worms on my oscar! Urgent!

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C

ctenopoma

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 14, 2008
617
0
0
Canada
I Was doing a water change and Lately my Oscar has been flashing and she started doing it again and Flicking her fins , I looked towards Where her fins where flicking and I saw 2 very small white worms maybe a millimetre in size and they where inching across my o's side. one of the worms crawled into one of her sensory pits and didn't come out!

WHAT ARE THESE!!?!:nilly:
 
they are some sort of parasite (as im sure u guessed) i was gunna say planaria but ive never heard of it on fish, do a 50% water change, add aquarium salt and melafix and d 20% water changes daily for a week or so.

hope this helps.
 
bump
 
Planaria can easily show up on the thousands so by default some would certainly get on the fish. They 'feed' on uneaten food and waste/gunk on the bottom of the tank. If that's what it is (you should google it) I'd do a super thorough gravel vac and a water change like 3 days in a row and not feed the Oscar. (it won't hurt him not to eat for a few days). Then stay on top of gravel cleaning.
 
I just don't get why it crawled inside of the fish's sensory pit like it new where it was headed.
 
I don't know. The sensory pits on my Oscars are so microscopic I have to use super macro on the digital camera to even see them. I can't imagine some sort of critter being able to fit? Was it his nares by his nose the thing crawled into maybe?
 
I had these, just do some large water changes and watch the feeding they will go away by themselves.
 
I preformed a 40% today I'll continue with a 15% for the rest of the week.
 
I don't know that only 15% will give you enough time to syphon the bottom but it's better than nothing. The biggest deal is getting the crud out of the gravel. Once the gravel/bottom is spotless the little worms have nothing to eat and die off.
 
if its planaria, dont worry about salt or melafix, also they wont harm the fish, just dont look that nice all over the glass etc, i had this once it is from feeding too much (too much waste food for the planaria to thrive on as they are in all our tanks just in the substrate) just make sure u vac the gravel thoroughly and dont feed for a week and they will be gone with in no time, i can understand it being planaria because oscars are very messy eaters, leaving waste food, to stop it happening in the future you could get some pictus cats or smaller cichlids to clean up after him.
 
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