anchor worm?

[fishingjedi]

Hi guys, one of my rummy nose's has a white worm clamped on its dorsal fin & it looks like behind one of its eyes, the eye has bulged to twice the size of the other one. I've removed it from my tank, any advice?

cheers.

[Merrilyn]

Anchor worms are horrible things, that clamp to the side of the fish with their hooked mouth parts, and suck the living juices out of the fish. A heavy infestation will certainly kill a fish.

There are a number of ways to treat the fish. One being to wrap it in a wet towel, and remove the worm with tweezers (not easy on such a small fish) or you can buy a proprietary treatment from your aquarium shop.

Is it possible you have added some new fish to your tank without a quarantine period? These parasites are usually introduced on new fish.

HTH

[fishingjedi]

No LR, no new fish added. It was strange, one day it just appeared. It hadn't got any bigger or anything, it was just like one day it wasn't the next day, BOOM! there it was. Anyways I destroyed the fish last night, it didn't seem in pain although u could see them behind one of its eyes, which was really swollen. Still I wasnt willing to risk my tank for a $4 fish.

[goldfish]

if its anchor worm, u will see a reddish/pinkish colour volcano like swelling on its body, the worm is hanging out from the volcano. basically the worm is very similar to a bloodworm, think of a strand of bloodworm but half the thickness!
its not too hard to get rid of it if u treat it properly.