Treating for Parasites - Found Some, Need Advice

[nabokovfan87]

I added the second round of Paracleanse for this dose as well as salt. First dose didn't touch the worms, wasn't expecting it to, but I'm just noting it here for the sake of full information.

Thinking back to the timeline of events I think there is two or three potential points of logic for this series of issues.

1. The meds were added and then a few days after full treatment (5 days) the worms were seen in the WC at night. I removed the air stone several days after treatment, worms noticed on about day 9-10.

2. Between everything above it was right after the house got sick and I wasn't able to keep an eye on tthings.I was the last to get sick. As a result of this the filter crashed in the sense of flow and aeration while I was under the weather.

3. Amano shrimp acting very strange and chasing one another. Several days later a few appeared discolored.  Oto appear stressed and struggling as well at this time when flow was low.

4. I added the airstone back, fixed the HoB flow and then monitored the situation.

5. Worms reproducing or congregating on the high flow region of the tank (HoB outflow)

 

Possible theories of the above series of events:

A. The fish had a parasite and it is now in the water column, should be dealt with chemically with further courses of medication. (Essentially the meds forced the parasite off the fish) otos and corydoras in the tank with amano shrimp

B. The shrimp had a parasite. I recall long brown poop on two amanos, one of which has now passed, and I didn't think anything of it at the time.

C. Something from the plants, very unlikely, but that's essentially the only thing that is "new".

D. It's due to the tank crashing in terms of oxygenation and flow which caused some kind of detritus worms to appear. Nothing in the tank will eat them in the HoB.

[modified lung]

My guess would be they were always in your tank and got knocked loose after the flow restarted. Btw, I've seen those worms survive in up to 10 ppt brackish water. I had a ton of them in an old mysid tank between 2 and 5 ppt.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/1/2022 at 9:55 PM, modified lung said:

Btw, I've seen those worms survive in up to 10 ppt brackish water. I had a ton of them in an old mysid tank between 2 and 5 ppt.

What do you mean 10 ppt?

On 7/1/2022 at 9:55 PM, modified lung said:

My guess would be they were always in your tank and got knocked loose after the flow restarted.

Definitely possible. I think they were in the tank before they were in the filter at all. I had been running tests on filtration and swapping parts to remove the skimmer and modify the efficiency for the seachem tidal.

[modified lung]

On 7/1/2022 at 9:56 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

What do you mean 10 ppt?

10 parts per thousand (ppt) salinity. You mentioned adding salt. I was assuming it was for the worms.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/1/2022 at 9:59 PM, modified lung said:

10 parts per thousand (ppt) salinity. You mentioned adding salt. I was assuming it was for the worms.

Help the shrimp too. Yes.

I'll check salinity with refractometer in a little bit.

I assume it won't touch the worms. I really wish I had some fish to eat them. Might have to get some barbs.

[modified lung]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:01 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Help the shrimp too. Yes.

I'll check salinity with refractometer in a little bit.

I assume it won't touch the worms. I really wish I had some fish to eat them. Might have to get some barbs.

Come and take my last two goldfish. No body wants them.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:13 PM, modified lung said:

Come and take my last two goldfish. No body wants them.

Only a 29G tank. 😂

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I now have the worms that squiggle swim like the ones in @nabokovfan87's original post.  I can't do anything about 'em. The tank is a grow-out tank for baby mystery snails. Snails can't tolerate meds, that I'm aware of.  There are 31 baby snails in there. These appeared after I added Christmas moss yesterday.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

In this video @ 5:04.  Just like the worms I have.  The guy says that they just eat decaying matter.  

@Colu and @Odd Duck  ID'd the worms the same way.  I'm going to leave them alone.  Now I have a tank where EVERYTHING is a cleanup crew. 😂 Snails, plants, worms.  What with the worms, this could be on its way to being a balanced ecosystem tank!  

Edited July 2, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I believe these worms only free swim after substrate is disturbed. I just vac'd the tank; I've got sand so I go in at an angle to siphon the detritus only, but sometimes I do get a little bit of sand in the vac. Right after that I saw the worms swimming.  About 30 minutes later I can't see any worms, so I assume they went back into the sand.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/2/2022 at 6:11 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I now have the worms that squiggle swim like the ones in @nabokovfan87's original post.

The video posted, those are much much bigger than mine. Probably 4x the size.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/2/2022 at 11:38 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

The video posted, those are much much bigger than mine. Probably 4x the size.

Juveniles?  Your tank is too clean @nabokovfan87. Feed more 💩.  😆

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/2/2022 at 9:26 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Juveniles?

I've been waiting to see how big they get. I mean maximum they are about 1/4-3/8" at best. Very very thin. They had free reign of the tank when I was sick and plenty of food at that time. I really don't know what it is but they are tiny things. Reminds me of.....

These at 19 minutes into the video. Next time I see one I'll try to record a video with scale or something to give a good idea of size.

https://youtu.be/XyThB1akG8c

Edited July 2, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Oh the ones that people grow with oatmeal and whatnot are microworms.

[nabokovfan87]

Worms update.

I am done with round 2 of paracleanse, I don't know if I need a third. The salt seemed to help and I heavily disturbed the substrate, replanted the entire tank and moved substrate around to try to release everything need be into the water column. I am still seeing signs of them in the HoB itself but not in the substrate or glass. I saw one tonight and haven't seen any the previous 2 days after adding salt.

I don't know if I'll add any more salt but I will have to inspect the HoB pretty thoroughly when I clean it out here shortly.

I have more plants on the way to add to the tank, I'll eventually be adding CO2. I'd really like to get these things out of here before I end up having to stress plants.

The cleaning and adjustments and what not seem to have nearly worked and I'm hoping I'll get whatever is causing them to repopulate.

The reason for posting is because I found another dead amano. Definitely could've been due to stress and there was one that was still showing half of the body being red. It could also just be age and a random timing. The amano had a pretty severe red spot on its head and on it's body section. I'll keep monitoring things and keep things clean.

EDIT:  I guess I'm going hunting for that worm tonight.  @Odd Duck might or might not be valid, but something to note for your parasite treatment guide we are all going to borrow from now on.

EDIT 2: Yep.... there's still a ton of them.  Filter is bypassing, and I can't think of anything I can really do to actually fix it.  What a frustrating issue.

Quote

Levamisole can only paralyze the worms, not kill them. So it’s important to suck them up with a gravel vacuum while they’re vulnerable to actually remove them from the tank.

 

Edited July 5, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

Update for the night while I mull over how to move forward.

This is from one of Jimmy's video.  Again, I don't have anything in the tank to predate on these things. They are massively small in comparison to everything I see online for detritus worms. I mean.... these ones are gigantic compared to what I am seeing, shown in the OP.  I'll go and try to record another video to try to explain the scale.



You can see the little legs or whatever it is.  From the video, the comments section had the following:

 

Quote

That one in the macroshot in the first minute was an annelid, not a nematode... You can tell due to the segments on it's body, it's stretch and contract movement pattern, and the hairs on the side... they are probably detritus worms. They are more closely related to earthworms than they are nematodes or roundworms. It's really cool that you can get a shot so detailed that I can actually ID them... I couldn't make out those hairs with the naked eye for sure. Great camera work!

I'm posting this all here because I am trying to understand, identify, and determine what these things are.  If they are related to earthworms you'd figure they would be in the substrate. If they are roundworms / nematodes than the planned expel-p should do some work for me.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/5/2022 at 1:25 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I have more plants on the way to add to the tank

The plants are not going to like the salt.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Googling worm catcher for aquarium yielded some interesting results.  You'd just need to figure out what is the best bait to put in one.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

Cleaned out the HoB this morning.  It was covered in worms in the pump area.  I couldn't tell you if they were alive or not, but it had brown algae that you'd typically see and just caked in worms.  I saw one floating but it was dead inside the tank, didn't see any others.  I'll likely clean the HoB every 2-3 days just so I can monitor why on earth they are using that to repopulate.  I am considering tossing on the 75 just for the sake of having more flow with how badly the pump seems to struggle right now.

I have 6 days until I can treat with the other med and trying to just maintain and monitor.  I'm pretty surprised they are repopulating so heavily where the tank is so clean and everything is "good" except for the worms. Even holding back food and light feedings, I'm not sure what's up with these guys.

On 7/5/2022 at 6:38 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

The plants are not going to like the salt.

I hope the algae doesn't either! 😂

Edited July 5, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Gross. What a mess.

[nabokovfan87]

@dasaltemelosguyis what you're seeing anything similar to this?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I am certain this is ultra controversial and you'd need to take your critters out of your tank, but it was an interesting watch nonetheless:

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:11 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I am certain this is ultra controversial and you'd need to take your critters out of your tank, but it was an interesting watch nonetheless:

Not at all. There was a fish version of this med but it looks like the company is no longer around.

It's on the list of things to do. I wish I knew what these things are so I knew which med works best. Giving the fish a break in-between treatments means that the worms take off while they recover.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 7/6/2022 at 12:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Giving the fish a break in-between treatments

You should make an Irene-style quarantine tub for your fish if you decide to dose tank with the dog dewormer.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2022 at 12:18 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

You should make an Irene-style quarantine tub for your fish if you decide to dose tank with the dog dewormer.

Yeah, I'm considering getting one for the new plants until this is figured out as well.