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Oh no..... Today spotted small, pale colored worm-like creatures attached to my fish. They are present on the fins of all three pearl gouramis. Also on the tails of two tetras. I spotted one on the mouth of an oto, he looks very unhappy. There could be more. Flukes, leeches, worms? I don't know! The skin at the base of the affected fins is red and irritated. May have begun any time in the past few days as we had company and I wasn't paying close attention to the fish like I usually do. Recent addition of new rocks and plants would be the suspected culprit, though I really did try to steralize the rocks as best I could. Guess it wasn't enough... I have a malachite green/formalin treatment I can use if it would help. Would salt addition be appropriate? Please help! I can post more info later.

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Looks like leeches or parasitic copepods known as lernaea , cant quite tell at that level of detail.

Copepods are killed quite effectively by a one minute dip in a salt solution, so perhaps try that first, especially since leeches also hate salt, and may drop off if exposed to it.

There are commercial meds that might kill copepod naupli but they are quite hard on fish. Waterlife sterazin kills both these groups of parasite, as will a few other meds.

Well there you go, at last a legitimate use for salt

Thanks LHG, had a feeling you'd be the first to the scene.

More detail: The longest bug is maybe a cm, max. most are about 1/2 cm. It appears to be a very pale translucent cream color but the first 3/4 of the body is dark brown. I'm assuming this is the digestive section, fish blood, and what not. The critter is attached only at the 'mouth'. What other details do you need? Or maybe you could describe those two and I could compare? Another note: the two cardinal tetras that have parasites both have tattered fins. The tails (where the parasite is attached) and the anal fins are both in bad shape. Also, a few other cardinals that do not have visible parasites are showing this damage as well. The water quality is quite good (Amm:0, Nitrite:0, Nitrate:10, pH:7.4, temp:78) One female gourami has two suckers on one fin and the fin shows some damage (white patches). Looks like maybe the parasites reattached themselves? Should I be considering a treatment to prevent secondary infections?

Questions: How strong of a salt dip (salt/water ratio helpful)? Assuming I can catch all of the little fish affected and get rid of their bugs...will these show up again? There may be an oto or cory that is affected that I can't see. What is the life cycle? Are there free swimming creatures or eggs still in my water? In that case would it be wiser to treat the entire tank with a chemical? Will that crash my bio filter bacteria?

Thank you!

They say a picture says a thousand words. This is lernea, otherwise known as anchor worm,

http://www.chilternkoi.baxx.net/lernea.jpg

although some have less ounced flaring growths than that, and look like this this..

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/anchor2.jpg

...and piscicola leeches look like this when small, usually around 10 mm,

Picture

Hope that helps with the ID.

As for salt doses for one minute dips, about 30 grams per litre is about right.

For in-tank treatments 2-3 grams per litre is about as high as you should ever go, this of course should only be considered if you have salt tolerant species in the tank, and its obviously not a good idea if you have cories.

Commercial cures like seachems paraguard are also effective against lernea and leeches, and are safer than average.See linky.

http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/ParaGuard.html

Leeches are more likely to go for the mouth than lernea, and yes , since both parasites can cause anaemia in the host thus dropping the immune system its a good idea to protect the fish against secondary infection, using products like melafix and pimafix, although salt too will help to some degree, especially against fungus, but not so much with bacteria. Obviously, weakened fish may serve as a vector from which bacteria and fungal levels can increase to levels where other healthy fish can be overtaken.


EDIT: Shortened a link title to narrow the post.

I doubt its anchor worm as all except the oto's are attached to fins. Looks more like the leeches. They are so thin though, they don't look meaty like the ones in the picture.

I treated the gouramis with the 1 minute salt dip and then removed them to a hastily assembled hospital tank (10 gal with water from main tank and a mature sponge filter) which has a low dose of salt (the amount set on the directions on the box). Also started Melafix.

I could not catch the cardinals or even find the right oto. They are so small and fast, they outmanuever me very well amoungst the plants and driftwood. I didn't want to over stress them. Considering adding Melafix to the main tank. Any precautions as far as bio filter/cories that I should know about?

The salt dip did not seem to do anything for the gouramis. The little suckers are still firmly attached. Its been about 10 minutes since the treatment so maybe they will die off slower? If this fails, the only anti-parasite med that I found tonight was a Jungle product, one of those fizzing tab kinds. It had several different meds in it, can't remember off the top of my head, and was for treating both internal and external bugs. The good LFS was not open. They may have a different medication, I can check tomorrow. How long should I wait before trying a med?

Poor fish...

Morning update:

The gouramis are still eating well but their color is pretty washed out from the stress. The suckers have rearranged themselves to various fins. One attached to a back, one is on the male pearl's eye ball. You can see where they were anchored before, they leave ugly little round marks.

In the main tank: I can't find suckers on any tetra (but I can see the red marks on a few) so I assume they have switched hosts. Maybe to an oto or cory, the fish are all in hiding so I can't tell.

Resilient little bunch of buggers! Mustve picked up some that can take it brackish, which is to say the least a bit unlucky, and since you have cories you cant use salt on all your fish.

You dont have med sensitive species though, so use meds to annihilate them. At least you know from the way they move around they definately are leeches.

Thank you for your replies LHG.

I will get a med then. Have to wait until Monday now, unless I get the shotgun Jungle treatment. Hope the fish do alright until them. Will continue the Melafix.

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