Been treating a wild caught stingray with Sera Tremazol after i found out it had a lot of worms crawling around inside him. The video i am posting is just a short one where you can see some of the things i found after i began the treatment. A lot less activity then, but still a few things moving around that i am curious of.. may or may not be parasites. Anyone know what they are?
Parasites under the microscope
- Thread starter Proximus
- Start date
I'm not the best with parasite identification, but this brings a relevant question: Were these collected from very fresh stool samples? Tanks have a lot of natural "life" inside of them that can appear on slides. My Vet friends always suggest very fresh stools.
Appears to me to be a roundworm, but I'm not an expert in identification, so please know this is a guess. Roundworms are also called nematodes, and are not treated with the typical praziquantel. Levamisole is the drug of choice for roundworms.
Hopefully we can get a positive ID from someone. Bump
Also does the ray have symptoms or illness other than being wild caught?
Appears to me to be a roundworm, but I'm not an expert in identification, so please know this is a guess. Roundworms are also called nematodes, and are not treated with the typical praziquantel. Levamisole is the drug of choice for roundworms.
Hopefully we can get a positive ID from someone. Bump
Also does the ray have symptoms or illness other than being wild caught?
I don`t know exactly how fresh the samples where. Anyway from what i know these tiny little things on the picture below are not harmfull(?). I have seen these before in excretion of fish that i "know" are healthy (you can see a couple of them moving around at the start of the video);
Also i am pretty sure that these guys (planarias as i just got confirmed that they are called) do no harm either. Pretty sure that these are not actually inside the ray, but attach themself to the excretion after the ray poops(?).
It is unfortunate that i didn`t capture all those worms i found prior to the prazi treatment.. it was a inferno of worms, and one of them where so big that i could see it without using the microscope. It was long and thin, white in colour, and was crawling at a relatively decent speed.
The ray have not put on any good amount of weight since i brought it in, even though i have fed enourmous amounts of earthworms and also a bit of bloodworms. That is why i finally decided to use medisine. Other than that i hve not noticed any other bad signs.
I have fed with earthworms for years without noticing anything suspecious with my rays. But i must say that the possibility for them being the source have crossed my mind. For the record i do not pick the earthworms myself, they are "farm raised" in lack of any other term.
Thanks for the input!
Also i am pretty sure that these guys (planarias as i just got confirmed that they are called) do no harm either. Pretty sure that these are not actually inside the ray, but attach themself to the excretion after the ray poops(?).
It is unfortunate that i didn`t capture all those worms i found prior to the prazi treatment.. it was a inferno of worms, and one of them where so big that i could see it without using the microscope. It was long and thin, white in colour, and was crawling at a relatively decent speed.
The ray have not put on any good amount of weight since i brought it in, even though i have fed enourmous amounts of earthworms and also a bit of bloodworms. That is why i finally decided to use medisine. Other than that i hve not noticed any other bad signs.
I have fed with earthworms for years without noticing anything suspecious with my rays. But i must say that the possibility for them being the source have crossed my mind. For the record i do not pick the earthworms myself, they are "farm raised" in lack of any other term.
Thanks for the input!
I should also add to the previous post, that not all roundworms are parasitic. Non-predatory nematodes can exist in tanks.
If you use praziquantel, consider to do another followup treatment 1-2 weeks later. Possibly another 1-2 weeks after that. The drug only treats the adult stage of the parasite's lifecycle. So the egg stage survives. Because of the gestation period of the larval forms, they can often survive a single treatment.
Just remember Praziquantel is mainly for tapeworms and flatworms.
Good luck!
If you use praziquantel, consider to do another followup treatment 1-2 weeks later. Possibly another 1-2 weeks after that. The drug only treats the adult stage of the parasite's lifecycle. So the egg stage survives. Because of the gestation period of the larval forms, they can often survive a single treatment.
Just remember Praziquantel is mainly for tapeworms and flatworms.
Good luck!