Parasites in fish.

[Super Nova]

Hello,
I made a post before this where I was afraid my fish had internal parasites.. Sadly she passed away, however I can confirm that she had parasites as my other fish have it too now. As soon as I found out i dropped down to my local fish shop for some advice, I was told to change the diet up, feed them garlic and add aquarium salts instead of adding harsh chemical treatment. However after about a week things are only getting worse and I'm left with no choice at this point. As I've been looking for treatment, there are so many different types that I'm not sure which one to take. Does anyone have any reliable medication that they could recommend?

 

[Colin_T]

Garlic does nothing to help fish and can actually kill them. Same with onion, spring onions, shallots & leeks. They have a chemical in them that can help humans but is toxic to most other animals and is best avoided. Potatoe should also be avoided and causes problems to fish.

Salt (sodium chloride) in high doses (1-2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water), can treat external protozoan parasites like Costia, Chilodonella, Trichodina, and gill flukes like Gyrodactylus & Dactylogyrus, and Anchorworms. However, salt does not affect intestinal worms or other internal infections.

Some people have had success treating some internal problems in fish with Epsom Salt Magnesium Sulphate, but this does not normally do anything to worms or protozoans.

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Internal parasites in fish are either threadworms or tapeworm, or protozoans, and on rare occasions bacterial.

Levamisole Hydrochloride is safe for fish and treats most threadworms (aka round worms).

Praziquantel treats tapeworm in fish and other animals and is safe.

Metronidazole is used to treat internal protozoan infections in fish but must be used with care because it is designed for people, and improper use or misuse can lead to drug resistant bacteria that affect mammals.

 

[Essjay]

If you let us know which country you live in it would help us recommend a medication. In the UK, for example, a lot of medications available in other countries are only available to us with a prescription.

 

[Super Nova]

If you let us know which country you live in it would help us recommend a medication. In the UK, for example, a lot of medications available in other countries are only available to us with a prescription.

I live in the Uk

 

[Super Nova]

Garlic does nothing to help fish and can actually kill them. Same with onion, spring onions, shallots & leeks. They have a chemical in them that can help humans but is toxic to most other animals and is best avoided. Potatoe should also be avoided and causes problems to fish.

Salt (sodium chloride) in high doses (1-2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water), can treat external protozoan parasites like Costia, Chilodonella, Trichodina, and gill flukes like Gyrodactylus & Dactylogyrus, and Anchorworms. However, salt does not affect intestinal worms or other internal infections.

Some people have had success treating some internal problems in fish with Epsom Salt Magnesium Sulphate, but this does not normally do anything to worms or protozoans.

--------------------
Internal parasites in fish are either threadworms or tapeworm, or protozoans, and on rare occasions bacterial.

Levamisole Hydrochloride is safe for fish and treats most threadworms (aka round worms).

Praziquantel treats tapeworm in fish and other animals and is safe.

Metronidazole is used to treat internal protozoan infections in fish but must be used with care because it is designed for people, and improper use or misuse can lead to drug resistant bacteria that affect mammals.

Thank you for letting me know about the garlic, I’ll definetly stop putting that in. How would I be able to tell what kind of internal parasites my fish have to treat them correctly? They have white stringy poop and in bad cases their stomach changes shape, if that helps.

 

[Colin_T]

The most commonly encountered threadworms in aquarium fishes are Camallanus & Capillaria. These can usually be seen hanging out the fish's bum when the fish is relaxed. They look like thin red hairs a couple of mm long. If the fish only has a few worms then you might not see them at all.

Tapeworm generally cause the fish to lose weight over time (several months).

Fish with tapeworm or threadworms can (but not always) produce stringy white poop.

If a fish has lots of worms in their intestine, the fish can actually look fat and appear pregnant. However, once the worms have been treated the fish lose the weight and look skinny.

Internal protozoan infections (like Hexamita) causes the fish to do stringy white poop, go off their food, lose weight quickly and die within a week or two of showing symptoms.

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The easiest way to identify a disease in a fish is to kill it and stick bits under a microscope. However, that is not an acceptable thing to do for our pets. You can put some fish poop under a microscope and that can sometimes show the internal parasites that are living inside the fish.

If the fish are eating well and show the worms sticking out their butt, then treat them for worms first.

If the fish are skinny and losing weight quickly, not eating as much and doing stringy white poop, they probably have an internal protozoan infection.

In some cases involving internal bacterial infections, the fish can suddenly bloat up (dropsy). These fish stop feeding and literally swell up overnight. They are fine when you check them before bed or heading off to work, and a few hours later they are bloated, and gasping at the surface or breathing heavily in the tank somewhere. They have a swollen enlarged belly, they don't eat, and they do a stringy white poop, and they usually die within 12-24 hours of these symptoms occurring.

The internal bacterial infections generally cannot be treated because the bacteria have caused major organ failure inside the fish. And even anti-biotics won't help because without functioning internal organs, the fish is dead.

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Protozoan infections generally occur in tanks that have a lot of rotting organic matter and don't get sufficient water changes, and are most commonly seen in over crowded tanks. Regular water changes and gravel cleaning, and cleaning the filter at least once a month will usually prevent these problems ever appearing in an aquarium. However, they can be brought into a tank by transferring contaminated water, fish or ornaments from an infected tank to a clean tank. Quarantining all new fish and plants should prevent diseases from getting into the main display tank.

Protozoan & Bacterial Infections can also occur in fish that get fed the wrong types of food, or food that has gone off.
eg: frozen bloodworms that have been defrosted and refrozen, or just any contaminated food.
Standard food safety practices for all animals, birds, fish, etc should include feeding uncontaminated food of a suitable type for the species involved.

Dry foods can go off too so check the expiry date on all fish food and keep dry fish food in a dry place. The flakes and pellets absorb moisture from the air very quickly and this can lead to fungus and mould growing on them. A good rule of thumb is to use all dry food within a month or two of opening the container.

Dry fish food like flakes, should feel dry and crumble easily when you rub it between your fingers. If fish flake rolls into a ball instead of crumbling then it has moisture in it, usually from the atmosphere. Humid environments cause this.

 

[Essjay]

In the UK, you can find the meds listed by Colin in post #2 -
levamisole is in eSHa-ndx
metronidazole is in Octozin by Waterlife (actually it's dimetroniazole)
praziquantel is in Fluke Solve and Kusuri Fluke P though I've never seen these in shops, you'd have to buy them on-line.


Of course, the first problem is working out which infection the fish has, then choosing the right medication.

 

[Colin_T]

Unless Waterlife changed the ingredients in Octozin, it contains trichlorfon (aka dipterex), which is extremely toxic to fish and animals and is virtually useless against external parasites now due to improper use in Asian fish farms. However, it was a while ago when I last looked at a container so it might have changed.

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Praziquantel is available from any petshop. It is sold as a dog and cat tapeworm treatment. In Australia you can buy it as Droncit, but there are numerous other ways to get it too.

 

[Essjay]

Since Waterlife don't give any ingredients on-line, I have emailed the company to ask what Octozin contains. I will have to wait and see if they actually reply......

 

[Essjay]

I've received a reply from Waterlife. We are both wrong, Colin.

"Octozin actually contains Dimetridazole this is approved for use for ornamental fish keeping by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. It does not contain Dimetronidazole or dipterex. "

 

[Colin_T]

Thanks for that Essjay

Unfortunately further exploration by Dr Googly suggests that Dimetridazole is pretty nasty stuff that might lead to cancer if ingested. Probably safe for aquarium fish in the short term but not safe if fish is to be used for human or animal consumption. And probably best to avoid if possible

The 2 links below are for this. One is from wiki and the other from the Aust govment fellas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetridazole

https://apvma.gov.au/node/12501