Gerald Bassleer examines an elephant-nose fish with encapsulated worm larvae in its gills and secondary bacterial infection. The parasites weaken gill function and cause emaciation and aggression from tank mates. Encapsulated metacercariae can't be treated with antiparasitic drugs, so treatment focuses on isolation, frequent feeding, and managing the bacterial infection.
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Dear Aquarist, welcome to this case of fish disease on an elephant long nose. And I will share you my findings that I prepared in a PowerPoint. With my microscopic observations and also the treatments, I can suggest what you can do for this kind of problem. So the elephant lung nose here already in the title, had worm parasites in the gills and a bacterial infection. In my books I explain about prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this disease with many colorful photographs. The link below where you can purchase them. And here we see that some of the long nose, not all of them become very skinny. You can see here RSI are not so well acting in the group anymore. And they're slowly wasting away. And some die after a couple days or a couple of weeks. You also can observe some aggression. The bigger ones are very strong, not so badly infected, maybe very little. And they're really aggressive against the weaker ones. So the weaker ones will have less chance to have food and will suffer more and will die of course, eventually. Here we pulled out one skinny one which was dying. You can see that fish is wasted away. It's going to die in the coming hours or days. So that's the fish we use for our examination. And as you can see here, we notice bacterial infection in the gills and here this part. And that's not a good sign that makes the fish suffer very badly. You can see here that this can kill the fish. A bacterial infection bacteria causes that the respiratory organ not functioning well. And that also bacteria penetrate into the bloodstream and infect the internal organs. But what was the major cause were those encapsulated parasites metacercaria or larvae of the genetic trimatodes. I had several videos on this about the cycle that it comes from the wild, from birds and snails, etc. And you can see them here, sitting here and causing damage, causing weakening the organ of the gills. And eventually also bacterial infection. And of course the bacteria can come inside and that also cause here like the liver or the internal organs to have melanomacrophage centers and having a bad functioning well. This altogether weakens the long nose. And the weaker long nose will be well have deal with aggression from the stronger ones. So you have to take care of good anti stress methods like a lot of tubes or hiding places in the aquarium. You have to give food in a good way that needs very well distributed in the aquarium at least three times a day and also at the late evening. Because this fish likes to eat during the night, during nighttime that that fish is in bad shape. You have to help or maybe separate put in a separate tank so it has the proper care. The combination of a parasitic infection here. Yes. And a bacterial infection which is secondary treat with an antibacterial medicine. Ask your fish doc because you also have to really handle this infection. The metacercaria I explained that in many of my other videos cannot be treated because they are encapsulated and the medicine cannot penetrate through that capsule. And you can help with a food to strengthen the fish, a functional food to repair the fish. And we can recommend Dr. Basleer buy fish food. Professional treat books that I have available can help you in the diagnosis and the treatment of fish diseases. The link is below. Or get your training at my Patreon channel. Well, I hope this explains you. With me in the background, a young fisherman in Cameroon that was collecting during one of my trips. Some pelvic acromis in the lobby river stream. Nice area, not long nose there. But anyway, it was an African experience and I hope this experience for you on this case of fish disease explain you why some wild fish can suffer from infections and what you can do as a treatment. I hope this helped you and subscribe to Stay tuned.
