Gerald Bassleer presents a case study of a severely diseased Corydoras albino showing extensive external wounds, fin/tail rot, and heavy secondary infections. Microscopy revealed bacteria and Tetrahymena (facultative parasites feeding on necrotic tissue), skin flukes (hermaphroditic, producing live young) and gill flukes (egg-laying, eggs can produce juveniles within ~1 week–10 days). Internal pathology included abnormal liver and spleen and unexpected foreign thread-like objects in organs; the speaker raises the possibility of viral involvement but emphasizes that secondary bacterial infections are the immediate threat. Recommended actions: combined antiparasitic and antibacterial treatment (speaker mentions formalin + malachite green against Tetrahymena and concurrent antibacterial therapy), strict quarantine, and supportive/functional nutrition; the speaker also refers to his books and Patreon for further protocols.
Questions this video answers
Tetrahymena
Hermaphroditic reproduction; parent gives birth to live young (viviparous).
Eggs can produce juveniles within about a week to 10 days.
Chapters
Hello, dear aquarist, welcome again to another case of fish diseases about a corydoras, a Corydoras albino that was suffering badly. And it has been recently reported in the aquarium industry that there are some problems occurring in corydoras that have been bred, cultivated in Asia. Here, the albino variety that showed bacterial and parasitic, maybe viral infections, who knows? Because viral infections are difficult to diagnose, difficult to work with in our aquarium hobby or even in the aquarium industry. I explain a lot about that in my books on fish diseases, about bacterial infections, viral infections, parasitic infections, what to do, how to prevent and how to treat. The link is below, where you can order them. Here we see the Corydorus albino, had severe red wounds, had fin and tail rot, was suffering badly. There were serious losses reported, of course. We found the tail rod. You can see here. The rot at the tail part of that corydora. We found in the wounds, well, bacteria. And we found some Tetrahymena, which are usually secondary facultative parasites that like to live on wounds, on wounded, damaged tissues, necrotic tissue, and making the wounds more severe, more profound, more difficult to cure. You see the little animals here eating away on the tissue of the fish. This is of course a problem that occurs and it's already here in an advanced stage, more difficult when you are in this case to treat. At the same time, we found some few skin flukes. Here is one. You can see how fast the skin fluke can behave and move around. You can recognize typically the skin fluke. In the next video you can see already a baby fluke inside, ready to be born. So the infection can go rather quick, because the worms do not need male, female. They are hermaphroditic reproduction. So the baby is born out of this parent and infects at the same spot and can cause wounds on the fish. Also gill flukes found in this Corydora albino. Well, another infection that has a risk of damaging the fish. Here it's a little bit protected by the gill tissue. You will see in the next video more detail on gill fluke. A gill fluke has a different reproduction. It lays eggs and the eggs are distributed in the aquarium or through the filter and maybe reproduce a baby within a week, 10 days. So it's a different way of treatment. But here we observe the guilt flukes. At the same time, we had found that the liver on the left and the spleen on the right were in bad condition. Maybe could be caused by a viral infection. The organs look very abnormal, more different than they used to See, So I'm questioning here the possibility of a viral infection. We also found internally in the organs some strange object like a spine thing or a thread for something artificial that was incorporated inside the organs. How did it get there? I have no idea. And I found it in a few of them that there were some objects internal in the organs. Strange things that I encounter as a fish doctor. So the treatment for the Corydoras. Well, a combination of antiparasitic and antibacterial medications will be necessary. The flukes can be treated afterwards. Because the worst and devastating thing that's going on are the bacteria, maybe the virus, but the virus we cannot control. We can control the secondary bacterial infection. We could treat, for instance with formalin Malacat green against the tetrahymen and at the same time an antibacterial product. So treat that secondary disease which is killing the fish. Ask your pet shop, your fish doctor or the vet for good medications. Or you can find it in my books. And you can also help with a functional fish food that helps the fish repair, like our Dr. Bass flier. Buy fish food, grapefruit seed extract, Moringa books can help you to understand better fish diseases. And also my Patreon can give you a good training in prevention and putting fish in quarantine and how to diagnose fish diseases. I hope this small video helped you to understand this problem with the Corydora Albino. Thank you for watching.
