CURE FOR ANCHOR WORM

[Gerald]

Hi, my Albino giant gourami (which is not that giant, YET.) has anchor worm near his/her dorsal fin. I asked the store how to treat it and he said melafix could do it, but the thing is I used melafix in the past and my fishes seem to die whenever I use melafix.. now I'm scared to use it on my albino giant gourami... 

The question is, can melafix do the work? Or there's better medications I could use to relieve my AGG to the parasite

Edited September 15, 2020 by Gerald
Couldn't upload picture

[Cory]

Hi Gerald,

Now that clout is off the market, we use Dimilin to treat anchor worm. I find it on ebay. It comes in super concentrated bottles there where like 1 ml treats 500 gallons and is a pain to work with. However we have found dimilin to be effective at treating it. Perhaps you can find something less powerful in dosage. 

[yannachka]

melafix is actually mostly tea tree oil and ineffective. there was a study done that showed it had no positive effects and could actually be harmful in anabantoids (like gourami) with long term/extensive use since the oil can coat their labrynth organ over time that they use to breathe. 

with that said, potassium permanganate is what i have used in the past. you can also try ich x or another anti-parasitic medication though if you don’t have access to potassium perm. you may need to run some antibiotics in the water after the anchor worms have been treated to treat any bacterial infections caused by them as well but that would only be if you see a bacterial infection present. lastly, i would also add salt to the hospital tank for the entire duration of treatment, it will help treat both types of infection (parasitic and bacterial).

[yannachka]

sorry not sure how to edit comments/replies so im posting another 😬

i always used pomegranate perm. with salt and pulled off the adults killing them with rubbing alcohol (in a jar or something) and have found that to be effective personally. i did however just find this article that goes into depth on anchor worms and treatment, figured it may be useful to you or anyone else scrolling through here:

article

i didn’t read it in its entirety but it is from a university and has good references linked. 

[Gerald]

Thanks Cory and Yannachka! I'm hoping for the best results from your help, and the study Yannachka found. I'll update you guys soon about what happened... 😊 

[Gerald]

Update, I pulled it out... But I got no pomegranate perm available... I only ordered Infinity™ "Anchor worm lice kill", is it good enough?