What IS this?
"Stella" is a telescope/oranda cross I've had since January. When I bought him (thought he was a girl back then, since developed breeding stars), he was very ill with fin rot. Treated him with salt, prazi, and furan, over the course of a few weeks. His fins grew back and he became one of my favourite fish. I moved him out to the pond once it was set up and the first batch of fish I'd put in there had passed QT.
He's been fine, no issues. Then, about a week ago, my pump tubing got kinked, so filtration was down. Water still tested fine, but was less clear. I noticed at the same time that Stella appeared to have velvet, but was still active and eating. Did a 10% water change, fixed the pump/filtration system and kept an eye on him. Two days ago, he seemed to be getting worse instead of better, so I began bringing him in for a one hour acriflavine dip (18% solution). He tolerated the dips well, visible velvet symptoms (gold "dust", peeling slime coat) disappeared. Today he seemed a bit worse in comportment, so I pulled him out in a container to have a look at him. I was horrified to see that he has some sort of visible parasite I can't identify. It's all over him, but easiest to see on his black areas, particularly his tail.
The parasites are TINY. To most they'd look like slime coat or dust, however if you've got good eyes (I do) and look closely (I did), you can see they're tiny parasites that are actually moving. These things are about 1/4 - 1/2 of a millimeter long, and worm-shaped.
His symptoms are lethargy, apparent pain in one pectoral fin, shredding fins (you can see the tiny holes being eaten into his dorsal fin in one pic), surface hanging, and heavy breathing.
I've brought him in and put him in an established 20G QT by himself. It's currently at about 0.4% salt. I'm going to treat with Prazi.
However, what IS this? I've looked through both my books, and can't identify it. It is NOT fish lice, anchor worm, or gill maggots, which are the only visible to the naked eye ones listed. If I had to guess, I'd say flukes, but I thought they were supposed to be too small to see?
Gotta love the camera's macro feature - it makes them quite visible in pics. This is blown up considerably - these buggers are tiny. And I know having him in a glass like that is terrible - it was the only way to get good, clear pics, and he was only in there for less than 5 minutes
"Stella" is a telescope/oranda cross I've had since January. When I bought him (thought he was a girl back then, since developed breeding stars), he was very ill with fin rot. Treated him with salt, prazi, and furan, over the course of a few weeks. His fins grew back and he became one of my favourite fish. I moved him out to the pond once it was set up and the first batch of fish I'd put in there had passed QT.
He's been fine, no issues. Then, about a week ago, my pump tubing got kinked, so filtration was down. Water still tested fine, but was less clear. I noticed at the same time that Stella appeared to have velvet, but was still active and eating. Did a 10% water change, fixed the pump/filtration system and kept an eye on him. Two days ago, he seemed to be getting worse instead of better, so I began bringing him in for a one hour acriflavine dip (18% solution). He tolerated the dips well, visible velvet symptoms (gold "dust", peeling slime coat) disappeared. Today he seemed a bit worse in comportment, so I pulled him out in a container to have a look at him. I was horrified to see that he has some sort of visible parasite I can't identify. It's all over him, but easiest to see on his black areas, particularly his tail.
The parasites are TINY. To most they'd look like slime coat or dust, however if you've got good eyes (I do) and look closely (I did), you can see they're tiny parasites that are actually moving. These things are about 1/4 - 1/2 of a millimeter long, and worm-shaped.
His symptoms are lethargy, apparent pain in one pectoral fin, shredding fins (you can see the tiny holes being eaten into his dorsal fin in one pic), surface hanging, and heavy breathing.
I've brought him in and put him in an established 20G QT by himself. It's currently at about 0.4% salt. I'm going to treat with Prazi.
However, what IS this? I've looked through both my books, and can't identify it. It is NOT fish lice, anchor worm, or gill maggots, which are the only visible to the naked eye ones listed. If I had to guess, I'd say flukes, but I thought they were supposed to be too small to see?
Gotta love the camera's macro feature - it makes them quite visible in pics. This is blown up considerably - these buggers are tiny. And I know having him in a glass like that is terrible - it was the only way to get good, clear pics, and he was only in there for less than 5 minutes
