Fishy worm help needed please!

[Lancelottie]

Fishy novice getting conflicting info from fish shop and google here, so I need some Mumsnet wisdom to add to the mix.

DD got a new bristlenose pleco before Christmas which appears to have a worm about 8-10 mm long attached just by the side of the dorsal fin. It's hard to get a good look as the pleco is tiny and very active (and quite strongly black/white patterned!) but I think it's an anchor worm.

We don't have a spare tank (can't see one on Freecycle atm). Do I need to get one, put just the Plec in it and treat that? Or will we need to zap the whole tank? I'm not sure if it arrives with this worm or has picked it up here somehow.

Fish store sold me Interpet 12, saying it wouldn't harm the filter bacteria, but the instructions say it does wipe them out. So that'll leave us an uncycled tank, right, and probably wipe out all 8 fish? Doesn't sound too good to me.

They also suggested turning the heater up to speed the parasite metabolism and make it die faster, but given their other advice seems dodgy I don't trust this.

Google came up with 'Parazin' for not killing off the filter, but varied reviews of whether it does anything useful; also suggestions of 'removing with tweezers' (bit tricky when the whole fish is about an inch long).

Errm, help? Before I give up and make a very small set of fish fingers?

Any chance you could get a picture of the worm? Or does it look like this ?

If it is anchor worm then I would treat the whole tank, the cycle of an anchor worm has a free swimming stage so it could be that the whole tank is infected.

Interpet treatments tend to be a bit crap, Parazin might be better. I would try that first anyway! Having an uncycled tank with fish in is bad news especially since they will be weak from having anchor worm- you would be quite likely to lose some if not all of them :( so if it does come down to that I would get in some ammolock and some bactinettes.

If you do use the Parazin to treat the whole tank then it's worth getting a spare tank anyway. Quarantining new fish prevents this kind of problem. I think it's likely that it brought the parasite in with it.

Thanks EauRouge, I was really hoping you'd see this (heads off to google ammolock and bactinettes). It does look like that picture as far as I can tell, but I don't think I've any hope of a photo.

I have a spare filter and heater, so could set up a little quarantine tank if I can get one (though if I can get this one sorted I currently feel we;'d be better not getting any new fish ever).

Umm, how big is big enough for a quarantine tank? I have limited space to put one off the floor.

Depends on what fish you have, if they are big then you need a big quarantine tank . If your bristlenose is your biggest fish then I would say around 60-70 litres would be OK for quarantine (as it's only temporary). It doesn't need to be set up permanently, you can keep the spare filter running in your main tank and then just set up the Q tank when you need it. In fact, it doesn't even have to be a tank, a lot of people use these and they have lids so you don't need to worry too much about cats/toddlers if you need to put them on the floor.

Seven zebra danios and the plec that's the lot, so all pretty tiddly. But I'm confused again do I put all the fish in the quarantine tank while treating the main tank?

Brilliant idea about the plastic box (and much friendlier on the post-Christmas budget). I think I'd assumed plastic, umm, leached stuff into the water, so it had to be a glass tank.

Random crossings out are appearing in my posts! Why can I never do that when I try to?

Some plastic does leach stuff into the water so you have to get food-grade plastic. I think the really useful ones are the cheapest easily available ones, I can check it out though if you want?

No, leave the fish in the main tank and treat the whole lot- there could be free-swimming stage anchor worm larva thingies in the water and if you only treat the fish in another tank then they won't be taken care of.

I would try the Parazin because you won't need to re-cycle the tank with fish in. Because the interpet stuff wipes out the filter you'd need to arm yourself with the ammolock and bactinettes which won't be cheap! Much cheaper to buy a bottle of Parazin and give that a go first (Waterlife treatments are better than Interpet ones anyway IME).

OK, thanks again. I've ordered some Parazin and a big Really Useful box for future problems. The fish all look active and shiny still, so I hope I'll catch this in time.

No problem, hope they all make a full recovery :)

Uh oh. The meds and box haven't arrived yet (bit over-rural here for more than one flocal fish shop) and the plec now has a fluffy white spot around the worm site. Anything immediate I can do to help it?

'flocal' is a great word, but 'local' is what I meant

Any ideas how long it will be? Does your flocal shop stock any general meds? Pimafix is a good one, it's made of natural ingredients so doesn't harm your filter. You need to increase the aeration in your tank though with an airstone or increase your filter flow, or at least make sure the filter flow breaks the surface of the water.

Right (sobbing with pathetic gratitude) I can probably get back to the flocal shop at lunchtime to see. Meanwhile I'll lift the filter up to the water surface.
I asked for express delivery on the Parazin but it's still saying 'estimated 14th Jan'.

Giant plastic box has just arrived but I don't want to stress sick fishie too much by shifting him unnecessarily.

DOn't worry about moving the fish, you'll need to treat the whole tank and fish with the parazin anyway. If it's only going to be 2 days then I would wait and not bother with the Pimafix, you'd need to remove it anyway before treating with the parazin.

You might want to do a nice big water change to make sure the water's in really good nick and I'm sure your fish will be OK for another 2 days.

Just coming back here to say we've had the meds in the water since last Friday, the worm has gone, and all seems well so far. Even the fuzzy patch on the back of the pleco has cleared up (which seems odd!). Thanks for all your help.

I'm checking for nitrites and ammonia just in case the meds do affect the filter. The Parazin leaflet appears to suggest not doing further water changes for 10 days to give things a chance to work (twitch, twitch).

Glad the worm has gone! 10 days with no water change should be OK but you might want to monitor the water just in case. If the ammonia or nitrIte creeps up to dangerous levels then you can always do a water change and add a bit of parazin to the clean water you put back in. You'd have to be fairly precise about how much water you took out though, have you got a bucket with measurements on?

Mmm, good point. Yes, I have a dedicated bucket with markings on -- but the Parazin comes in huge tablets that do something like half a tank each, so some judicious tablet-crumbling is going to be needed.

Hmm, might be better to wait then! 10 days is probably the life cycle length of the parasites that it treats so best to wait and make sure that all the free-swimming bits are dead.