Worms?? What type??

Hi folks!!

I find myself in a bit of an awkward situation!!

My community tank has been looking nice and healthy apart from an abundance of algae, but suddenly I have a female Emperor Tetra who has a strange tape worm like creature wrapped around her left flipper (can't remember proper name now)!!

As said, it looks like a Tape Worm, but is outside the body! It is really thin, but very long and must be wrapped at least 2 to 3 times around the flipper! I cannot see a head or tail within the wrap, but it does not appear to be coming out of the body of the tetra!

Any clues??

To further add to this, I have been treating with some anti-anchor worm and anti Tape-worm (combined) treatment for the past two days and since I have had her seperated out, she has started to develop a Blister on her stomach area in front of her Ventral fins! Looking closely at this blister, I think I can see more worms inside her?? A lot more!! The Blister appears to be getting bigger pretty quickly, so I'm concerned that I'm about to have a death! Although I'm not so worried about the death of one Emperor tetra, i am more concerned that my other fish may already be infected without visible evidence!??

Anyone able to help?? I'm pretty sure its not Anchor worms, but am otherwise clueless!

To top it all off, I have a neon or two who appear to have one white spot each! One on the side of its head between the eye and gill which is around 2-4mm large, and the other under its chin (if fish have chins??) which is around 1-2mm.

There's only one dot on each, so i don't think its white sot, unless its just starting out??

What should i do about treating the tank?? This seems to be a little too wierd for me to diagnose accurately??

And to add to my troubles, I appear to have a few hundred litlle things that are hoping ontop of the water! They look like fleas, but are tiny tiny things! Are these harmful??

CHeers
Big G

 

Wish I could offer some assistance Gareth. I hope you get everything sorted out.

 

Cheers Darryn! Hopefully I will and soon!

Anyone got any idea at all??

Cheers
Big G!

 

Gareth, go to this link:

http://www.jbl.de/onlinehospitaluk/perpicture/index.php?Step=2&GalleryId=2

See if you can identify something similar to what you have. As you know I had anchor worm a few weeks back... I used Waterlife Perazin, which was FANTASTIC. Waterlife Sterazin is also a good product. They might be a bit pricy, but I know the fear of loosing and entire community tank might be a driving force.

But check out that website, might help you actually identify why you have, and then you can medicate correctly.

 

Nope!! Nowt on there that looks similar!!?

I wish I had a decent macro lens, then I could get some pics, but its too small to take with the lenses I have!!

Anyone else with any suggestions??

Cheers!
Big G!

 

Gareth,

Google "fish internal worms" and then look through the images... there's some horrific pics there that might resemble the problem?

I don't know if you could have an internal worm, that is external as well? If that be the case, then I'd treat with Waterlife Sterazin.