Loaches Online Forum

I think I made a pretty bad mistake today.

The lfs had one N. platiceps remaining (3 died quickly), one of these guys:



Since he survived three weeks in the store tank and looked OK, I took him home, together with three 2" schisturas (suspected S. Poculi). Somehow I managed to miss that he had four red sores on his chest -- or, possibly, the sores are bite marks inflicted while the fish was in the bag (these schisturas are peaceful, but I think quite capable of expressing themselves this way, even to a larger fish). The wounds did look fresh. I'm hoping that these are bite marks indeed... but if not, does anyone have any recommendations on what to treat him with? Hopefully, it is not a parasite, but it might be -- Fish lice, for example, would cause similar sores, but not on the chest.
(I cannot get a photo of him/his sores right now -- while the schisturas are exploring the tank, he is hiding in a far corner.)

Darn. This is what happens from misguided attempts to rescue fish. The schisturas were in the store tank since last September, and these are the last survivors...I felt sorry seeing them there and dying from the heat (some did) while the six I took originally are having good life here. And the Nema clearly had the same in stake for him (who would buy a fish like this?--only a dork like me)....

Anyway, any idea what may cause such sores and what to do with the fellow now?

TIA

Never mind. I know the full story already, unfortunately.

Bugger!

Graeme Robson wrote:Bugger!

Bugger, all right.

The fish is dead. The moment I saw the sores, I treated the fish with levamisole (the sores were consistent with something I've seen in the past). This killed it (within less than an hour).

You can connect the dots.

Darn, darn, darn.

I took the photos since this will be quite useful for diagnostic purposes next time. Don't think anyone wants to see them.

Not in a mood for an autopsy, I pretty much know what I'll find anyway.

Darn. Was a nice fish, actually. And no one deserves this kind of death.

All right. I may as well show what happened, perhaps someone else will be helped by ID'ing this crap faster.

First, the picture:



This has been taken shortly after the death. Because of water reflection, the image is slighly distorted (the aspect ratio is off). The sores, unfortunately, are much more visible than an hour early, when the fish was still alive. While the fish was alive the sores did not appear to be very deep.

In addition to the sores, you can see some anal discharge, which does not look healthy; the sores themselves are actually quite deep and represent the points where the nematodes broke through the skin. Naturally, in addition to the skin damage there is likely a lot of internal damage one cannot see here.

I killed the fish by hitting it with levamisole the moment I saw the sores; while the diagnosis was not conclusive (thus my uncertain original post), this possibility had to be covered immediately. (Usually I'd wait with levamisole 24 hours to let the fish adjust to the new tank). In a very similar situation in the past I had a kuhli with similar, albeit less extensive, nematodic damage; I managed to keep him alive (still is, and still has a large scar). Very likely what happened to the Nemacheilus is that dying worm<s> pierced the vitals and killed it quickly; this happens because levamisole makes nematodes very active just before it kills them.

Anyway, those who asked about levamisole killing fish: here is the case when this happened. The fish was doomed, but probably would have lasted a couple more days without treatment.

This is the second time I see this type of infection in hillstreams; first it was in lizard-type loaches from HK, now it is in Nemacheilus from either Thailand or Singapore (unsure right now which). So this is common and if you are into hillstreams, it may be coming your way too. Naturally, this is much more serious than CWS; if untreated this is certain to kill at least all the bottom fish in the tank, and possibly all fish in all your tanks.

Notice also that 2-weeks quarantine is useless with these worms. Their livecycle is long enough that both times I've seen this, the problems came up around day 20. For example, this Nemacheilus had more than two weeks of quarantine at the store. Other useless things are:
* relying on examining the underside (most fish will not have such sores, and they appear only when the fish is *very* infected; smaller hillstreams are likely to die before sores appear) -- but it was still a bad error on my part not to do it.
* drugs other than levamisole; PraziPro, for example, was tried and failed the last time I encountered these worms.

Well, I guess that the new schisturas will be getting several levamisole rounds now, even if they are probably not infected. I'll make it up to them with bloodworms, they were living on algae wafers for a year.... hopefully they still remember that there are better foods available.

Hope this is of use to someone.

Sorry for your loss Mike

I agree with you that hopefully this information will be useful to others, I suppose the only way people can truly understand and treat these worms is for unfortunate fish like yours to die and for owners like your self to make as much info available as is possible.

Thank you, Mad.

IMHO, this is very wrong to leave this to the owners; dealing with this thing is complicated and it is not an accident that the common advice given on forums is to destroy all fish in the tank and sterilize the tank. (This was the advice I was given when I had my first encounter with these worms...)

In reality this is one case where the stores that sell infected fish should be held accountable. This is not just about fish, this is also a public health problem -- these worms may use a wide range of hosts including humans and an active infection as shown above spreads easily. Someone may actually end up quite dead from these things. I wonder if there is a law that may cover this already somewhere...(I know that some animals are banned because of infections they carry.)

The dilemma is that pushing this would cut off my source of hillstreams....

More darn....

Here is one of the other rescued guys:



He got his 2nd round of Levamisole today (three more to go). He came from the same shipment as the six I keep, except that he spent nearly a year in a bare bottom tank at the store.

Still unclear just how badly screwed up are these three (long stay in a store tank messes up fish). They are considerably skinnier than mine, this one is also small (<1.5"), and they are having trouble figuring out food like frozen shrimp (after a year on algae wafers...) or that there are good hiding places for them in the tank. At least, after five days, they figured out the flakes...

mikev wrote: He got his 2nd round of Levamisole today (three more to go). He came from the same shipment as the six I keep, except that he spent nearly a year in a bare bottom tank at the store.

Still unclear just how badly screwed up are these three (long stay in a store tank messes up fish). They are considerably skinnier than mine, this one is also small (<1.5"), and they are having trouble figuring out food like frozen shrimp (after a year on algae wafers...) or that there are good hiding places for them in the tank. At least, after five days, they figured out the flakes...

Hi Mike

Hopefully things are looking up for that one then

I think it is quite shocking that shops get these fish in and cant even offer them the basic species requirements, it really does get to me that shops can buy the fish in but not be bothered to look after them properly and in some cases even identify the fish correctly. But its even worse when they cant even feed the fish the correct diet. (rant over )

Hi Mad Duff

Mad Duff wrote:

mikev wrote: Hi Mike

Hopefully things are looking up for that one then

Provided that I succeed in exterminating the worms, I think so.

I think it is quite shocking that shops get these fish in and cant even offer them the basic species requirements, it really does get to me that shops can buy the fish in but not be bothered to look after them properly....

In this case, I cannot blame the shop. The $ angle: this is a $3 fish, it costs more than $3 to keep it going for a year already, and frozen food costs much more. The bad luck is that schisturas are not attractive enough to be sold easily.

This kind of schisturas (assumed S.Poculi), incidentally, is imho great. They do well with Botias in a tropical tank (not a recommendation), and they are small and mild (not Maherti's); my plan is to ultimately keep them with hillstreams.