One of my fish stopped eating...

[LizStreithorst]

The one by the pointer is for sure capillaria. The other 2 appear to be round worm eggs. To find flukes you need to take a scraping. I've never had the guts to try that. If the fish are not scraping against objects on the tank, I don't think that flukes are the problem.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/13432589445...Bk9SR8iz2IaSYQ

[jwcarlson]

Aren't there intestinal flukes? I haven't noticed any flashing or anything like that

[seanyuki]

Gill flukes (Dactylogyrus) and skin flukes (Gyrodactylus) are external parasites. When their gill are affected with flukes then comes flashing/dashing.

Aren't there intestinal flukes? I haven't noticed any flashing or anything like that

[jeep]

There are internal liver flukes but I don't think this is your issue. These look like capillaria and possibly roundworm eggs.

[jwcarlson]

Sounds good, I will stay the course with levamisole and see where it ends up.

[wuvarien]

Out of curiosity - How do you think the eggs got into your tank? I'm terrified of my guys getting parasites!

[LizStreithorst]

Don't freak out. Eggs are not killed by medication. What's killed is the adult parasites in the fish. The fish's immune system is geared to handle a degree of parasite infestation. The parasites only become a problem when the fish were stressed for some reason.

[jwcarlson]

I agree with Liz. I would guess they might have come in with some lemon tetras I added some months ago.

On a side note, everyone survived the 24 hours and did full wipe/water change. My question is... What should I see (if anything)?
They had barely pooped as they hadn't eaten. Should I expect anything to be different? I will do the followups going by Tammy's post in this thread. Just wondering if there's something I should see or notice?
There was one white poop like the sick one has been passing. Assuming that is from him.

My understanding is that levamisole just paralyzes the adult worm, it doesn't kill it?

[jwcarlson]

All but the sick one ate well this morning. He did show at least a bit more interest in food than normal and even nipped at one of the bigger fish at least twice. This is now my 4th or 5th levamisole treatment since I got the fish and they have only been knocked off food once and I think that was the time I followed package instructions and did 48 hour soak.
Does that mean it's not working? They were REALLY trying to eat the salt last night, so figured they would be hungry this AM.

[Iminit]

Great info in this thread. But lots of questions. First why still having problems after all the treatments that have been done? If tetras brought in the worms why aren’t they showing effects of worms? Should the sick fish have been put back with the heathy ones? Were the healthy ones healthy? Will the immunity systems of these fish keep the worms at bay? As in do fish generally have worms but with strong IM are fine? I know lots of questions. Next is there any type of guide to what can be seen in a microscope? And what we would be looking for. I’ve never owned a microscope so have no clue. What would be a good microscope to use? Thanks

[jwcarlson]

So far as I am concerned, you can't have one animal in a population with parasites and the others without. Like if you have five dogs and find fleas on one... They've all got fleas. They may have differing levels of infestation and symptom expression, though. So that's why I brought the one back into gen pop from QT instead of treating two tanks. Tetras could have had some symptoms, one lemon tetra died shortly after I got them. And one Rummynose died just a couple of days ago, but behavior was normal. Still red nose still eating, swiming with others, it did have some noticeable darker spots, almost looked like bruising shortly before it died. I assumed that the discus finally caught it and beat it up.

I cannot answer the rest of the questions. I am quite curious as to if I should see something change during/after levamisole. Meaning... Some evidence of it working? I suppose I could try gathering some poop and tossing it under the microscope, doesn't hurt anything.

[Iminit]

No it can’t hurt. But you’ve done the levamisole already with no results? What changes now?

[jwcarlson]

No levamisole since introducing tetras.

[jwcarlson]

Day 1 and Day 5 levamisole are in the books. The fish in question seems, perhaps, a bit better. But still hasn't eaten that I have seen. It is occasionally coming up into the mix when the others are eating, so hopefully that's a good sign.

The first day didn't knock them off food too bad. The second one seems to have taken away their hunger a bit, but not too bad. Fed them a little this AM (the day after second treatment). Probably going to fast them the rest of the day and feed them after water change tonight and see how that goes.

For what it's worth, I put a picture up on my facebook and Hans saw it and commented "capillaria eggs 100%".

[jwcarlson]

Couple other observations watching the discus today. "Sick one" has eyes that are not anywhere near as red as they used to be. He is also bullying/attacking (pecking at sides) of the other fish. Not sure if that is a good or bad sign... Or no sign at all.