Bellies too Big?

[BillT]

I think it's due to the fact that they have never been out of the country.  Unlike Europe, the US is insulated by ocean.  We had 9-11 which woke us up to the fact that there were smart powerful rich people who don't like us.  We had no clue, at least I had no clue.  Then Bush attacked the wrong country because he was not a smart president.  He went after Saddam because of the attempt on has dad's life. We had it good when we were buying oil from Iraq.  Now we find ourselves at war with almost all the countries in the middle east.  People here think that Muslims are all evil.  I hate it it.  What will become of poor Syria?  We will not accept immigrants from Syria and they are the ones who are most suffering from this crazy war.

It all goes back to after WWII when the winning nations divided areas in the middle east into countries regardless of their sectarian divisions.  We thought that we were doing a smart thing, I guess.  It was before my time.

Biden wanted to break up Iraq along the existing sectarian lines to make separate countries that could at least get along with the other people in the same country. I kinda like that.
He's considered  kind of extreme though.

[LizStreithorst]

I sounds like a good idea but I don't know if it would have worked.  How can someone from outside re-draw boundaries of far away places?  All I know that we have gotten ourselves into a huge mess.  The Allies were the ones who decided to put the Jew's homeland in the middle east where they are despised rather than in Germany or another Western European country.  "Not in my back yard", don't ya know...

[BillT]

Iraq was pretty much self partitioning after the US went in there.
Kurds in the NW, Shias in the Eastern parts, and the Sunnis in the middle.
The local militias took over where they were in the greatest numbers.
I think Biden just wanted to go with those divisions. Another advantage: less work to do.

[wallace]

T. E. Lawrence, who knew the area and spoke Arabic, was opposed to the carving up of the Middle East by the European powers. He thought the people who live there should rule the place. What a concept....LOL

[wallace]

They still have big bellies. One of them looks like it literally swallowed a marble. This isn't the same as the dropsy bloat, its confined to one sharp lump in the gut.

Their appetite and behavior are perfectly normal. If this was an intestinal blockage the worst fish would have been dead a long time ago. My best guess is tapeworms, but I haven't found where anybody describes swollen bellies from tapes.

I started Prazi on two of them last night. I wish I had sucked out the thin layer of sand so that I can see if worms are laying in there, but later I'll stir up the water and watch what comes up.

If I see signs of distress, it could be dead tapes blocking the gut and then will add epsom salt. If there is no change after this, a rest and then maybe a round of Levamisole. When something shows results, I will treat the other tanks. I should have done this months ago but they seem so healthy. 

[BillT]

When I was running a fish facility, we had a room of sticklebacks that became infected with 5 kinds of worms at once (tapeworms, internal and external flukes (some requiring an intermediate host (usually snails) and some that did not use an intermediate host. (Someone who made the quarantining rules decided the they didn't need to use them for the wild caught fish they brought in later.) The fishes's bellies were lumpy and external flukes were almost microscopic, but they ate pretty well.

Since we were at a university and a big zebrafish research establishment, we had lots of fish vets to get advice from.
We ended up treating with either flubendazole or praziquantil (maybe I got the spelling right). This worked well and fast with few or no fatalities as I recall. The miscreant vectors of breaking quarantine were relegated to their own room for their fish so they wouldn't infect other people's fish in the future.

[LizStreithorst]

I'm not up on Angel health like I am on Discus health.  I have never heard of tapes causing big bellies in Discus, put I'd be interested to know if you see tapes come out when you treat.  It's a good first thing to try because side effects are almost unheard of. 

Like Bill said, flubendazole is a good wormer.  Double dose it and add an air stone if you decide to use it.  I don't think your fish have roundworms.  I don't think that they have tapes either.  Fish with tapes don't have big bellies.  Fish with roundworms get skinny, 

[wallace]

When I was running a fish facility, we had a room of sticklebacks that became infected with 5 kinds of worms at once (tapeworms, internal and external flukes (some requiring an intermediate host (usually snails) and some that did not use an intermediate host. (Someone who made the quarantining rules decided the they didn't need to use them for the wild caught fish they brought in later.) The fishes's bellies were lumpy and external flukes were almost microscopic, but they ate pretty well.

Since we were at a university and a big zebrafish research establishment, we had lots of fish vets to get advice from.
We ended up treating with either flubendazole or praziquantil (maybe I got the spelling right). This worked well and fast with few or no fatalities as I recall. The miscreant vectors of breaking quarantine were relegated to their own room for their fish so they wouldn't infect other people's fish in the future.

Last September I had an explosion of several different small worms in my tanks. I managed to identify some of them as harmless, the others I assumed were harmless since there were no problems. My only guess is they came in with some mosquito larvae that I was cultivating in a bucket outside on the porch. The mosquito water was tank water, but it occurred to me that mosquitoes and other flying insects might lay their own eggs and also carry the eggs of worms from other, wild water in my area, which is very close by.

The worms gradually dwindled away but I still had some when these angels were small. They were infesting and reproducing in the sponge filters. Did a fecal smear under the scope and saw nothing. I can only speculate and not knowing what this is, praziquantel seems like a good place to start.

[wallace]

I'm not up on Angel health like I am on Discus health.  I have never heard of tapes causing big bellies in Discus, put I'd be interested to know if you see tapes come out when you treat.  It's a good first thing to try because side effects are almost unheard of. 

Like Bill said, flubendazole is a good wormer.  Double dose it and add an air stone if you decide to use it.  I don't think your fish have roundworms.  I don't think that they have tapes either.  Fish with tapes don't have big bellies.  Fish with roundworms get skinny,

If the prazi doesn't get results, I can try for nematodes. Levamisole I have used with Rams without any problems. The angels have a good appetite so I'm leaning toward using some fenbendazole medicated flakes that I got from Angelsplus earlier this year. It is said to be a good wormer.

The prazi has been in the tank 24 hours now and nothing has been expelled that I can see. 

[wallace]

Three new pictures. Just finished 5 days of prazi with no change.

Did another poop exam, and saw just a lot of jiggling bacteria, nothing else like worms, worm eggs, or flagellates.