Fish disease case nr. 44 Platy with parasitic infection Ichthyobodo (Costia)

Hello, aquarist. Today I will discuss with you our fish disease case number 44, about a very popular fish which is called a platy, a platy red wagtail which was showing a parasitic infection here. It was Ichthyobodo, used to be called Kostia. Still many people use Kostia, which is a common name for many, many years. A couple of years ago that changed in Ichthyobotto, which is a small flagellated parasite. Here you see the fish platies in the fish tank. You see them how they are showing a stressed behavior. You see the clamping of the fins and the tails, which is typical for disinfection. You see their difficulty in respiration. You see this, there's sometimes scraping against the bottom of the tank. If you have some substrate or some decoration, they will scrape against that also. And sometimes we see a kind of turbidity of the skin which is not so clearly to see here on this video. But this behavior is very common to see with several parasitic infections and particularly Kostia, because Kostia or Ichthyoboda is a common parasitic infection, particularly in dirty, polluted and heavy overcrowded fish tanks. We take a skin scraping. That's what we see in the microscope. We see all those attached little tiny parasite and you see some of them moving around. Of course, easier to recognize when they move around and when they're sitting still it's more difficult to see. But you see them here. Here you see the little bean type parasites attached to the scales. I show again when they're moving around. See, you see some moving around on the scales, some are moving around in the water. And if you have your slide, your microscopic slide here underneath the microscope, within a few minutes more and more will start to release and swim around, swim away from the dead tissue or the dead scales of the fish. So attached to the scales is something typical and there are many here, sitting here and sometimes there are many swimming around. This is ichthyoboto. I will certainly talk about it in other cases because it's a common parasitic infection. And eventually the fish will become weak from this infection and develop secondary bacterial infections. Sometimes wounds, sometimes red lesions, which are typically secondary infections. First of all, check your water quality and avoid overcrowding because those are the main reason reasons why these fish get disinfection. Try to treat with formalin, malachite green or the FMC which I describe in my books, or use the Farnamore treatment from aquarium unster or other anti parasitic treatment. Maybe you also need to apply an antibacterial treatment, an antibiotic, or a drug like Veramore to control secondary bacterial outbreaks. At the same time, we recommend the use of our Dr. Basler Bifishwood matrine. That helps the fish to defend themselves against the parasitic infectious and to help the repair. So a good combination is the food and at the same time, the medication. This was my case number 44. But here we show it with the day after. The day after a treatment. You see this fish swimming more normally, less scraping, less clamping. And this is already within 24 hours of treatment with formalin, malachite, green and oxytetracycline. So the fish will tell with their language if they're happy and if the treatment is working well. And you can see a big difference with the first video I shot at the beginning of my presentation, how stressful those fish were scraping and clapping their fins. And here you hardly see that anymore. Only a very few still show it. So this was that case I want to show you, which is a common problem in our aquarium industry and aquarium hobby. So I hope my next cases will also help you to understand the use of a microscope and to apply the correct treatments for your fish. Thank you for watching.