Is this a parasite in my fish? red worms out cloaca?

Question

My tropical fish keep showing red threadlike worms out their cloaca. my angel fish had it first and it died and now my gourami has it. basically they have about 5-6 bright red threads sticking out their cloaca - sometimes there is only one but it is usually a bunch of them. Here are some photos - sorry its not the best its hard to take photos in fish tank. Can anyone tell me what this is and how i treat it?
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5158/dscn4099ov6.jpg
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1410/dscn4110ep3.jpg
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/2897/parasiteen0.jpg

Answer 1

The last photo is a clincher. What your fish have is camallanus. I've dealt with this twice before.

About the only thing I've used that was successful is Levamisol HCl (Levacide). This is a livestock dewormer, and depending on where you're from, you might need to go to a veterinarian to find it. In the US, I've also found it at a few farm stores.

When the worms are poking out of the fish (usually only when the fish is at rest) they're laying eggs. So even if you don't see them in other fish in the tank now, you will still need to treat all the fish in that tank (and the tank itself).

This article outlines the basic treatment: http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/CamellanusTreatment.pdf but when I was treating my fish, I was advised to treat twice, a few days apart so any worms that hatched from eggs following the first treatment would also be killed.

This is something you want to get treated, since if it isn't the fish will eventually get a deformed spine from having the parasites.

If you aren't able to find the Levamisol HCl, this link recommends another treatment, but this isn't something I've used, I just wanted to give you a possible alternative: http://www.fish-disease.net/diseases.htm You can also google info yourself, now that you have the parasite's name.

Answer 2

Your pictures are pretty small and its hard to see much small detail. My first suspicion would be that they are anchor worms. They burrow into the fishes' tissue and usually you can only see about a quarter inch of the little read thread (thats the worm) sticking out from the fish.