Gerald Bassleer presents a case study of wild Corydoras arcuatus (South American catfish) from Peru showing damaged tails, emaciation and slow deaths. Necropsy revealed encapsulated metacercariae (worm larvae) in organs (spleen, liver), which are dormant until eaten by predators and complete their life cycle via birds, larger fish or intermediate hosts (snails, Artemia, cyclops). He advises supportive care (clean water, reduced stress, immune-supporting diet including his branded feeds) because encapsulated larvae are not reachable by medication; many lightly infected fish may survive with good husbandry.
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Hello, dear aquarist, welcome again to my fish disease case number 144. Today we will talk about a wild catfish coming from Peru. And these catfish are very common in our hobby and they're very much appreciated because they are beautiful, they have nice colors and have a nice behavior by cleaning the bottom of the tank. But unfortunately, these fish also can arrive with certain diseases they can bring from the wild. And here in the back, you see the fish house where I sometimes work to take care of good quality control and to help the facility to supply good fish on the ornamental aquarium industry. So I will share you my screen and I hope you enjoyed this presentation on a fish disease which is, well, quite common when we deal with ornamental fish coming from the wild. So today it's about the Corydora archuatus, which had damaged tail. And we found internal worm infection. Here we see them swimming, the Corydora arcuatus. You see the tails are, you can say nearly chopped off, like they've been cut off. And they're skinny. And some are dying after a couple of weeks, but not so fast, dying very slowly, very few once in a while. And when we did an examination of the organs, we found internal worm infection. Encapsulated worm larvae meta cercaria. You can see them here. They are sitting here, encapsulated. Some are dead, some are still alive. And those encapsulated worms are waiting to be eaten by a predator, a bird, large fish. And then they can come free from their encapsulation and become an adult worm. And then it can close the cycle when the fish. But the predator puts again his. His eggs from that worm into the nature so it can recirculate and make the closed cycle of reinfection of worms to the fish, or through snails, through. Through Artemia, our freshwater Cyclops, or water fleas, things like that, or snails. Well, watch my books. I explain in my books about the cycle and the transmission of these kind of diseases because these kind of things we find commonly in wild fish. Why? Because they're in nature and they're in contact with wild food, not clean food and the risk of getting infections from this kind of parasite. Here we see it in the video. Here we see the bad spleen organs. We see here an encapsulated beta cercaria. Here we see one more. We see one small one here. So we just browse through the. Here is one more. And the liver. Next to the liver here are some eggs because a female. So here we show you a few more. Here's a few more. Well, you can see this fish, the organs are damaged or at least taken up by these worm larvae. And so they are parasites. They've just taken away healthy tissue and causing a weakening of the fish. So the most de weakened fish which are damaged by the worms will eventually die. Depending on the level of infection and the care you give the tails which fall off or damage is kind of a stress reaction and not necessarily a bacterial infection. We couldn't notice any specific bacteria, but sometimes the fish in that kind of situation can just lose its tail. Just this kind of syndrome that appears when this fish can have this kind of infection. In this case we would recommend just a good care, good water, avoiding the stress. A good food that helps the immune system of the fish because the fish can defend themselves and repair themselves. And if good taken care of, particularly those with very few worm larvae, metasarcaria, they can live for long time, maybe forever. You can also help with our Dr. Basler Bison's food pumpkin seed extract. That helps in a good maintenance of the fish during a worm infection. And at the same time after that pumpkin seed food you can give then after the 20 days again another 10 days with a Dr. Basil by his food forte. That helps in the immune system. So things you can do to help good food is one of the major things you can do here. A treatment. No, you cannot treat an encapsulated worm larvae. It's in a capsule. So a medication will never penetrate in there. You just have to help the immune system of the fish. So many, many fish might survive. Read my books. I explain a lot about worm infections. Also about Corydoras, particularly my new illustrated guide to fidget. I talk a lot about corydoras in that book specifically. And you can get more training at my Patreon and you can find my books at our website, Baslehre.com so I hope this video helped you to understand some strange infections. Worm infections from fish coming from the wild, wild fish, wild diseases, interesting diseases and some you cannot cure. The supply is already weakened because of the infection with encapsulated beta cercaria. Just take good care and in general a good care for fish. Good water, good food. Many fish can survive or become stronger to defend themselves against any infection. So let me guide you with that advice to be a good fish keeper. Thank you for watching.
