Parasites on three spot Gourami. 6/27/11
Hello Crew,
I've been reading and learning a lot from your website, thank you so much for helping us and our fishes.
<Welcome>
I really need your help in identifying the parasites my fish might have. I have 4-4.5 year old three spot Gourami that has been healthy and hardy fish for all these years until recently. I made some bad choices and introduced a fish to his tank that he was extremely afraid off. He will not come to surface to eat and got very stressed.
I set up a new 20 gallon tank just for him and transferred the fish in it once it cycled (water quality is good with 0 for ammonia and nitrites and under 10 for nitrates), ph 7.5 hard water with moderate alkalinity.
After the transfer the fish showed signs of irritation, scratched himself over objects in the tank and soon after develop small raised white-grayish spots very similar to Ick but not Ick. I tried to raise the temperature to 88F and adding salt to 0.7% but it did not help. Under these conditions it looked like he is getting more spots and they also grow larger. They do fall of the fish leaving scars with a little bleeding. The new spots will appear mostly on the old wounds or close to gill covers. I have three black tetras with no signs of disease, so it either something specific to gouramis or the parasites are not leaving the fish?
<Likely so>
As far as the treatments I've tried so far: 2 weeks of raised temperature plus salt-did not work; 4 treatments with parasite clear tank buddies by Jungle lab (Metronidazole, Praziquantel, Diflubenzuron, Acriflavine) 48 hours apart with 25% water change - did not do anything; Seachem Paraguard bath for 1 hour - took most of external spots down. At that point I collected all that stuff that come from the fish and looked at it under the microscope. What I found was a few Trichodina like parasites,
<Can you describe these? Size?>
a tiny microscopic worm (likely nematode) that was still alive in the Paraguard water and tried to wiggle himself back into the piece of dead skin-Ouch! Another creature was a tiny insect-like thing (six legged one), but may be crustaceans of some sort.
<?!>
What a zoo and I'm still not sure what is going on.
I had to repeat Paraguard bath for two more times to take care of the few leftover spots that would keep reappearing on the fish skin and now his skin is clean and keeps healing well.
I also added the recommended amount of Paraguard to the tank water every 24 hours for 3 days until The ammonia level raised to .25. Damn, I trusted the Seachem for being filter safe and here I'm. Did 50% water change, ran carbon with Nitrazorb and added Prime and good squeeze off my established tank sponge. By the end of the day the ammonia level was 0, and the rest of parameters were all fine. That same day Gourami felt itchy at his gills, he would go to the surface, inhale some air and blow the bubbles through his gills. After doing this a few times I found a worm dislodged from his gills. That worm is about 1 cm long, and ~ 0.5-1mm thick, white-transparent looking. Has a ventral sucker and may be dorsal sucker, half filled with blood and other thicker half filled with some yellowish stuff (organs or eggs). Could it be fluke?
<Yes>
Could they be so big?
<Rarely, but yes>
After that worm fall of the fish's gills the Gourami is not eating, just takes the food and spits it out. Also not as active as he used to be.
I'm sorry for such long email, just wanted to include all the details.
I'm extremely desperate to save my fish, but feel that these past 3 months were really stressful and I'm at my personal water change limit.
Please, if you could help me to find the proper treatments for my fish I would so much appreciate this.
<I'd go back w/ an Anthelminthic... the Praziquantel by itself. Please read
here: http://wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/AnthelminthicsFWF.htm
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Oxana
<Welcome. Bob Fenner>

Re: Parasites on three spot Gourami. 6/29/2011
Hi Bob,
<Oxana>
Thank you very much for your reply and all the info.
What I thought to be a Trichodina-like parasites, were round single cell organisms of ~ 20-40 micrometer in diameter, some were quite transparent with identifiable edge and some sort of fluff around it, which made me think It could be cilia. Since they've been seating in Paraguard treated water o/n, they were dead and not moving. Other type were also round, but more brownish in color (no horseshoe-shaped nucleus), but similar in size.
This morning one more worm came off the Gourami's gills and it looks nearly identical to the one I found before.
I looked at both of them under the microscope and the closest look-alike organism I can find was Schistosoma sp. (I have attached the image I found on the Web as well the photo I've taken). Sorry, for the poor quality, It was taken with phone camera.
<These look like flukes to me, with their prominent hooks... definitely worms of some sort>
I also included few pics of my fish with those raised spots. Could it be some sort of Trematode lifecycle form (cercariae?).
<Possibly, yes>
I don't have any snails in the tank, so if indeed these things are flukes, could they have fish as the only host?
<Yes>
I guess my hopes are that those worms may be do have some intermediate host and the whole thing will just die off eventually, if they can not complete the cycle.
<You are correct, if they have a complex life history>
I have ordered some Hikari liquid PraziPro, thank you very much for your suggestions.
Sincerely,
Oxana
<Welcome. Bob Fenner>