keepinfish;2423680; said:
It certainly is capable of causing the symptoms mentioned. These worms have an anchoring hook end and mandibles adapted for feeding from soft membranes such as intestinal walls, gill filaments, and gill rakers.
Parasite in Leo/hen tank Help Quick!!!
- Thread starter vamptrev
- Start date
It certainly is capable of causing the symptoms mentioned. These worms have an anchoring hook end and mandibles adapted for feeding from soft membranes such as intestinal walls, gill filaments, and gill rakers.
I wonder if the newly introduced ray had a bit of an immunity and was acting as the host for the parasite, but due to it being in good health the parasite was never allowed to proliferate itself..
Got moved to a new tank, stressed out the ray and compromised the immune system.. allowed the parasite to reproduce and spread to the other rays that have no immunities build up to fight off that particular parasite.
I always wonder about things like this. Alot of animals in the wild live with a gut full of parasites (tortoises) but they are actually symbiotic and beneficial, until the animals health is compromised and the parasites actually 'take-over'.. not sure about immunities with internal parasites, but maybe the CB ray could handle it and your existing rays were more prone to exposure. I think this 'take-over' theory is very applicable to rays because they are also bottom grazing insectivores/piscivores that eat a number of things that could contain parasites, but in good health in the wild in an optimal environment the parasites might not be an issue or might even be beneficial... Cast-Net, Export, Import, LFS, undersized tank, poor diet, stress and vwa-lah! you have intestinal worms and a skinny ray.
I feel I have this disease issue at work all the time with livebearers on a central system.. mass-produced guppies have immunities to their plague-like diseases, but when put on a central system with similiar livebearers that were produced on another continent, they just can't handle it... A'la Pilgrims, Native-Americans, and Small-Pox.
Got moved to a new tank, stressed out the ray and compromised the immune system.. allowed the parasite to reproduce and spread to the other rays that have no immunities build up to fight off that particular parasite.
I always wonder about things like this. Alot of animals in the wild live with a gut full of parasites (tortoises) but they are actually symbiotic and beneficial, until the animals health is compromised and the parasites actually 'take-over'.. not sure about immunities with internal parasites, but maybe the CB ray could handle it and your existing rays were more prone to exposure. I think this 'take-over' theory is very applicable to rays because they are also bottom grazing insectivores/piscivores that eat a number of things that could contain parasites, but in good health in the wild in an optimal environment the parasites might not be an issue or might even be beneficial... Cast-Net, Export, Import, LFS, undersized tank, poor diet, stress and vwa-lah! you have intestinal worms and a skinny ray.
I feel I have this disease issue at work all the time with livebearers on a central system.. mass-produced guppies have immunities to their plague-like diseases, but when put on a central system with similiar livebearers that were produced on another continent, they just can't handle it... A'la Pilgrims, Native-Americans, and Small-Pox.
abortedsoul;2423717; said:
For a short time, such worms can survive in a blackworm supply. For the most part, I've seen these types of worms, and others such as planaria, die once the worms were cooled down in a fridge. However, I've never seen these worms survive in a heated aquarium. It could have been introduced as an egg, thereby missing the temperature change difficulties they would usually experience. Quite a number of inverts have an encysting adaptation that protects eggs in poor environments until the environment becomes suitable for normal development.
Oddball, I think its time for you to share your ray collection here!!!!
* sorry for the derail...any updates? they eating yet?
* sorry for the derail...any updates? they eating yet?
OMG.... thank you guys soooo much for the info!!!
not sure how it got introduced but ive seen a few of my rays actually start coughing kind of violently. im thinking the worm got coughed out right b4 i saw him free floating...
im thinkin my leo male could have had this worm from when i used to feed him blackworms when young... he was the first one to show signs of sickness about 4 days b4 anyone else.
i cant belive how fast it spread to the other rays though...
is there any chance these parasite eggs could have survived inside my frozen smelt?
again thank you oddball, and everyone else for chiming in... my rays say thank you too!!!
not sure how it got introduced but ive seen a few of my rays actually start coughing kind of violently. im thinking the worm got coughed out right b4 i saw him free floating...
im thinkin my leo male could have had this worm from when i used to feed him blackworms when young... he was the first one to show signs of sickness about 4 days b4 anyone else.
i cant belive how fast it spread to the other rays though...
is there any chance these parasite eggs could have survived inside my frozen smelt?
again thank you oddball, and everyone else for chiming in... my rays say thank you too!!!
I just talked to Trevor. They were excited by food this morning, but did not eat yet. This is a marked improvement as they weren't even interested in food before the prazi treatment.
We are having the same problem in one of our breeding systems. I have two large breeding systems, one of which has a pup tank on the same system as the main tank. We've fed blackworms to pups in this tank, and the adult rays in the attached system got sick. The other system has not seen a blackworm in many years and those rays are acting completely normal.
Trevor had the same setup, feeding blackworms to pups in a tank on the same system as the adult tank.
The only common thing we've found is the blackworms. It may be totally unrelated, but I'm leaning towards the theory that the parasite was introduced from the blackworms. This would also explain why some pups seem to do well for awhile and then rapidly decline. I assume a pup would have a much harder time dealing with a parasite like this than a healthy adult.
We are going to use the pup tank on the same system as the main tank simply as a transition tank now. We'll pull pups from the main tank at birth and put them into the pup tank so they are not harrassed. After a couple days we'll move them to seperate systems not attached to the breeding systems and then start feeding them. I think regular prazi treatements when feeding blackworms may be a good idea too.
I think this would be safer for the adults; I certainly don't want to lose a bunch of breeders.
I appreciate all the info from everyone too. I was getting nervous as I have some marbles in the affected system. It feels good to finally have an answer and know how to fix the problem.
Pat
Amazon Stingrays
We are having the same problem in one of our breeding systems. I have two large breeding systems, one of which has a pup tank on the same system as the main tank. We've fed blackworms to pups in this tank, and the adult rays in the attached system got sick. The other system has not seen a blackworm in many years and those rays are acting completely normal.
Trevor had the same setup, feeding blackworms to pups in a tank on the same system as the adult tank.
The only common thing we've found is the blackworms. It may be totally unrelated, but I'm leaning towards the theory that the parasite was introduced from the blackworms. This would also explain why some pups seem to do well for awhile and then rapidly decline. I assume a pup would have a much harder time dealing with a parasite like this than a healthy adult.
We are going to use the pup tank on the same system as the main tank simply as a transition tank now. We'll pull pups from the main tank at birth and put them into the pup tank so they are not harrassed. After a couple days we'll move them to seperate systems not attached to the breeding systems and then start feeding them. I think regular prazi treatements when feeding blackworms may be a good idea too.
I think this would be safer for the adults; I certainly don't want to lose a bunch of breeders.
I appreciate all the info from everyone too. I was getting nervous as I have some marbles in the affected system. It feels good to finally have an answer and know how to fix the problem.
Pat
Amazon Stingrays
both of my leos started eating thank god for MFK!!!
thanks everyone for the fast help and replies!!!!!
very happy to hear you found a solution and diagnosis,Like I said,I tried to find out what it was for over 2hours last night and was very suprised when nobody chimed in with a solution or anything.Well-good luck man.I did read in articles(many articles)last night while looking for the worms in google images about the dangers of black worms being that they are found in sewage and scooped up with other parasites and then shipped live to us for our fish.In the case last night it was with amphibians though and it was killing frogs etc with parasites that were thrown in with the black worms.I am not trying to scare anyone but it is what I read.In fact,if I remember right-just google search aquarium worms and its in articles.Or maybe I googled tubifex?sorry-cant remember which search it was but its out there if ya look
