FishMother

[FishMother 0]

Hi, I would like to know what parasite this is (looking at him from all angles, I think there are two; they aren't really showing). I just cleaned the tank,(20 gal. with 2 fish, this one is 8 yo), added 4 Tbl. aquarium salt, won't be feeding them for a day, and put 1 tsp. Prazipro in.After cleaning the tank, I picked him up and dabbed it with hydrogen peroxide.

I'm new here, although I've been keeping goldfish for  40 years. After reading around on the internet, maybe they are flukes or lice.??? Any suggestions? I love my 8 yo Goldman. Thank you.

[Anorea 144]

Are there any other pictures you can upload? If not, can you circle or draw an arrow at the parasites you are trying to show?

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[koko 14,366]

Have you tried to see if that spot is hard or soft.? Does it move or stay there? 

[DawnMichele 6,045]

Welcome to Kokos and hope you Goldfish feels better.

[FishMother 0]

Hi, I don't know if this is any better, but since this last weekend, the two black things have white fuzzy ends on them and they do move, at least insomuch as they are convex and sticking out are now waving back and forth when he wiggles his tail with these white ends showing. I dabbed some peroxide on them again today.I think it's too soon to put any more Prazipro in the tank yet.

[koko 14,366]

If you can take a photo or video with him in a small bowl. A white bowl would be good. try and get close to it so we can see better  

[FishMother 0]

Well, now it is the end of the month and after extensive reading all over the web,I have gleaned that if a parasite is big enough to see, it's either lice or anchorworms. I looked at many pictures of anchorworm and I'm almost certain that it's lice. That is probably why Prazipro didn't help.. I clean the tank really good once a week, I have the heater on 75 degrees, aquar. salt of 4 Tbl. to a 20 gal. tank. I just put a treatment in yesterday of  a product called Microbe Lift , which is for anchorworm and lice.The directions say to repeat it 3 times in all, one week apart, with a partial water change.

I'm almost certain I introduced it to the tank by buying anacharis (which looked pretty sad) and probably was tainted. At least around here (no.. Calif.), getting a hold of decent anacharis is very hard, at best.I haven't seen disease in many years.

I will report later on what happened. Thanks for all your replies.

[mjfromga 1,785]

If its lice, you'll want to manually remove them first. Then you'll want to treat. But there's no way to be sure it's lice since the photos weren't clear enough for us to tell. Good luck. 

PS

Microbe Lift won't help. 

Edited August 1, 2017 by mjfromga

[shakaho 6,312]

Microlift is the brand name of many products.  I assume you used this.  I also found the active ingredient, cyromazine, an insect growth regulator, which inhibits the growth of larva and juvenile parasites, so removing the big ones should speed the treatment.

I strongly recommend you do much larger water changes.  Those 20% changes work for a tank of little tropicals but you should change at least 50% for goldfish.  

[FishMother 0]

Yes, it's Microbe Lift specifically for lice and anchorworms. I have watched a few Youtube videos of people taking lice and anchorworms out of fish. What my fish has isn't anchorworms .They are burrowed in though and it's going to pain me to try to get them out. I don't know what I'm doing,but I do have various tweezers. I'm first going to call some fish stores to see if they'll help me do it.As for water changes, I have been doing more than 20% changes.As for what they look like, I took more pictures, but they all look the same to me. They look like little fat,brown pieces of arborio rice. when I see the aquarium store guy take them out, and seeing what they look like when they're out, it appears that the black is the digestive system of the louse and the body is translucent greenish, so, probably them being burrowed in and clamped on, their digestive systems are what I see and it looks like there is a layer of fish skin (unless it's their translucent bodies)that are covering them. (notice on the different angle photo).  There are two of them (at least).I thought that the treatment I put in the tank was going to kill them and their babies. Don't they have a life span? Is it forever? Don't parasites ever die? Do I really have to do this?

[FishMother 0]

I am trying to get up the guts to perform surgery on my fish to get these parasites off. They make him itch.He stays where the water flows over his fins for relief. There is one video on youtube of an expert taking them off. I'm scared. Any suggestions or tips?

[shakaho 6,312]

Just pull them off with forceps, like you would pull out a sliver.

[FishMother 0]

Well , I just did it this morning and it was a mini nightmare.They were burrowed in so hard (and they were so hard and crunchy).I had heard to put salt on them, so I dabbed a Qtip that was in very salty water. They did not come out in one piece. In fact, there are many small pieces left in him and I can't tell if there is enough of one left to be a total animal again. I have a feeling there might be one on the inside of this tail you are seeing on the pic.I don't want him to lose a half of a tail right now. He is acting fine and eating and swimming. I wish he would just settle down and rest in a corner.I need to leave for a day and a half now and I'm a bit worried. Oh, and I did get one piece big enough to see that it was, in fact, lice. I have a digestive system with a bit of the green body.I have it packed away in alcohol-laced paper towel.I have  a microscope at the other place and will look at it for posterity. I hope there aren't any newbies still there who will grow into adults.

The lice treatment is in the water, the aquarium salt, a new cleaning with a good water change, the heater is on 75 degrees.Put a bit extra of Stress Coat in the water. Can't think of anything else to do. When I picked them out (I had various forceps to use ), I then dabbed the wound afterward with triple antibiotic gel ointment because that was all I had. I can bring mercurichrome type ointment back with me tomorrow night. I'm  Any more suggestions are welcome.

[FishMother 0]

I read on the web (not from experts, but from someone who said it helped their fish) to fed them bits of fresh garlic and the lice don't like it. Anyone hear of that? I wonder if the fish would eat it?

 

[koko 14,366]

32 minutes ago, FishMother said:

I read on the web (not from experts, but from someone who said it helped their fish) to fed them bits of fresh garlic and the lice don't like it. Anyone hear of that? I wonder if the fish would eat it?

 

I don't know if the lice doesn't like it. But it sure helps in boosting the fishes immunity  

[koko 14,366]

How are you doing? 

[Anorea 144]

Fishmother, on a side note, if you ever want good anacharis in norcal, and you are near Hollister, stop by the local pet store here. Their plants are the only thing I recommend, actually. XD one of the workers grows all the plants, and he has a whole garage full of planted tanks that he personally keeps, so all of the plants he sells are great quality. They're cheap too. The struggle is real, you're right. None of the fish stores or other pet stores sell anacharis.
I hope your fish baby gets better soon!!

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[Helen 8,511]

they are/were not lice. these are lice:

not sure what your fish had going there, but it was not lice. i have detached lice from fish (hence their removal from the host and onto a plate), they are not difficult to pluck off with tweezers or with a scrape of your fingernail.

[FishMother 0]

I'm glad your lice weren't burrowed in yet. I took one off that was like yours; still moving around on him. I have a microscope and I have a big part of a dead one. When they burrow into the flesh of the fish, you see their black digestive system, but the translucent green just looks like a fatty coating over the black part. They are hard to get out and crunchy.They are copepods.

Some info:

Argulus lice propel themselves through water very efficiently when they seek a new host; propulsion is provided by the 4 pair of thoracopods located on the posterior portion of their ventral surface. On the ventral surface of the louse head are short antennules and antennae, both of which have claws and function as organs of attachment to the host. Juvenile Argulus lice attach to the host by means of the claws, whereas adults attach by means of a pair of modified suckers commonly referred to as maxillules.

While feeding on the host, Argulus species insert a preoral stinger to inject digestive enzymes into the body of the fish, and the lice suck out liquefied body fluids by using their proboscis-like mouth .

I have to do surgery again on him, because there are pieces left and they aren't dissolving. I also might still have some live ones still. Part of his tail has been "eaten" and I have to be careful not to rip half his tail off when I perform surgery. I now have Dimilin in the tank, which is supposed to be the best thing to use, but I don't know if it's working or not.The bottle said 1 tsp. per 500 gal., so I figured it out to be 4 drops for my 20 gal.tank. so far, I put 4 drops a week and a half ago and another dose after a tank cleaning the other day.I bought some clove oil and only put 2 drops in 2 gallons of water to anesthetize him before the last surgery, but it wasn't enough.He still wriggled last time I had him on the operating table.To put him out, I would have to put ~ 10 drops per 2 gal., but I'm chicken, since too much can kill them.