Re: apisto with intestinal worms

["gkadar" <gkadar@idirect.ca>]

Simon,

Ken Laidlaw's offer of levamisole is right on.  These are livebearer worms
and in all likelihood the've infected the other fish in your tank as well.
It'll be only a matter of time before you see them hanging out of the
others.

They can be difficult to erradicate even with levamisole, and there are
other drugs you can use, but the margin of safety of those drugs is not
high.  I'm sure Dionigi Maladorno will put in his 2 cents worth on this one.

You should never assume that one course of treatment will do the trick.

One of the signs of an infected fish (behaviourally) is that it acts as
though it were paranoid and gets very aggressive.  It's quite possible that
the pair you purchased would have been fine together would it not be for the
worms.  I guess we'd be pretty miserable if we were full of those parasites
as well.

The thing that really gets me is that a fish, fed a 'survival only' diet at
an lfs will not show any worms.  But as soon as you get it home and give it
decent sized meals, the worms pop out.  I purchased a pair of wild caughts
last year about February and they'd been at the store for about 6 months.
No one wanted them.  I didn't even know what species they were although I
did know that the label on the tank was wrong.  Well, wouldn't you know
it......3 weeks after they started to eat a good diet, out came those worms.
Stupid me had put them in a community tank sans quarantine.  Three months
later the fish in the community tank were all sick.  I lost two female
borelliis because they were just too small to cope with the infestation
despite the use of medication.  The larger fish came through fine.  However
I had to treat the tank for a duration of 3 weeks, first every third day and
then finally in desperation, daily for three days.  I could tell when the
fish were all fine because they started to eat again.

Meanwhile the 'typhoid Marys' were quarantined as soon as I saw trouble.
They underwent treatment and after three months were placed into their own
tank.  A week later what did I see?  More b....y worms.  Two more treatments
and they have been 'clean'.  What a miserable experience.  Just because
they'd 'survived' 6 months in the store with no visible sign of infestation
meant absolutely nothing.

Gabriella




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