Fish disease case nr. 34: Sciades seemani with gill flukes & bacterial infection.

Hello, accordion fish keeper. Today we already at the fish disease case number 34. It's about the silver shark from Colombia, which is a special fish which is kept by many acuras, particularly in the United States and Asia. They like a lot this kind of Arius semani, the Semani shark. And I will show you my PowerPoint to explain you. Well, what's about this case? The new name of this fish is Sciatis semani or Arius. It's the Colombian shark or silver shark from Colombia. And here we found gunfluch infection. Well, luckily these are easy to identify diseases. But here we found some complications which are interesting to mention the fish. First of all, we saw them behaving in the tank an abnormal way. They were getting skinny. And you will see that some will start to scratch, scratch against the surface. Look at that. Look here on this fish, how he's scratching with the sight of the gills. I will show you again. And this is a typical sign that something is irritating the fish. Look that he is suffering from something that is, well, itchy. It's an itchy behavior. He's scratching. So if you observe this, you might suspect the way he was doing that there's something is wrong with the gills. And well, that's what we found in the gills. We found some large gill flukes which are locally easily to observe. Even with a smaller magnification 50 or 100. You find this big gill flukes? Yeah. What type it is? I don't diagnose all the different types because there are so many different types of gill flukes. Not only dactylogyrus, but many other ones. But at least we know it's a gill fluke. And then we know what to look for. Some are moving around there. That's what gill flukes do. When they are not happy to be in the slide underneath the microscope lamp, they start to move around and try to get away. So in certain fish which are dying, sometimes the gill flukes escape and are leaving the fish like leaving a sinking ship. The problem that these gill flukes can cause is, look, lesions at the gills, damage of the gills. And this is a risk that there is an intrusion, infiltration of bacteria. And that can become a bacterial infection. And that destroys the gill tissue. And this might cause glyco pneumonia or gill diseases with bacteria and deteriorating the gill system. The functioning of the gills. And the fish might eventually die from this problem. The gill bacterial infection, not the flukes. Here more progressed badly damaged gills due to bacteria which were damaged by the flukes. And so there was an infiltration chance for bacteria. So that's something you have to think about. When you have gill flux, you might have a risk of bacterial infection. Also on the skin we found those kind of colonies of bacteria, all those black balls here, those are all thousands of bacteria, sphere of bacteria. This also could be the cause of the secondary bacterial infection. This is something you have to worry about. You might see them moving around, trembling on the spot, hard to see. You need a special high definition microscope of that. And that's not so important for us to see what kind of bacteria you will know. You will still need a laboratory to identify the bacteria. But still what you have to think about, you have to apply an antibacterial treatment and most likely a broad spectrum antibacterial treatment. Because a laboratory costs money, takes time, two to three days and then maybe you know it, but your fish might be dead by then. Also checking this Colombian shark, which is a wild fish from Colombia, we find quite often worms. And here you see nematode, which is nearly encapsulated. And the encapsulation process is done by the fish. It's a defense system of the fish that he, when he is healthy enough, encapsulated the worm and the nematode will become less effective and less risk of spreading diseases to other fish. So when it's encapsulated, no treatment is possible. And in this case with this fish, we only found one nematode. But we found the gill flukes and the damaged gill. So I think you have to think about age. Treat as soon as possible. Treat as soon as possible and avoid overcrowding. So maybe spread out the fish. When you have a black shark in your fish tank doing this, take it out of the tank if you can, and put it in a separate guarantee tank. Add sea salt, 3 to 5 grams per liter. This helps to control the growth and the multiplication and the reproduction of the Gulf looks. Because the gull flukes lay eggs, the eggs. After seven to 10 days, babies come out and they don't like the salt. It will give a bad impact on reproduction and on the growth of the babies. Use an anti fluke medication, follow very well the directions because she needs several treatments. Particularly when they lay the eggs and they come into the filter, into the scent of the water. And after 70 days you have new baby worms coming out. Salt helps the anti fluke medication. I can also recommend to siphon off the bottom two times a day. So you can remove the possible eggs or the parasites which might have dropped off floating around so this is a physical action you can take as a hobbyist to avoid more spreading of the disease. Try to think about at the same time using an antibacterial medication to control secondary bacterial infections. Medication like Veromor from Aquara Munster. Is it like a good disinfecting, controlling the bacteria which are sitting on the gills and the skin. So Veromor is a possibility from a cordamensor. But there are many more other medications you you can get of course, depending what is carried in the pet shop you're dealing with anti fluke medications. There are many different kinds. You have Ductymore, you have Ductyset, you have so many. Ask your pet shop for advice. And as a last good resort to help your fish to defend themselves against parasitic infectious like gill. Fluke is our feeding program for at least 20 days with Dr. Basler. Bi fish food garlic. We have specific garlic which is freshly minced and coated on top of the granulate. It's not cooked and it has a very high content of anti parasitic materials. Butterfish have to eat it, eat it properly, eat enough and not feeding any other food. So he has enough of the garlic absorbed. The allicin, which is the product of the garlic helps the skin, the mucus of the fish to become, how can I say, not a likely place for the worms to sit on. So this is all opportunities you can do as action to treat your silver shark from Colombia for this guild fluke. But you have to take actions as the sooner you can do it, the better you will save your fish. So thank you for watching this video. More to come in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and we hope to keep you updated about becoming a good fish doctor. Thank you.