Skinny fish

[raymond82]

Hi all,

Almost all of my wild caught A. eremnopyge (especially the females) appear very skinny. I feed them well but not much seems to change, is this a symptom of a particular disease?

The pictures are not the best but hopefully it becomes clear. If necessary I can try to make more pictures.

 

[regani]

could be worms? that seems to be reasonably common in wild-caught fish.

 

[raymond82]

Thanks regani, that could very well be. I have some general antiworm treatment that I could use, just want to be sure it's not something else cause I don't want to use the wrong treatment..

 

[DBlauj]

Any recommenations as to meds??

 

[regani]

I don't know too much about the different medications, I have been lucky enough not to have to treat my fish very often. some of the trade names here are also different.
so, I don't have a specific recommendation, any standard de-wormer should do the trick.

 

[raymond82]

Indeed, trade names might differ between different countries, I also have been fortunate enough to not have to treat fish very often but I did have a camallanus infection once. Then I used a product with levamisole and praziquantel as active ingredients and it worked very well. Here is a thread about the camallanus infection I had back then. The camallanus is a specific type of parasite of course, but the package of the medicine I used says it's good for any worm infection.

 

[Heartnet]

Could the medication treatment for wild discus from this thread (post #591) be adapted for the quarantine regime of wild caught apistos too?

I also have some apistos in quarantine that are quite skinny much like the OP's apistos. I'm almost through the 30 day quarantine period and despite normal behavior and healthy appetites, they still haven't filled in that little skinny (almost concave) shape they still have. I also observe no signs of external parasites or worms, like camallanus.

Here's a visual display.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
That looks very like your fish has an internal worm infestation, and Camallanus would be my guess. By the time the worms are visible the damage is done, and I'm not sure that you will be able to save your fish.

Can you get Levamisole HCL? it works really well <http://www.loaches.com/Members/shari2/levamisole-hydrochloride-1>.

cheers Darrel

 

[raymond82]

In the end I did treat the aquarium with a commercial product that contains Levamisole and Praziquantel. After treatment I did not see much difference in the behavior of the fish and the shape of the body. One of the females has fry now, so even though I still don't trust them completely I think I'm going to leave them as they are.

That quarantine sounds very elaborate, all the WC fish I've had so far have first been with either the whole seller or local shops so I usually assume that they're disease free (or at least the diseased fish have died already).

 

[Heartnet]

OP, that's excellent news! Do you have any updated pictures of the female?

What commercial product did you use? I was debating about getting those meds separately. What was your quarantine protocol like, along with duration?

 

[raymond82]

Well, to tell you the whole truth, I have four females of which the skinniest died not long ago. Since another female had fry and was harassing the rest of the tank a little bit I thought that was a more likely cause of death than a worm infection. Although now that I'm thinking about it, she was very skinny...

A while ago I had a Camallanus infection in another tank and also then one of my female apisto's died. The infection left her very skinny and my guess is that even though the infection was treated and the worms were gone she was too weakened and died anyway. The same could have happened to the eremnopyge female I mentioned before.

I used "Colombo dactycid", it's a dutch brand and I'm not sure if it's sold abroad. It worked well, although I had to treat more often than prescribed sometimes. I'm sure the method described in Darrel's response works equally well (or maybe even better).

I don't really quarantine my new fish, I keep only apisto's in the tanks along with some dither fish. If a disease would occur the worst collateral damage would be the loss of the dithers but they're usually easy to replace. The only thing could be that the dithers infect the new apisto's but I only put dithers that I've had for a while and haven't shown signs of disease. Anyway I'm still a beginner and haven't had much trouble yet, maybe I still need bad experience before I get more serious about quarantine.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Wild caught is slightly different, they are likely to suffer from a variety of parasites, and I would definitely quarantine. I've never had wild caught, but I'd suggest following "Apistomaster's" suggestion here:

I would consider segregating the sexes in quarantine tanks and simultaneously treating them with metroniadazole, flubendazole and praziquantel(HIKARI PraziPro). Also feed them primarily newly hatched brine shrimp. I have used this combination of drugs on all new wild Discus, expensive Plecos and Apistogramma.

<http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/i...gassizii-females-keep-dying.13546/#post-73578>.

In the case of "HeartNet's" fish, it is a male Blue-steel, so probably originated in SE Asia, and both personal experience and anecdotal comment would suggest that they are riddled with Camallanus. <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/i...help-with-steel-blue-female.13287/#post-71896> & <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/camallanus-worm-yikes.10949/#post-58859>.

cheers Darrel

 

[Mike Wise]

Quarantining fish is very important. It also is easier to sterilize a mostly bare quarantine tank than a decorated breeding tank. The fish might have died or been removed, but the pathogens - especially eggs of parasitic worms - will remain to infect any new fish added to the tank.

 

[Heartnet]

I don't really quarantine my new fish, I keep only apisto's in the tanks along with some dither fish. If a disease would occur the worst collateral damage would be the loss of the dithers but they're usually easy to replace. The only thing could be that the dithers infect the new apisto's but I only put dithers that I've had for a while and haven't shown signs of disease. Anyway I'm still a beginner and haven't had much trouble yet, maybe I still need bad experience before I get more serious about quarantine.

I have the same mindset, more or less, as you do. In this case, however, I also have a pair of checkerboard cichlids in the same quarantine which I can't introduce into my discus tank unless I'm 100% sure they're not infected. And quite frankly, I've taking quite a liking to this particularly dwarf cichlid.

Hi all,​

Wild caught is slightly different, they are likely to suffer from a variety of parasites, and I would definitely quarantine. I've never had wild caught, but I'd suggest following "Apistomaster's" suggestion here:​

I would consider segregating the sexes in quarantine tanks and simultaneously treating them with metroniadazole, flubendazole and praziquantel(HIKARI PraziPro). Also feed them primarily newly hatched brine shrimp. I have used this combination of drugs on all new wild Discus, expensive Plecos and Apistogramma.​

<http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/i...gassizii-females-keep-dying.13546/#post-73578>.​

​

In the case of "HeartNet's" fish, it is a male Blue-steel, so probably originated in SE Asia, and both personal experience and anecdotal comment would suggest that they are riddled with Camallanus. <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/i...help-with-steel-blue-female.13287/#post-71896> & <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/camallanus-worm-yikes.10949/#post-58859>.​

​

cheers Darrel​

​

That's half of the problem. These apistos were sold to me as A. agassizii and I always suspected that it wasn't because the markings didn't really match up even though they're still juvies. Thanks for clearing that up; I do believe it looks much more like A. Blue-steel.

The other half of the problem is they told me these were farm raised fish, and they claimed it wasn't WC. But either way, I'm going to go through a thorough quarantine procedure with them.

To be honest, I haven't familiarized myself with the complete life cycle of Camallanus worms, but I haven't observed the signature telltale sign of these worms hanging out of any of the fish. Speaking of which, the afflicted fish pictured above passed away today; all this occurred even after a 30 day quarantine protocol was done and the fish ate and acted fine. That just goes to show how a standard 30 day quarantine doesn't cut it sometimes.

With that said, I'm going to go through another quarantine period for at least a minimum of six weeks instead. I couldn't source Levamisole HCL locally, but I settled with these meds.

Here's how the new regime is going to look like.
Day 1-4: Large water changes to siphon out much of the sand substrate and keep the QT tank as minimal as possible, per Mike Wise's tip.
Day 5-12: PraziPro
Day 13-17: Rid Ich+
Day 18-23: Tetra Parasite Guard
Day 24-30: Monitor and treat as needed.

This is pretty much an adaption of the treatment of wild caught discus I listed in the thread above. I considered a salt dip and methylene blue bath too, but decided against it because I fear such salts may be too much for them.

P.S. OP, let me know if you want me to make another thread for all this.

 

[raymond82]

Maybe it's good for me to start taking quarantining more seriously, it's better not to wait for a disaster before changing my routines. I'll be reorganizing my aquariums soon, I think I'm also gonna reserve one for quarantining fish. When no fish need to be quarantined, it can be used to house males that suffer from domestic violence from breeding females.

P.S. OP, let me know if you want me to make another thread for all this.

Don't worry, it's fine!