Hi guys.
Well, it has certainly been an interesting couple of days. Two days ago, one of my F8's started acting funny. It lacked an appetite for one and I know darn well thats not a good sign at all. It was lethergic and began swimming vertically, tail down. This is indicative of gill problems so I began investigating immediately. I first tested the water for nitrItes because I am raising the salinity and I thought perhaps that the nitrobacters/nitrosomonas were dying off faster than the halophylic bacterias could propagate to replace them. NitrItes were a rock steady 0ppm. The rest of the levels were optimal as well. So, I started thinking perhaps he was ill before I even brought him home. The other one was acting fine so it seemed I was correct in my assumption. Well, I WAS technically correct but it was an incomplete hypothesis. Last night, the other one started acting funny. He was exhibiting the same exact symptoms as the first. Today, when I got home, he was dead. So, I decided to go ahead and break the scope out again and perform a PM in the form of a simple slime scrape. Remember my earlier report of seeing flashing on leaves of plants and the glass every now and again? Yep, you guessed it right, parasites.... The instant I flipped the microscopes light on and adjusted the focus I was rewarded with a view a nice big Dactylogyrus Fluke. Further investigating revealed MANY on a single slide. I found my culprit. I'm thinking that it took a week or more before the population of flukes they brought in were substantial enough to cause actual illness or death. The life cycle of Dactyls/Gyros coincides nicely with the timeline of events......
Luckily, I always keep praziquantel on hand. So, I am beginning treatment on the tank as I type this. Two or three treatments WILL eradicate every last Fluke nicely so I am not worried at all about this tank being considered tainted or needing sterilizing. Within 2 weeks, they're all gonna be goners.
Oh, and I was VERY happy to find that my local shop still had a couple few F-8's left. So, I went there immediately and bought another one. Upon purchasing him, I reminded one of the clerks that I am an expert in parasite identification and eradication and suggested that they treat their entire system with praziquantel to get rid of the new flukes that recently appeared. He agreed and forwarded the idea to the manager. She just called and let me know that I am welcome to come down, scope and treat for anything I feel should be treated. Since it's virtually impossible to eliminate the facultative parasites, I will have to concentrate on the obligatory varieties. Anyway, the new guy is the same size (1 1/4") and has the same patterns. He is now in the tank that the others were in and will soon be happily being freed of his burden of flukes infesting his skin and gills.
I just wish I could have spotted those darn flukes before the puffers died. It sure wasn't for lack of trying, though.
Thanks for listening to my rant..........
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I took a great AVI video of the flukes and snapped a couple shots at different mags. Once I get my friend to download and e-mail me the shots, I'll see if I can post them somewhere around here for you guys. I also have excellent shots and video of 3 species of chilodonella, tetrahymena as well as some suctorian species I have yet to identify. I'll see if I can dig those up to post with my shots of the flukes.
Peace
