white worms on fins

[Spaceman Spiff]

I have a couple of rummy nose tetras as well as a siamese flying fox that have white worms on their fins.

They are small, corkscrew type worms. They burrow into the fins and seem to stay there for awhile. The fish isn't really bothered by these, but I know they're starting to become more frequent.

Here's the tank parameters:

66 gallon
heavily planted (so catching them is impossible)
LOTS of ammano shrimp (medicating the tank will be a concern)
tetras of variuos types
clown loaches
ottos


All the levels in the tank are good. No nitrate or nitrite problems.

30% water changes weekly.

They aren't over fed and the tank is about 2 years old now.

Any suggestions on how to remove these safely?

I was treating the tank for cynobacteria with tetracyline.

Thanks.

[Lotus]

It sounds like a parasite infection

You can treat with CopperSafe. We did that recently for an ich outbreak, and we have clown loaches and glass shrimp. None of the shrimp suffered (or the loaches or plants). If you're very worried, you can treat at 1/2 dose. We did a 1/4 dose every 3 hours until we were at full dose to make sure none of the fish were affected adversely by the meds. If you use meds, remember to take off the volume of gravel/plants/decorations when calculating your dose.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I've heard that coppersafe can really do a number on your planted tank. Quickcure I've heard will also cause lots of problems with a planted tank.

I was using Aquarisol for an ich outbreak I had.

Since I have japonica shrimp, I'll have to start the meds slowly over a period of a week to get it up to full strength.

I'll have a look for some coppersafe and see what happens.

[Lotus]

We have a planted tank, and had no problems with the CopperSafe. But feel free to look into other meds

I found these links useful:

http://www.wheelpost.com/Ichfish.html
http://www.loaches.com/copper.html

NOTE: Apparently maricide has changed its formula recently, so you might want to be careful with it.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Someone from another board recommended this:

"Yep, its the flea med: works the same on all critters with chitin protien for skins. %100 fish and bio safe, though I think it would probably kill shrimp [its safe for snails, though]. You don't need a perscription, but you generally need to get it from a vet [or perhaps petmeds.com].

You only need a tiny bit: 490mg/1000 gallons of water. If you can't find a smaller tablet than 490mgs, just use a quarter of a single tab-- won't hurt a thing. "

have you heard anything on this using "the program"

[Lotus]

The odd thing is, I read somewhere that when the meds say not to use on invertabrates, they mean creatures with no shells like jellyfish and seaslugs. I don't know if anyone can confirm this or not.

When we treated our tank, we were prepared to lose our glass shrimp if it meant our fish would be fine. Obviously, amano shrimp are less expendable than glass shrimp.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'll look into the coppersafe stuff. If I start treating the tank at 10% and slowly increase it, I usually don't have any probs with the shrimp. I've found that inducing meds slowly at first isn't a problem.

Thanks for the recommendations.