Successful parasite treatment with snail in tank.

brittanyd0203

brittanyd0203

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Mar 30, 2009
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Vienna, WV
Last night I believe I successfully treated my 10 gallon community tank for parasites while my apple snail was still in it. I had noticed that some of my fish were brushing against the gravel and decorations and I knew that my snail was the intermediate host for the parasite. I came to this conclusion because at one point I had to treat my tank for ick so I moved Amigo (my snail) to one of the guppy fry tanks. The guppy fry were about 4 weeks old and were perfectly healthy but two days after introducting amigo they started to develop what looked like white cotton splotches on them and began to die off. I didn't really have a choice but to treat Amigo as well since she (yes I know it should be Amiga but I thought she was a boy at first and then she layed eggs and I didn't feel like changing her name) is indeed the carrier. I put the tablet in last night before I went to bed and when I got up this morning she was out and about munching on her algae wafer. She hasn't shown an side affects at all so I'm hoping to do another dose tonight to be sure that the parasite is gone. :)
 
I'm not sure how likely it is for a snail to act as a vector for the ich parasite....more than likely, the snail was wet and the water with the snail transferred some of the parasites over to the guppy tank. It sounds like you were treating the snail for ich...was the snail showing any signs of bad health, or was the treatment based on the fact that you had ich in both tanks after moving the snail from one to the other?

Its also possible to transfer ich and other pathogens on a wet net, gravel vac or any other equipment that gets shared between tanks.
 
I didn't treat the tank for ich last night and the guppy fry that died didn't have ich, but rather a parasite of some sort. I looked at a sample under a microscope but the parasite was one I hadn't seen before. When I asked my mentor (I'm a pre-vet med student), she said that the most likey cause was the snail since they are intermediate hosts for all sorts of stuff. I treated them all for parasites, including the snail, to hopefully kill all of the parasites off.
 
brittanyd0203 said:
I didn't treat the tank for ich last night and the guppy fry that died didn't have ich, but rather a parasite of some sort. I looked at a sample under a microscope but the parasite was one I hadn't seen before. When I asked my mentor (I'm a pre-vet med student), she said that the most likey cause was the snail since they are intermediate hosts for all sorts of stuff. I treated them all for parasites, including the snail, to hopefully kill all of the parasites off.
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Hopefully it doesn't kill your snail as well. :headshake2: Most ich medications contain copper or the like which is bad news for inverts, which includes your snail. To my understanding there are a few that are invert safe but not many. Most of your box stores carry Jungle brand which is on the no list. Keep an eye on your Amigo. :lipssealedsmilie:
 
Where did you get your snail? Its very unlikely to harbor anything. Your mentor is correc tthat wild-caught, pond reared snails often harbor parasites, but its doubtful in this case. Did you rinse the snail in dechlorinated water before moving it? how about your hands and supplies?
 
The snail was purchased from a filthy tank at the local Walmart. I didn't know I was supposed to rinse the snail before I put her in the tank, although she was in a clean isolation tank for about a day or so. All of my equipment is cleaned before I do any transfers from one tank to another to prevent incidents like the one that occured in my fry tank. The medication I used to treat the parasites last night didn't contain any copper sulfate and she has been looking normal all day so I'm not too concerned. She survived an accidental heater incident one time so she's a pretty tough little girl lol.
 
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