Tapeworms!

[LizStreithorst]

Afternoon up-date...No obvious tape worms expelled although I did see some drifting white poo in one tank.  It shouldn't be hex because I treated for hex as a precaution not long ago.  What I did see was cloudy water which was more pronounced in some tanks than in others.  This morning my water was crystal clear. 

When I kept mostly Discus and treated for hex I never saw white strings expelled.  I saw thick looking cloudy water.  I figured that the look of the water meant that they were being expelled in a dissolved form.  My BIDKA Discus friends new exactly what I meant by thick cloudy water from parasites.

Barb always has seen the actual parasites on the bottom of the tank.  She has never seen thick cloudy water.  But her water is extremely hard and mine is almost soft enough for eggs to hatch in straight tap.  Could be this is a water parameter thing.  Softer water dissolves metal better than very hard water.  Perhaps the same is true when it comes to parasites.  My gH is 0 and my kH is 4.5

In any event, I believe that I had tapes and I will continue with the treatment.  Except for my little fry which are still on BBS, which I will feed 3 times a day, I'll cut down feeding to once a day.  The look of the water in some of the tanks grosses me out so much that doubt I'll be able to make myself go 3 days before another huge WC and re-dosing.

[Barb]

Well, this is very interesting.  Now I am wondering if what you saw was Hex, segmented, like the ones I had.  If it is Hex, will Prazi treat it?  I have no idea.  My angels that had hex, had 1-2" white poop and it could have been segmented-looking but I didn't look close at it.  Just saw white and got out the Metro.  I think if you have tapes, you would be seeing some coming out by now.  What do you think?
Barb

[LizStreithorst]

Well, this is very interesting.  Now I am wondering if what you saw was Hex, segmented, like the ones I had.  If it is Hex, will Prazi treat it?  I have no idea.  My angels that had hex, had 1-2" white poop and it could have been segmented-looking but I didn't look close at it.  Just saw white and got out the Metro.  I think if you have tapes, you would be seeing some coming out by now.  What do you think?
Barb

I don't know, Barb.  When I saw the white poo floating in the tank is was very obvious to me that it was a tape worm.  I know what tape worms look like.  I've raised animals since I was 16 years old, and have worked along side quality veterinarians.  I know what a tape looks like.  Perhaps the one I saw was a lucky find.  If the fish expelled them one segment at the time I never would have known. 

Prazi had no affect on Hex, just as Metro has no affect on tapes or worms.  This is not hex. 

If you are worried, treat.  I want to know if you have them and your water gets thick and cloudy or you see long strings of tapes like they say?  I want to know so much that I will buy the Prazi for you.  I don't want your fish to have tapes so much as I want to know that if they are infested if you see strings of long perfect tapes like Al did or gross water like I have.  I want to know if the difference we see when we treat is due to your terribly hard water and my reasonably soft water.   It's kinda a wanting to know just for the sake of knowing for me.

If you agree, please know that mixing up the damn stuff to make it dissolve and dosing every single tank it a huge PITA.

[BillT]

When I was running a fish facility, we had a room for sticklebacks.
Some of these were collected from different wild sources on the west coast. Some of those were collected by a certain professor who did not want to follow the quarantine procedures he wanted everyone else to use, so we got a lot of different wormy parasites. Vets said we had 4 or 5 kinds of worms, mostly flukes, but also tapeworms. The nasty ones are the ones that can propagate in that water system, tapeworms and monogenetic flukes (they don't require an intermediary host so they can go fish to fish). We had some digenetic flukes, but had no snails so their lifecycle was limited to only the hhost animal they were in.
Eventually we figured out what was happening and treated the room. We used either Prazi or with Flubendazole and it got rid of all of them. We did not see little bits of worm floating around, nor had cloudy water, But we didn't look for these things and had a large central recirc system to filter the water.

[Barb]

See anything today Liz?  I wouldn't want to treat my angels now, none show any issue at all.  Yours, Jon's and another's angels are all happy and healthy in a 75 tank . Jon, two of yours have paired up and spawned. 
Barb

[Mugwump]

See anything today Liz?  I wouldn't want to treat my angels now, none show any issue at all.  Yours, Jon's and another's angels are all happy and healthy in a 75 tank . Jon, two of yours have paired up and spawned. 
Barb

+1....happy happy happy 

[LizStreithorst]

See anything today Liz?  I wouldn't want to treat my angels now, none show any issue at all.  Yours, Jon's and another's angels are all happy and healthy in a 75 tank . Jon, two of yours have paired up and spawned. 
Barb

I did a wipe down and flopping on the bottom WC of 6 tanks that were so cloudy I couldn't stand it plus the Discus tank that was just somewhat cloudy.  I may do my tank with my babies and their parents tonight before bed.  It's not real bad but I feel that I should do them anyway since they're babies.  I couldn't do them just now because I just fed them BBS when I got home from work.

[LizStreithorst]

I asked about this on Simply.  Discus people know about parasites.  Read from post 9 down.  I still can't figure out why I have seen no long tapes expelled.  http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?123095-Tape-worms

[LizStreithorst]

It's almost over and done with.  I did wipe downs on the the half of the tanks that were most slimy and disgusting. I gave them flopping on the bottom of the tank WCs.  I didn't use all my water but I came close.  I'll do the other half of the tanks that are clear and have no slime tomorrow.  I'll make them flop on the bottom as well.  I'll have to fill my containers to the brim.  Tomorrow I'll have 640 gallons of water to change.  I retreated with Prazi.  Dang fins drink the brandy I bought for cooking now.  My fish are lushes...

Tomorrow will be my final treatment, thank God.  This has been a huge PITA.  I never did see anything that I could identify as for sure a tape worm.  I did see some immature strands that appeared to be segmented but even with my glasses on I couldn't be sure that it was a tape.  I sure did see a lot of cloudy water and slime on the glass.  I've never seen this before when I've treated for tapes as a precaution. 

[BillT]

I was thinking you might have a smaller type of tapeworm, but then that would not explain you seeing the original piece which presumably would be the same size as any others in the fish.