Fungus.

I am sorry that your axies are unwell, but I must say that I have found this thread interesting and thankyou for the informative pictures, I am sure it may help others identify this problem if it were to arise.
Wishing you best of luck getting rid of the problem, I am now going to go and find out more about this threat.
Cathy
 
Im glad this could help you, it sure has been helpful to me.

Once the worms are dead, they wont just fall out? What if I cant find a vet that will do it, I cant just leave dead worms sitting there, right?

Mark
 
Dimilin will kill the anchorworms and stop any reproduction. Most will fall out naturally. However, some of them will remain lodged although already dead. The trick to removing the worm is not to twist when gripping with the forceps/tweezers. It is best to try tease it out by a rocking motion, and kind of 'lever' it out. Its not difficult really, it just takes time, patience and skill.
 
Ok, about how long will it take the dimilin to kill the worms and how will I know when theyre dead? The little guys' fungus is almost completely gone, just a little on the tips of one or two of their gills. Theyre pulling through quite nicely. After the worms are gone, hoe much longer should I keep them in quarentine to make sure the worms are fully gone?
 
Dimilin will work withing a few hours at the first application. The vast majority of anchorworms will die by then. They will sort of change to a paler colour and may just detach themselves. Otherwise, they would dangle rather passively and should be easily removed by forceps. There shouldn't be any wriggly movement.

Have you read the instructions i written up on another thread? You would need more than one treatment of dimilin and would also require sterilising your tank to break the cycle.

Anchorworms can be difficult to eradicate because they can burrow deep into the skin and even muscle layers of the axolotl. The wounds caused by the burrowing subsequently predisposes them to opportunistic bacterial and fungal infections.

The first thing you need to do is to ensure good tank conditions for your axies - good water parameters, temperature, low currents, good nutrition etc. to avoid infections due to immunosuppression from environmentally attributed stress. You may also consider fridging your axie while you you wait to bring it to your vet and treat your main tank. All axies and feeder fish in the tank will need to be treated, not just the sick one. This is because the anchorworm can cross species (fish & Axies) and set up a life cycle in a carrier.

http://www.caudata.org/axolotl-sanctuary/Fridging.shtml

Dimilin (Diflubenzuron) is an effective treatment against copepod crustacean parasites such as Lernaea (Anchor Worm) and Ergasilus (gill maggots). Diflubenzuron works by interfering with the development of the new chitin exoskeleton of the anchorworm and thus breaks the life cycle.

I would advise you to bring your axie to a vet who can then order in the medication and advise you on dosages. Normally very low concentrations of the drug is used. I am not sure if you can get them from aquarium shops over the counter in your country. I do know they are used commonly in ornamental fish industries especially goldfish and koi farms. You might like to enquire with your local ornamental fish farm/distributor?

One thing to note that is that when you use dimilin, there should be a repeat treatment 2 weeks after the initial treatment to remove all stages of the parasite. The recommended dosage rate is 0.03mg / litre but please follow your vet's advice.

Vets can also manually remove anchorworm from axies under anaesthesia. It is important to remove every bit of the anchorworm, even the embedded portion (anchor) under the skin otherwise the embedded foreign body will just be a nidus for secondary infections to set in and even cause foreign body reaction which is like an over excessive tissue repair. I would highly advise you against trying to remove the parasite yourself.

The next thing you have to do is to sterilise your main tank. I know this sounds contrary to everything that has been said conventionally. Stripping the tank down and restarting from scratch sounds drastic but im afraid this is the only way i can think of to permanently break the life cycle of anchorworms.

This is the tricky bit if you consider the pros and cons. Do you have another fully cycled tank on standby? You might have to put your axie in this new tank for a while or fridge your axie during the treatment period. You should only transfer your axie/animals into the fully sterilised tank after they are fully treated.

The thing with sterilising your tank is that you are basically nuking everything in there, including the beneficial bacteria. That means you have to start cycling the water again etc. You cannot reuse anything that is not sterilised. That includes substrate, plants, ornaments, filter, nets etc. Draining and refilling the tank is not good enough because these diseases can linger on. Everything must be removed and sterilized.

There are many ways to disinfect an aquarium. Some people use bleach or a heavy salt mix to clean while others will use potassium permanganate. No matter what way you do it, remember to rinse many times in fresh water.

To remove bleach odours, use vinegar and baking soda. Rinse until there is no smell. This can be a very long process of soaking and rinsing. Scrubbing down the tank and equipment with salt is safer because a little bit of salt residue does not hurt axolotls. Put some salt on a clean rag and the gentle abrasion of the salt will help remove stubborn algae.

Potassium permanganate is a chemical that can be used to sterilize tanks. It is available at most pool supply stores. No matter which way you clean your tank and equipment, remember to rinse many times in fresh water.

Some people heat up the tank water to 98 degrees (with no animals inside) for a couple of days, then drain the tank and let it sit dry for a week. The dry tank will kill the parasites because there will be no animal host. Then comes the fun of setting up your aquarium again.

I personally recommend cleaning the tank with lukewarm saturated saline solution over bleach or potassium permanganate.

I recommend quarantine for 30 days.

Cheers
 
Quarentine in the tank for 30 days if theyre away from any other axolotls? They were in their own tank anyway..so I guess I could just put them back in the same tank once its sterilised? Also, What if I were to take 4 gallons of water out of my 55gal every other day and put that in the tank once its sterilised? Could I do this? Its cycled already and disease-free already. Im guessing this would make for a very minimal cycle and be dramatically faster than if I were to use fresh water. If there is a cycle at all. Would this work?

Mark
 
Using any previous tank water or water that came into contact with the axies while infected will risk introducing anchorworms into the new tank again. The main concept is that the old tank must be 100% steriilised, the axies must be 100% rid of anchorworms before they can be kept in the main tank again.
 
I understand that. The water would come out of my 55gal display tank. The infected axies were in a 20gal long quarentine tank. The tanks are not connected so the infected axies have never came into contact with the tank the water would come out of. The display tank has 4 other axies in it, all of which are healthy.

Mark
 
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