalfish.com/forum/index.php?topic=35301.0



In regards to this article so far that seems to be exactly what I have experienced, two worm/cyst things hatched and left the rummynose's face. It has been over a week and the rummynose is absolutely fine, racing around the tank and eating well. Also so far no one else seems to have got any but obviously only time will tell on that front. But I'm much relieved for the moment.



Sonsey said:


> Dwarf puffers are notorious for turning their noses up at anything but frozen and live meaty foods, with bloodworms being a particular favourite. They don't seem to suffer as badly with the constantly growing teeth issue as other puffers but if you have access to any baby pond snails then they will most likely make short work of them for you. You might want to try a live worm culture like whiteworms, your other fish will certainly enjoy them too!
> 
> If you feel that the larger amount of bloodworm you're feeding is starting to negatively effect the other fish then I would suggest feeding some frozen Daphnia the next day, it's known as a natural laxative and will help keep your fish 'regular'.
> 
> ...sorry I can't help with the Rummynose issue, I've never experienced this so wouldn't want to speak on it, I hope you get it sorted.



In regards to Sonsey's response, thank you, I have been putting as many snails as I can find in and they have been devouring them although not touching the shells! Its seems at least one of them lived long enough to deposit some eggs so I might get some that babies that the puffers can eat whole soon. But what I really wanted to say was thank you for the info on Daphnia I had never heard of them being a laxative! Peas and garlic are the only things I've come across in the past and none of my fish have ever touched them, even my Discus fish wouldn't eat garlic which they were famous for finding irresistible.

Cheers!!


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## Sonsey (13 Mar 2017)

Cat said:


> In regards to Sonsey's response, thank you, I have been putting as many snails as I can find in and they have been devouring them although not touching the shells! Its seems at least one of them lived long enough to deposit some eggs so I might get some that babies that the puffers can eat whole soon. But what I really wanted to say was thank you for the info on Daphnia I had never heard of them being a laxative! Peas and garlic are the only things I've come across in the past and none of my fish have ever touched them, even my Discus fish wouldn't eat garlic which they were famous for finding irresistible.
> 
> Cheers!!


You're very welcome Cat. I'll throw a few peas in the tank every now and again after I've liberated some from the family dinner but like yourself I've found them not to be that popular. I've bought foods with garlic as an ingredient too which the fish seemed to like so I'll continue with that as well (I've never tried pure garlic though), but frozen daphnia is by far the most popular in my tanks so I hope you get the same mileage as I do.


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## dean (15 Mar 2017)

Cat 
Look up "DIY Shrimp Mix" on a search engine there's loads of different recipes and you can add or remove things to make your own recipe 
Plus you can add in garlic powder, spirulina powder etc 




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