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hi all,
yesterday i again observed white Y shaped white worms sticking to one of the fish. I had seen those creature one sticking to one of my balloon mollies and that poor creature passed away it sticks itself to the fish body at one end and the othertwo ends are freely hanging ouside. I once tried to remove them but they are sticking so tightly that i could not...
can anybody please explain what are these creatures and how to remove them??

Sounds like anchor worms.

These fish are easily recognized by their forked end (the y shape I think you were describing , and they are best removed manually. Anchor worms latch onto a fish under it's scale, and full grown worms grow to less than an inch long, and you should be able to gently pull them off of your fish using a tweezer. Dimilin is also an alternative treatment that is not toxic to fish, but lethal to invertebrates, but is meant for ponds, not tanks, and the dosage is 1 teaspoon per 1,000 gallons.

What I find odd though, is that you are experiencing this in a tank (hence the balloon molly), when anchor worms typically affect pond fish such as goldfish and koi. . .

~Envy
~~Your village called.. they're missing an idiot.~~

These fish ha ha typo ^_^

*These worms*

~Envy
~~Your village called.. they're missing an idiot.~~

thanks for the info..the first time i noticed that on the balloon molly and im sure it brought that thing from LFS and now it has started effecting my other fish as well...im not sure if im gonna find that treatment here in my locality

Hi do these worms..look like fuzz, white, because i have something like that on the sides of the tank. mostly near the gravel edge going up and some on the driftwood..are these the same..none on the fish...they working that way?..
Sue

Is it possible to take the fish and its worm to your LFS, they might be the only ones who can if a medication is difficult to obtain.

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so i actually pulled out the worm from one of the infected fish...it was sticking so firmly that i really had to put some effort in uprooting it...poor fish
and to make it worse, i couldnt find the treatment suggested above (as expected)...and more and more of my fish are getting these beasts attached to their bodies....
plzzzz help

The following iis from Pandora's Aquarium, a very good site:

May be physically removed, but will cause great stress to the animal, and must be done carefully and with a dab of antibiotic over the wound afterwards. Brand name formulations like Jungle Parasite Guard and Aquarium Pharmaceuticals may also help.

Pandora



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