Study nr. 37 Shubunkin with 5 parasitic infections teaches to take better care of sampling scrapings

Hello. Dear Aquarist, today I want to share you a study that I came across about an evaluation on the parasitic infection on the shubukin, an ornamental goldfish. I would say very popular in the industry. And this study was done in Pakistan on imported shubunkin. It was done some time ago, 2013. But since I came across this study there are a few points I find interesting that I would like to share with you. And it's particularly what can parasites do and where can they be found on the fish? And there seems to be a difference in the location where parasites can appear. And for those that use a microscope, it might be certainly interesting to be aware when you do an examination where to look at which gills or fins or skin. Well, it's an article that I found interesting as a fish pathologist and sometimes I could make mistakes by taking the wrong tissues or the wrong sampling. So I will go in detail on the study on the most important parts that interest me. But I would like to share with you. So the study, the present study was aimed to investigate parasitic infection of an imported ornamental fish, the shubunkin in Pakistan. 30 fish were examined and 19 fish were found infected with one or more species of parasites, which is quite a lot. That means 63% of the fish had a parasitic infection, at least one or maybe more. The five species of parasites that were found were monogenean, the flukes, the monogenetic flukes, the Dactylogyrus or the gill flukes, the Gyrodactylus, the skin flukes, the Trichodina parasites, Ichthyophteris or White spot and then the Argolis, the fish louse. Those were the five parasites they found. In those sturdy fish that were imported they found heavily infection of Dactylocheirus extensus. The gill flukes were the mostly found at the highest percentage. And there was a significant difference in the infection in the left or in the right gill with the gill flukes. So that's important in my opinion to understand there might be a difference. When you take sampling of the gills, you take the left or you take your right gill. So I learned from this article I would take both samples from both gils, the right and the left. So there was a significant difference. The secondary lamellae were severely damaged due to the high infection of the gill flux dactyloche they found the other parasites. I will go later on in detail because I wanted to give you the most important part that I like to share with you. That the gull flukes were found to be the most pathogenic parasites affecting the shubunking compared to the other parasitic species. And these parasites may have escaped detection while sending the fish consignment to Pakistan. So the exporter did not take good precautionary actions to prevent that diseases were shipped along with the fish. And maybe the presence of developmental stages of the parasites has been ignored by the consignment dispatchers. And the present situation points our attention to one point that the import of ornamental fishes must be done under strict regulations. In my opinion it's the strict carnitine regulation that the importer must apply and take the precautionary measures to fight infections that can appear on the fish. I give particular classes on that on my quarantining in my Patreon. So the imported fish must be checked at landing sites to stop the introduction of the pathogenic parasites into Pakistan. Well, particularly when you are an importer and you want to resell the fish, you better take your actions. So introduction about the fish trade. The materials used, like I said fish were obtained from one pet shop in Lahore between June and October of 2012 they checked 30 fishes for parasites only. They didn't check for bacteria or viruses, just depict the parasites and they find out that the parasites recorded from various sites of the shubunkin was that of course the Dactylocheirus infected were in the gills. The Hierodactylus were on the skin but mostly on the fins. Here the Trichodina on the fins, the ichthyophteries white spot in the gills and the argulus on the fins. So think about where can we find some parasites in the gills is of course the Dactylocheris Trichodina also. Also Ichthyophterius is mostly found in the gills. So out of those 420 parasites recover from the gills, 187 were found attached to the left side of the gills and 233 to the right side of the gills of all infected fish. That means there was a significant difference in the parasites here. In this case talking about the gill flukes, the maximum number of parasites in one fish was 83. Gyrodactylus on the skin they say 95% and on the face 3%. This is a mistake by the authors because they wrote four or five times in the article that the Hirodactylus also the name was wrongly written. Well this can happen. Please scientists check your material and verify it because this is a mistake because they found the Herodactylus here. I see it in the fins. Very little in the skin. So important to check fins when you check skin flukes. So there was a high significant difference in infection in the sides, the skin and the fins. The Herodactylus are considered less pathogenic as they did not cause much pathological changes at the site of the attachment on the fish. However, I would say they cause fin rot and tail rot drastically. We've seen that a lot. See, they say the tips of the cartilage fins were eroded in some cases. No inflammatory response was observed on skin or fin in some cases. But I tell you, in my case I A lot of bacterial infections appear due to the damage created by the skin flukes. And I'm sure you agree when you check your fish, they show some interesting pictures here, photographs that they show the damage of the gill flukes here, different sites, there are the tips here. And here we see the damaged tail with the skin flukes. So more details. Also skin flukes and white spot disease coming out together. And here is a table of the infection of various parasite species per fish in Shubunkin. So this number fish number one, number two, number three. And then there were parasites found and they found that, well, dactylocheirus on the right and on the left there was a difference, more parasites on one side than the other side. Here it said, well, left gill more parasites. And I'm wondering what did they wrote here? That both gills, the left side gills had 186, 87 and the right gills 233. Right gills 233. And what does it say here? 187. So they're confused again. But there is a difference. That's the thing I want just to tell you. They make maybe mistakes in this article, but there's a difference in observation of the quantity of parasites in the gills. Also the parasites on the skin and the fins. Many more parasites found on the fins. Mainly more skin flukes on the fins and not on the skin. So if you take a skin scraping, well, you better take also scraping from the fins or take a fin sample. Trichodina were most likely found on the fins. There was also parasite here. Four parasites were found in fish number three. Just to give you an idea the discussion. Well, the damage is caused by dactyl agaris to the gill, which was the most common parasite in this case. And of course giving risk, opening a risk to secondary bacterial infections. But also protozoan and fungal infections. Yes, that can be secondary. So heavy infection results in trauma and injuries on the gill surface. Lamellar hyperplasia, excessive mucus production and the ultimate effects are the impairment of the respiration by the gills and the fish become heavily stressed and that's why they die. Because of the damage caused by the gill flukes and the secondary infections. Ichthyophterias was only found in the gills of the fish. So think about it ache you don't see it outside but can be in the gills. And I have different case studies I presented on my this YouTube channel. Look it up. Ick in the gills sometimes only in the gills and you didn't see it on the skin. So this is a little bit I would just say that it's very necessary to improve the fish health management practices at the fish farms before shipment exporter be aware control your quality control. Do a kind of quarantine procedure on the fish you get before you ship out and the importer also do a quarantine and do procedures of checking on fish diseases and keeping records so you know what to do next time or what treatments to apply. So this is the major thing I want to discuss about the article. The link is here below so you can read the article for yourself. So some things you might interest to look more into detail up to you. I'm happy you followed this article that I explained with mistakes. Yes but some basic interesting points which teaches also me me the fish doctor lessons. Thank you for watching and subscribe to stay informed about fish diseases, prevention, diagnosis and what medications to use. Thank you.