Blonde Naso Tang with worms, some help needed

Alex_GT · Mar 25, 2019

Hello guys, I need some help here, I have a Blonde Naso Tang (4+ years), he is very stable and eating well, he started to has what I am assuming are streamers and he is very active, he is with a Powder Blue Tang (3+ years) and a Yellow Tang (6+ Years) and with some other small fishes like gobies or damsels.

He eats Formula 1 and 2 (flakes), Mysis (two times per week) and a sheet of Nory every day.

I introduced a Snowflake Moray Eel something like 2 or 3 months ago and as far as I know they eat 2 or 3 times per week so I started to feed this guy with a feeding stick to keep it calm and avoid feeding frenzies and I decided, until the moray figured out that I am the feed provider and the stick has his food, to feed the entire DT on that schedule (3 times per week), this is because if the eel saw someone else is eating anything (even nory) it started to swim like crazy.

This is when I discover the Naso got a really bad pinched stomach after one day without eating and after two days two things like the hair worm filaments came from his anus (they have independent movement) and after a few minutes of him having something to eat they disappear, if he eats every day there is no problem (no pinched stomach, no filaments, no anything). Not the powder blue or the yellow tang got these symptoms.

So my questions are, could he has so worms? Could he have lived for 4+ years with worms with no ill effect? Is a good idea to give him some antiworm medication? I am afraid on long run the worms would have a negative impact on his health (assuming he has worms).

The Eel is starting to figuring out that I am the food provider, so I starting to place the sheets of nory again every day and of course the symptoms described before had disappear, but now I am afraid he could have worms and his health is compromised and I did not know about it.

Thanks a lot for any help anyone could give me

Alex

hdsoftail1065 · Mar 25, 2019

@4FordFamily @HotRocks

rkpetersen · Mar 25, 2019

White stringy or filamentous feces can be a sign of intestinal parasites. Your description sounds like what you see coming out of the fish's anus looks like it's alive, so that would certainly fit.

If your fish are eating well but still thin this is also often a sign of parasites. Not just worms (typically cestodes, i.e. tapeworms), but also protozoan parasites. If one fish has them you should assume that they all could have them, because fish eat or at least taste each others' feces routinely.

You can treat this in tank, if you're careful. Take a tablespoon of frozen food like mysis. Add one or two scoops of Seachem Focus and one scoop of API General Cure, let it thaw, and mix it all up well so no medicine particles are visible. The Focus acts to bind the medicine to food and keep it from leaching out into the water. After mixing it all up, I like to strain it so that only the solid food remains, none of the liquid. Then feed this to your fish. Feed only a small amount, watch them eat it all, then feed some more, etc. Try not to let any get eaten by shrimp, anemones, or other inverts. If it's a fish-only tank then there's nothing to worry about. Do this once a day for at least a week and your parasites should be history.