Watchman goby has worms coming out of his face

[dlockert]

I noticed today, that my yellow Watchman goby has a worm or worms coming out of his face. You can see that there is one or two coming out of his eyes, I can see it kind of inside of his mouth. And it's coming out the bottom of his gills. I've attach the picture. Help!

 

[Dilan Patel]

I think what you have here is an anchor worm. I don't know much about them at all but Im sure a quick search on the internet will help. home this helps.

 

[deedubz]

Gnarly. I don't have any experience with them but most worms can be eradicated by prazipro. Maybe one of these guys/gals can help

@Humblefish @melypr1985 @Big G @HotRocks @4FordFamily

 

[melypr1985]

It'd be great if you could catch him for a FW dip, but if you can't catch him then I'd go with prazipro as well. I'm not entirely sure prazipro will work well on them though.

 

[Big G]

When looking at the worm, does its tail form a "V" ?

 

[dlockert]

Honestly not sure. They are pretty little. They look like they might either have stripes or are segmented. Kind of reddish brown and a little more transparent at the end.

Well, after practically pulling the tank apart, I caught him (I've got to get better at this!) I FW dipped him and the worms didn't come out so doing prazipro in QT. Didn't want to do the whole tank as I've got a starfish and urchin that are recovering from other drama and I didn't want to have to pull them out of the tank.

 

[Big G]

If they are Anchor worms, you can remove them with tweezers. And then consider treating the wounds with a bath in a 90 minute acriflavine product like Ruby Reef Rally. It has both an antiseptic quality to help clean the wounds and antibiotic quality to help prevent infection.

 

[melypr1985]

I FW dipped him and the worms didn't come out

How long did you dip him for? Big G has a good point, but you'll need a steady hand since its a small fish with even smaller worms.

 

[dlockert]

How long did you dip him for? Big G has a good point, but you'll need a steady hand since its a small fish with even smaller worms.

I don't know exactly but probably 5 to 8 minutes. Yes, when I started with this hobby I had no idea picking worms off fish would be a thing lol

 

[dlockert]

If they are Anchor worms, you can remove them with tweezers. And then consider treating the wounds with a bath in a 90 minute acriflavine product like Ruby Reef Rally. It has both an antiseptic quality to help clean the wounds and antibiotic quality to help prevent infection.

Thank you for all this information!

 

[4FordFamily]

Yuck! I’ve never seen anything like that! I do think it looks like anchor worms after research—- good luck pulling them off!

 

[code4]

My daughter has pulled worms off of her fish before. Then treated for infection. All was well. Hope yours turn out as well.

Shelley

 

[Carterfish]

Pull them off with tweezers then treat for bacterial infections to help wounds heal.

 

[dlockert]

Well, I pulled everyone out of the tank to remove the worms. This was one of the most stressful things I've ever done. Pulling tiny worms out of the eyes of little fish is not fun. I ended up not being able to get one of them out of the nugget clown's eye. Got everyone in the treated QT tank and prayed they would all be alright.

This morning, the nugget is dead

one of my favorite fish, who hung out in the anemone. Still in the display tank is the red sea star who is totally stressed out and falling apart. Couldn't be the $8 damsels right? In any case, hopefully on the road to recovering. Redid the seascape in the tank while they were all out - it's beautiful and I'm just sad there are no fish in it.

 

[Big G]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[code4]

So sad.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Sorry for your loss. Kinda reminds me of when I had to deal with these bad boys! :

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...cirolanid-verses-sphaeromatid-isopods.251779/

Not fun. These kinds of parasites are difficult to deal with, but are part of the hobby, unfortunately.

Hang in there!

 

[HotRocks]

Sorry for your lost

This is a wild one, never personally had to deal with anything like that.

 

[4FordFamily]

Sorry you lost your clown, hopefully this is the last of that nastiness!

 

[dlockert]

Thanks all.

I ended up choosing Dimilin X to treat it after I pulled the worms off but I couldn't find it locally and it was going to be a couple of days before it would get to the house. So, I read that Furan-2 would be a good choice to help with bacterial infections, etc. So while I waited for the Dimilin, I used that.

What a mess!! I don't know if this is normal but it basically coated the entire inside of the 10 gallon tank with white powder. I was supposed to repeat in 48 hours but didn't. The Dimilin ended up coming early. Like Ich treatments, it is only effective on the immature form of the bug so I needed to treat the DT.

So, pulled everyone out of the QT one at a time and inspected. Unfortunately some still had worms on them - so back to tiny worms on little fish and then back to QT. The rest I put in the DT with the Dimilin and also used Melafix to help with the healing.

Glad I did - again, I don't know if it is normal, but when I started pulling the fish out of the Furan-2 QT tank, some of them looked awful. That was Sunday. Within a couple of hours, everyone but the watchman goby looked great. I've been dosing the Melafix most days and will redose the Dimilin tomorrow and hope I get all the eggs. In the time being, one of the watchman gobies didn't make it and the other one is in QT and not eating. Really bummed about that - he is one of the few original fish we still have left (besides the cowfish!). Gonna miss his grumpy face if he doesn't make it