Being
a person who is very particular about his fish, I try to pride myself
on doing the right thing for my fishy friends. This is a story of
a series of blunders and ineffective home and store bought remedies
that I went through when I had to deal with anchor worms.
The first rule of thumb that was broken was never buying a fish
from a tank that is infected with a
parasite. I had known that the tank was host to anchor worms. The
shop owner assured me that he had conquered the infestation. The
tank was repeatedly treated with commercial remedies, none of which
totally cured the problem but seemed to contain the spread of the
parasite. I went to the store one weekend and the tank was clear
and all of the old inhabitants were gone. I was glad to see new
occupants in the tank and they seemed to be doing well. There was
an interesting plecostomus in the tank that would do a good job
cleaning algae from all of my tanks. The storeowner swore said he
had purged the tank of anchor worms and all was well. Unbeknownst
to me at the time of purchase, was that all of the original inhabitants
had died two weeks earlier. I also later found out that the tank
was never broken down and cleaned out.
I thoroughly inspected the pleco for injury sites. The fish seemed
clear of worms and was in general good appearance. I was a little
leery about the purchase, so I decided to call the wife. Of course
she was 100% against me even buying a new fish let alone one that
came from that tank. Against my better judgment, I decided to purchase
the fish.
Now, as if just buying the pleco was not stupid enough, my next
blunder was huge. Instead of
quarantining the pleco for a couple of weeks, I was feeling a little
lazy and just put it in a tank with one of my show fish. This turned
out to be two disastrous blunders. First, you should always quarantine
new fish brought into your house. Second, the whole point of keeping
show fish in a tank by themselves is to avoid the fish getting ill
or damaged. To this moment, I have no idea what I was thinking.
One week after the purchase there they were: ANCHOR WORMS. The pleco
had only one worm. It had attached itself just in front of the right
pectoral fin. Unfortunately, the show fish was under an all out
assault. They seemed to be attached predominately down the spine
and back, but they were also found on the fins and lower body. The
further complication was that several days before, I had finally
decided to split and quarantine the pleco and had removed the show
fish and put him in his own tank. So I now had two tanks infected
with the parasite.
Well, now not only am I upset at myself for making some stupid mistakes,
I had to listen to the wife yell at me for buying a fish I was not
allowed to have and risking a show fish. As if all this was not
enough, my five-year-old son also decided to join in and lecture
me. At that point, something else occurred to me: I had recently
made a water change on all of my tanks and used the same equipment
to do it. Was it possible that I had transferred any cysts or larvae
to any other tanks? Did I cause an anchor worm epidemic?
The nausea quickly subsided and I leapt into action grabbing all
the books I had to learn how to rid myself of these infernal pests.
I found Lernaea in four books: An Owner’s Guide
to A Happy, Healthy Pet; The Goldfish by Carlo Devito
with Gregory Skomal, Handbook of Tropical Aquarium Fish
by Dr. Axelrod and Dr. Schultz, Dr. Axelrod’s Mini-Atlas
of Freshwater Fishes by Dr. Axelrod Dr. Burgess and Dr. Emmens,
and Baensch Aquarium Atlas #1 by Dr. Riehl. The general
consensus was that the anchor worms were highly contagious and that
they are not actually worms, but a freshwater copepod. Only the
female will attach itself to the fish, underneath a scale usually
deep into the muscle tissue with its powerful extensions on the
sides of its anchor shaped head (hence the name anchor worm). The
male lernaea will then attach himself to the female’s
body. The female will produce egg sacs fertilized by the male, which
are then released into the water column. The eggs hatch into a free
swimming larvae or nauplii. This is the stage where the crustacean
will attach to the fish completing the life cycle. After releasing
the eggs, the parents will die off leaving a gaping wound, which
is highly susceptible to secondary infections.
There were a few suggestions given by the four books on how to exterminate
this pest. I started with the easiest of which was a salt bath for
30 minutes. I did not measure the total amount of water or salt.
It was approximately 1 pound of salt to 3 gallons of water. It was
such a high concentration of salt, the show fish floated on his
side and could not get down to the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket.
I diluted the concentration with water until he could totally submerge
himself. At the same time, the pleco was given the same treatment.
Even at this salinity, the worms remained.
The second attempt (3 days later) was to add a teaspoon of salt
per gallon to each tank and twice the recommended dosage of Coppersafe
to both tanks. This treatment seemed to work on the plecostomus
but seemed to have no effect on the show fish. In fact, the show
fish seemed to have more than before. I did no water change on the
show fish’s 10-gallon tank. I waited five days and added a
double dosage of Fluke Tabs. I was certain that this would kill
those little buggers, but also possibly the show fish. I waited
for five more days and the show fish had no change in his status.
The plecostomus remained clear of anchor worms during this
period.
At this point I decided to go for a full-fledged attack on these
seemingly indestructible nuisances. That was it ,“THIS WAS
WAR!”. I had a chemical soup in my tank. My show fish was
not eating and was so washed out it looked like someone had poured
bleach on him. “Wait a minute!” I screamed. “Bleach!
Bleach kills everything!” My wife thought I had totally lost
what was left of my dwindling sanity. Bleach was the answer. I decided
that the only way to eliminate the anchor worms was to break the
life cycle. That weekend I assembled my assault equipment: a pair
of latex surgical gloves, a pair of tweezers, an old net, a few
paper towels, 2 five gallon buckets and two cups of bleach.
I filled 1 five-gallon bucket with 3 gallons of water, stress coat,
and Maracyn 2 as directed (for
secondary infections). The second bucket was filled with 3 gallons
of water and 6 teaspoons of salt. In one of the books it recommended
to give the fish a salt bath before trying to remove the worms.
This would supposedly soften the exoskeleton of the crustacean and
make it easier to remove. I used the old and disposable net to catch
the show fish and place him in the second bucket. I took the two
cups of bleach and dumped them into the 10-gallon tank. Everything
was left in the tank to be cleansed of eggs and larvae. The plants
turned into a mass of opaque mush within 30 minutes. The gravel,
sponge filter, airline, plants, and clay pot were all
disposed of after a 12-hour bleach bath.
I put on the latex surgical gloves to protect me from the worms
and open entry point wounds on the fish. Not that anchors worms
are transferable, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I wasn’t
exactly on a streak of good luck with this fish. I used the old
net to catch the fish and it helped to immobilize the fish during
his surgical procedure. I then took the tweezers and began removing
the anchor worms, trying to grip them as close to the wound as possible.
I would periodically dunk the fish into the bucket of water to let
him get a few breaths before continuing. After removing as many
as I could see, the show fish was put into the first five-gallon
bucket with stress coat and Maracyn 2. The bucket was moved to a
low traffic area and covered with a heavy dark brown towel, to reduce
noise and chance of shadows from my two annoying curious cats.
The following morning the tank was drained using an empty milk jug
and the contents thrown in the garbage. One of the most important
parts of the whole procedure was to thoroughly rinse out all of
the bleach. Here is my tip for working with bleach. Just when you
think have gotten all of the bleach rinsed out, rinse it three more
times. The tank was set up with a new sponge filter only. I added
10 drops of Methlyblu, 1 tablet of Maracyn 2, 10 teaspoons of Instant
Ocean salt, and stress coat.
I waited five days and noticed that I had missed some of the lernaea
around the pectoral fins. I added another store bought remedy called
Clout. It also seemed to have no ill effect on the anchor worms.
I waited a week from adding the Clout and performed the surgical
procedure the same as the first go round.
It has been 2 weeks
since the second surgery and I have seen no new anchor worms or
injury sites on the show fish. The pleco is fine and has shown no
signs of the anchor worms. As for my other tanks, there have been
no signs of infestation in them either. I only use a special bucket
and siphon to clean these two tanks. I still don’t even want
to take a chance of there being another anchor worm break out in
any tank. These procedures were costly and time consuming. Hopefully
I have eradicated the pesky crustacean. I hope you will learn from
my foolish mistakes. Be sure to quarantine all new fish and never
risk your quality show fish! Also remember to use any and all precautions
necessary to protect you and your fishy friends when working with
harmful chemicals.
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