Mollie fish mystery parasite?

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KOH119725

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Hello! This probably isn't the place for this thread but I can't figure out where to put it. My apologies. I have two mollies in a ten gallon, some major dieoff has happened with all of my tanks recently. The two in the ten are Tangent, a dalmatian molly, and her fry Julianna, who is about 6 months. Every time I see one of my mollies with this problem they die, so I am worries, but have never been able to find anything online about what this is. Red strands hanging out from the fish, at first thought it was blood on the poop but the strands can retract and move. Fish had lost weight. Have tried anti-parasitics (paragaurd specifically), fluran 2, kanaplex and metroplex, oils and aquarium salt (not all at the same time of course). I keep the water clean with water changes every three weeks, test the water, and at this point I am at a loss as to what to do. Please help if you can, I'm in the process of moving and don't want my fish dying on top of everything else. They have not been moved around yet, so it's not the stress of moving.
 
It sounds like camallanus worms I'm afraid :( google image search them, and let us know if they look like that. They need a specific med to be killed, can you tell us which country you're in please? Just because different meds are available in the US vs the UK, and other countries.
 
I've had camallanus worms in my livebearers before, I understand the nightmare! It was a long time before I even saw a worm to be able to diagnose, but I was having losses, especially fry that were 1-3 months old, then adults started to get skinny and lethargic. I finally saw the tell tale red worms and was able to get the right diagnosis and meds, since most standard wormers don't kill camallanus. You will likely need to treat all of your tanks as well, especially if you use the same equipment on them, eggs can be transferred by nets, buckets, syphons etc.

If it is them, and it sounds like it, you need a wormer where the active ingredient is levamisole or flubendazole. As far as I know, either of those are the only med that will kill camallanus worms. It's important to follow the directions closely, and do the repeat treatment, since that will kill any worms that have hatched from eggs after the first dose and would reinfect your fish.
 
AdoraBelle is correct. Thin red hair like threads sticking out the fish's butt are round/ thread worms (Camallanus or Capillaria).

Levamisole or Flubendazole (as mentioned) are the medications of choice.

Treat all your tanks at the same time to prevent cross contamination.

Treat the fish once a week for 3-4 weeks. The first treatment kills the adults, the follow up treatments kill any baby worms that hatch from eggs.

Remove carbon from filters before treating.

Do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter after each treatment too.

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Furan 2, Kanaplex, Metroplex are anti-biotics that do nothing to intestinal worms.
 

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