# Shrimp Parasite? HELP!!



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Happy 2012!

But on to business. I looked at my tank ~1min before the ball dropped. And I saw one of my pregnant Tiger shrimps crawling around in a weird fashion. So I looked more carefully and see this white worm thing sticking out of what would be between its eyes. The worm thing is waving back and forth, clearly not due to the water movement. I then poked the shrimp with a chopstick and it didn't even budge. Poked it again, barely any movement. Finally I scooped the shrimp out and move it to an empty container. It didn't even "jump" once when it was exposed to air, just laid in the net. Finally, when I dumped it into the container it just sank to the bottom without even swimming. It did right itself when it was down there but something is definitely wrong with it.

Reminds me of a brain bug or something. The parasite is clearly messing with the shrimps normal activities. Worst part is... it's pregnant. Any chance the shrimplets will be infected? Also... what is the chance of infection on any other shrimp in the tank? Should I dose fenbendazole since the parasite is wormlike?


----------



## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Wow Di that's nuts!!
Poor baby's!


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

This shrimp should be releasing the eggs any day now as well. This really sucks.


----------



## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Sounds like vorticella (sp?)


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

I looked here http://www.shrimpnow.com/content.php/260-Vorticella-Parasites-on-Shrimps regarding what you posted. Doesn't look like that. It's like clearly a worm moving around.

Might be a horsehair worm? Have you ever heard of that Liam? Sounds really bad...


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Well the tiger died. I dosed a tiny bit of fenbendazole into the gallon holding jar and the worm thing immediately stopped moving. Sadly so did the tiger shrimp. Soon after the part of the worm that was sticking out broke off. Managed to remove the eggs and will try my hand at artificial hatching. 

Still, has this happened to anyone before?


----------



## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

I suggest posting a thread at shrimpnow, i know i've seen that same parasite you are talking about posted on there


----------



## JessDay06 (Nov 6, 2011)

:-((


----------



## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

Vortecilia (drunked 3am sp) look like little worms in the middle of the head and they move around as well. They are caused by bad water quality and over-feeding. they will live on the exo-skeleton of the shrimp, so if they molt, they will infect the next shrimp that eats the molt.

I tried paraguard and a host of other meds and treatments to no avail. Eventually I went with salt dips. I would put a tablespoon (normal amount for 10 gallons) in about 2 cups of water, scoop up a shrimp, dip it in the net for about 45s, then grab the next shrimp and repeat. After the first day, 75% were fine, 25% need a second dip. The next day 5-10% of that 25% needed another dip, fourth day, 1 or 2 need another dip. Lots of water changes, removing molts, increasing flow in the tank, etc, eventually helped me fight it off. 

It will not stop, paraguard does nothing against it, salt was the only thing that worked. If its between the eyes, its vorticilla. Its the only known parasite from my reading and research that infects shrimp in that way.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

getochkn, I actually read when you were fighting off vortecilia with your RCS colony. The reason I don't think its vortecilia is because with that, you'll see like tufts of "fur" or what looks like multiple little worms.

In my case, there was one "huge" worm. It was like 0.5cm to 1cm long and it kept wiggling around. A single one. I think it really is horsehair worm. Some people had the same problem with ghost shrimp, only you can see inside those. Seems fenbendazole would work in killing them.


----------



## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

try levamisole. It's shrimp safe I believe.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

So the worm looked very similar to this: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...ertebrates/73888-ghost-shrimp-parasite-3.html only not... 6 inches long :\.



mistergreen said:


> try levamisole. It's shrimp safe I believe.


I googled that and found it belongs to the same type of dewormers as flu/fenbendazole? Is that correct? I've never heard of levamisole before :O


----------



## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

Ewwww... Hopefully you can get the eggs to hatch. :|


----------



## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

diwu13 said:


> So the worm looked very similar to this: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...ertebrates/73888-ghost-shrimp-parasite-3.html only not... 6 inches long :\.
> 
> 
> I googled that and found it belongs to the same type of dewormers as flu/fenbendazole? Is that correct? I've never heard of levamisole before :O


not quite. It paralyzes roundworms and is water soluble. It's a pig dewormer. Last time I treated my tank for fish calamus, the shrimp and snails survived. I don't think that can be said for flu/fen. 
Use 5ppm for a day and do a massive water change & vacuum the substrate for the paralyzed worms.

It's a little hard to find but check around fish forums for resources.


----------



## Thepeak12 (Dec 4, 2011)

Sera Tremazol works really good. I had about 5 cherries infected with those, and when I dosed it for two days, the worms disappeared. I havent seen one since ( this was 2 weeks ago).


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

mistergreen said:


> not quite. It paralyzes roundworms and is water soluble. It's a pig dewormer. Last time I treated my tank for fish calamus, the shrimp and snails survived. I don't think that can be said for flu/fen.
> Use 5ppm for a day and do a massive water change & vacuum the substrate for the paralyzed worms.
> 
> It's a little hard to find but check around fish forums for resources.


Will do. Wasn't really sure what it was but I'll look around. Flu/fenbendazole seems to leave shrimp perfectly fine. Can't say that for snails though. So having the levamisole will be useful! Thanks for your help!



Thepeak12 said:


> Sera Tremazol works really good. I had about 5 cherries infected with those, and when I dosed it for two days, the worms disappeared. I havent seen one since ( this was 2 weeks ago).


Did your shrimp die when the worms died? Was your problem the same as mine?


----------



## Thepeak12 (Dec 4, 2011)

There were no shrimp casualties, and yep, same problem. Only thing you have to watch out for is water change= very important.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Hm... you might have caught the parasite really early on because the tiger that died was pretty thoroughly infested to the point it really stood out while moving.

Were your cherries still acting normal?


----------



## Thepeak12 (Dec 4, 2011)

Not really. They didn't really move. A few juveniles were infected too, and they just stood in the same place for a whole day.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Wow. Either this shows how much more resilient RCS are or something. Could you see the worms inside them? Or just the part sticking out? Did you ever find out exactly what the parasite was? Or was it more like "ok, it's gone, good riddance"


----------



## Thepeak12 (Dec 4, 2011)

I think its the same parasite that you have, they are called Scutariella japonica. 
Do they look like this? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGxqARvkoJQ


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Sort of. I saw that video too haha. There was only single one in my case though.


----------



## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

prazi is in Sera Tremazol. You can try prazi too.


----------



## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

Could still try a salt dip and see if whatever parasite it is falls off any ones that you see affected. Saves having to treat a whole tank. After 45, you could literally see the worms falling off. I just kept the net in the cup with the shrimp in it, into a cup with clean water to rinse some of the salt off the net and plop, back into the tank and grabbed the next. I tried treating my tank for 2 weeks with paraguard and nothing and a week of dipping got rid of them. A lot of these things don't like salt, so could be worth a shot.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

If the treatment doesn't work I'll try the salt dip. The problem is I don't know which is infested, or how some shrimps got infested in the first place. Unless the worm hitched on a plant or something, in which case I can't see any other weird acting shrimp right off. So for peace of mind I'd rather treat the whole tank and hope it's cleared up.

Regarding the tiger, the fenbendazole immediately killed the worm. Time frame of maybe 2 minutes, it stopped moving. Then a minute later the worm like broke into pieces.


----------



## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

One of my very first shrimp, a ghost shrimp, had a worm much like the one in the link on page 1. It burrowed out of the side of the shrimp; I happened to catch it half out of the shrimp. When it finally was all of the way out, it was 3-4" long, from a 1.5" ghost shrimp. The shrimp survived and the worms never recurred. 

If your shrimp are infected, you should be able to see the worms inside their bodies. A salt dip is only going to help those with parasites connected to the exterior of the animal.


----------



## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

That sounds like the worm that was in my shrimp. Can't believe your shrimp survived with that thing inside. Was the ghost shrimp still acting normally? How did you get the worm out?


----------

