Capillaria?

[Jandiscus]

I have not found any at this point. I'll keep looking.

[brewmaster15]

I have not found any at this point. I'll keep looking.

Thats a good sign then!

al

[Jandiscus]

Fingers crossed! I took a fresh sample of white stool that was literally dropped that second. I caught it before it even touched the ground. It contained the same nematodes but no eggs. I found two tiny wiggly things that were moving around. I'm thinking these might be barely hatched larvae, which should get wiped out by the next treatment. I hope two treatments will break the cycle. I have read that some do a third application.

[Jandiscus]

Two more pics of the presumable nematodes. This is the first time that I actually see "round worms". Everything else before that seemed to be just remnants of the worms. These are from another very fresh sample and did not show any signs of life under the microscope. Note how long one of them is! This is a 40x magnification. Sorry for posting more poop pics. My wife thinks I'm a nerd or geek or both :-)

Cheers,

Jan

[brewmaster15]

Two more pics of the presumable nematodes. This is the first time that I actually see "round worms". Everything else before that seemed to be just remnants of the worms. These are from another very fresh sample and did not show any signs of life under the microscope. Note how long one of them is! This is a 40x magnification. Sorry for posting more poop pics. My wife thinks I'm a nerd or geek or both :-)

Cheers,

Jan

Jan, I'm not sure those are worms.. the first pic especially looks like a contaminant.. it looks like a piece of fiber or thread. Its even got a knot in it!


al

[Jandiscus]

I was wondering about that....lol. Unfortunately I found something today that I don't like at all, especially since the round things (eggs?) look very different from the ones I had seen so far. I'm not sure what those could be....??!! Thanks for your help!!!!!

[brewmaster15]

Got me there... weird, maybe more eggs...not capillaria though. At this point I would finish your 3 courses of dewormer. Then look for worms again. Right now its too soon.

Al

[Jandiscus]

Got me there... weird, maybe more eggs...not capillaria though. At this point I would finish your 3 courses of dewormer. Then look for worms again. Right now its too soon.

Al

Thanks Al! Will do.

[Jandiscus]

I just wanted to provide an update on this thread. Nine days have passed since the second application of Levamisol. The 2 affected fish continued to be sick, excreting white poop which still showed what appeared to be exoskeletons of worms. No eggs though. One of them degraded rapidly just 2 days ago, loosing its color, laying almost flat on the bottom and showing a blackened area right after the abdominal area. I suspect that the nematodes might have migrated further into the body. I culled the fish (3.5") right away. The second fish, while still swimming looked very stunted and has not notably grown since I bought it in March. At this point I decided to cull this one as well, leaving me with hopefully only healthy fish. All others are eating normally at this point and I have not observed any more white feces. I will apply a third doses of Levamisol next week to complete the treatment as suggested. While the end of the story is unfortunate, there is a lot of good learning here.

All of the fish came from the same reputable source, bought all at once. But my first mistake was to cycle the tank with angelfish I had bought from a LFS. I had them 6 weeks or so before I introduced the discus and there was no sign of disease. Still, I must assume that the angels were the source of this parasite. My second mistake was to not quarantine. My third mistake was to not separate the sick fish from the healthy ones and treat them in a hospital tank right away. My final mistake was to keep treating these fish for almost 2 months now, throwing a lot of meds and money at fish that had little chance to catch up on their growth spur.

Thanks to all of you for your advice and help. I'll play it by the book from now on. I have learned so much though from this episode. I have become very efficient and diligent in sterilizing everything that comes into contact with the tanks. Chlorine & iso-propanol are my two new friends. I feel like working in a clean room sometimes :-)