Parasites

[JazzBora150Participant]

hi

question: how do i identify parasites

when i kept koi i would lift the fish out that was showing signs of parasites and take a scrape

from it and put it under microscope and treat accordingly

but the is no way i could do it with the little boys i have in my tank

so heres why im asking

ive noticed a few of my fish flicking against stuff in the tank now if this were a koi i would be

looking for gill flukes or a skin fluke

but ive no clue as to what to look for in the aquarium

could someone point me to the right place to look

or maybe enlighten me as to what parasites our aquarium fish suffer from

my parameters are all zero apart from ammonia 0.25(which i might add isnt moving regardless of 3 large water 30 litres per day in a 125 litre tank)

many thanks

[EyrieParticipant]

Flicking could simply be in response to irritation caused by the presence of ammonia.

Most tropical fish diseases though do have visible symptoms (eg ich, one of the most common, looks like grains of salt on the skin).

[JazzBora150Participant]

is it rite to keep doing these water changes utill 0 ammonia is achieved

ive been changing about 25% daily

ammonia hasnt moved

[PlaamooParticipant]

Just for fun, test your tap/replacement water for ammonia.

[JazzBora150Participant]

plaamoo
im using an api freshwater master kit

either im reading it wrong or my tap water has ammonia in it

i was expecting to see a zero reading but i get a 0.25 reading

i definatley get a light green result ive done it 3 times to be sure

the result is not yellow

can this be right if so why do i have ammonia in my tap/drinking water

[EyrieParticipant]

I wonder if the test kit is past its date?

[JazzBora150Participant]

cant find any dates on any of contents

[Mark DuffillParticipant]

Ammonia is quite common in drinking water much to the surprise of most people, there isn’t even an actual maximum level for ammonia within mains water. Levels from 0.1 to 1.0 ppm are common, ammonia levels can be raised due to disinfection processes.

There are quite a lot of things that can cause fish to flick, it’s not always down to disease, it is something that you become accustom to over the years and experience gained.

You could try adding some zeolite to your filter and that would remove the trace amounts of ammonia and see if the fish look better.

[PlaamooParticipant]

I just did some googling as i know I’ve read about this problem before. Have a read here Jazzbora. It sounds like it may be good to use prime(or similar) in your change water to detoxify the ammonia, and maximise your biomedia for the bacteria to process it. Unless you want to go the RO route which is a whole other process i haven’t done myself.

http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/freshwater-and-brackish-water-fishes…-tap-water.html

This is the site I linked before for parasite info. Also some good info about water chemistry.
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/water/chlorine.shtml

It may be a good idea to contact your water company and try to determine the source of your ammonia.

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