OCellaris, lemme feed your tapeworm

[Sprattoo]

I believe one of my newly aquired Ocellaris may have a tapeworm. I call her she.. as she is the larger of two I bought for a far over-inflated price.

All water conditions are good. 75G tank (20G overflow/sump/'fuge) temp 79-82 PH 8.0 zero nitrates, nitrites, ammonia. Theres plenty of food as Mysis and 'pods have practically bred to pest like proportions (which also vouches for positive water conditions).

She has been doing well, eating ok... not as hungrily as her mate... but still eating and doing ok. Today she was inspecting my Condylictus with her mate, and was sitting very still just under the condy at the edge of its reach.

This is when I noticed her breathing to be slightly labored, and has a white-ish/ translucent string coming from her ....anus?

At first I thought she was just pooping, but it hasn't gone away in the past 2 hours. This is day 4 of having these fish... Will Mr. be upset if I take Mrs back and get her replaced?

I would rather keep this fish.. as her mate "vibrates" and shows off for her a lot and they are unseperable.

errr.... they may be from the same brood though... is that too close on the family tree?

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a symptom of a bacterial infection "white, stringy feces", labored breathing, not feeding well. Tell me you're using quarantine.. wait, no.. not if they're with a Condy, huh? Q/T both those fish.

 

[Sprattoo]

I really want to.... but like I said, my QT / Nano / extra tank is occupied with a nasty couple of yellow tails, they ended up in that tank for tearing up another fish. I could rig something up I suppose but not for more than a few days.

What could I do once I get them QT'd? At least they stopped teasing the condy , now their teasing my Pulsing Xenia.

What would be suitable to treat a bacterial infection?

 

[Baalz]

Probably an internal parasite. Try treating your clown with pipzine. Will clear it right up.

 

[Sprattoo]

wet web media folks said the same thing... Internal parasite... (even though a tapeworm qualifies as on... Im thinking It's not)

I'm off to shop for this or some similar treatment..... I'm guessing a 5 min fresh water dip would be useless for internal parasites...

 

[Anonymous]

Yep. Assuming it's that.

 

[Sprattoo]

I ended up getting hex a mit

The clowns are living in a 2 gallon bucket with an airstone, a heater and a mini power head for the next 3 days while they swim in the treated stuff.... of course I'll be doing daily water changes from their tank.

Sigh.....

 

[Baalz]

Spratto,
Your clown should be fine. Pipzine and hexamit are about same.
I raise clowns and I had thousands of young show exact same symptoms at same time. They ate somewhat but alot looked emaciated. I treated systems with pipzine and it cleared up in no time.

 

[Sprattoo]

very encouraging...but

This AM both were ok, I changed about 10% of the treated water with fresh aquarium water (discarded the treated).

The female died late this afternoon, the male, who was showing some signs of the same problem was in the same 2 gallons of treated water, looking kind of stressed out by being in the bucket.

I moved him back to the tank.. figuring he MUST have drank some of that water in about 24hrs, and Hex a mit was intended to treat a whole tank for 5 days not a 2G bucket (I tried to estimate 2G worth of the powder in the capsule) and a little dose might do the trick but being exceptionally stressed might cause worse issues.

He's breathing a little heavy tonight... feces was a bit stringy... but more clumped than yesterdays female. It was like little whit-ish clumps instead of translucent goo.... so maybe it's a good sign ((shrug)) maybe passing dead parasites?

Returned dead female with H2O sample LFS verifies that my water is unusually pristine, all levels remarkably balanced. (pats self on the back)

After lights out male seems a bit more perky... was just hiding in the corner when he came back to the tank.