Loaches Online Forum

Hi
Yesterday I noticed worms coming out of the mouth and eye of one of my cardinals and one attached to the side of a cardinal. I picked up some medication yesterday as thought this can't wait. The only thing the shop had that mentioned flukes etc. was Tetra lifeguard all in one treatment. They are tablets that you put in the water (1 tablet for each 30l) each 24 hours for 5 days. Unfortunaly they can't be used with invertebrates but since I only had 2 shrimp decided the fish were more important.
I wondered if anyone had experience with this or can advise me how else I could treat them. Any recommended treatment would have to be suitable for loaches.
Thank you in advance.

Hi Can anyone help with this? I completed the treatment with the tetra lifeguard and the fish looked much better especially the one that had its mouth hung open looks completely normal. However this morning I noticed that one had its eyes bulging and has flukes (I'm guessing thats what these are) behind them. Is there any other treatment anyone can recommend? The flukes only seem to be affecting the cardinals is there a reason for this? Thank you if anyone can give any advise

You might get more info if you google the active ingredient in the medication.
Many of the parasite treatments can be used not just on fish, but also on dogs, cats and even farm stock, so there ought to be lots of info about mammals. Less info about fish.

There are many types of parasites.
Any one medication won't work on them all. Combined meds might, though.

If you still see active parasites I would give the fish a break from the medication. Treat again perhaps after a week. Also, this gives the parasites a chance to hatch or come out of some resting stage when they might not be as susceptible to medications.

Fish with other symptoms (pop eye, other) might be treated for that, if you can figure out what is causing it. There are parasites that infest the eyes of their host. Pop eye can also be a bacterial or other problem.

Thanks for the reply. I went to a more knowledgeable fish store today and they gave me something that seems like it might be much better so I'm trying that. Perhaps you're right that the adult parasites got killed by the previous medication but after a few days eggs that weren't affected hatched. I'm pretty thankful that it only seems to be affecting the cardinals though. I think the bulging eyes might just be that there are parasites behind them (I can see these) so hopefully when they die the eyes will go back to normal.
The medication says exactly what you've said in that for trematodes it doesn't affect the eggs so you have to do a second treatment in a week.
Thanks again, I'm off to look at pictures to see if I can pinpoint what this parasite is.