Interesting (to me) spontaneous deworming moment...

[Irakusa]

Hi everyone,

Caution: All conjecture below!!! Too many things have changed recently, so I don't know what to make of all this, but happy to have found what I did.

Change 1: I've recently moved the fish room to the basement, which has the amazing benefit of a floor drain. I keep a 150G heavily planted discus tank and some of my discus friends in there are several years old. With the move I was able to (2) 1" add drain valves (tank was drilled 2x bottom center when I got it) that expel old water right into the floor drain, and now there's a pump running directly from my fresh water storage tank with a bit of hose to go to whatever tank I'm filling. End result is that a 33% water change on the 150 now takes 15 minutes. I also have a vacuum with hose "permanently" running right into the same floor drain.

Suffice to say, tanks are getting cleaner than they've ever been! Buckets and flights of stairs were a PITA, even if my only real workout regimen.

Change 2: Since water changes are nearly automated I added a few new residents a couple weeks ago. With their introduction I did the two-day/two-step dance of artemiss/herbtana. Didn't notice anything amazing happen. Of note: I somehow spaced the difference between TSP and TBSP on the initial herbtana dose. I'm glad to say that a triple dose of herbtana didn't harm any fish, just made the basement smell pretty fresh for the day!

Change 3: I recently had an old Oto decide to go omnivore, to the point that he was really harassing the discus non-stop. So I moved him to the Tanganyikan tank. I think if he tries any of that in there he'll learn his lesson. Still, 2 of 14 of the discus appeared to have some mild shortening of the pelvic fins so I broke out the herbtana.

An hour later, I see about 5 inches of tapeworm coming out of a turq that I've had for years. No pics, sorry, I immediately got the vacuum and started trying to get rid of that evil crap!

Change 4:After that, big old water change again, and off to the prazi-pro bottle I go. I'm staying up late making sure everyone's adjusting OK, but quite interesting to see that tapeworm come out. And, it may be evidence that the artemiss/herbtana products work, but I'm not sure!

YMMV, check with dealer for small print, and good luck.

[Irakusa]

Also, thanks everyone with the great posts of tapeworm pics. Made the ID pretty fast.