Corydoras panda, flukes/flatworms

I was recently lucky enough to get my hands on a wild caught male Corydoras panda to expand the bloodline of my breeding group.

The fish was isolated but foolishly I never de-wormed the fish. As I wanted to breed this particular male he and three of my best females were introduced to a breeding tank. They almost instantly started to breed on a regular basis. The fish seemed to be in great shape and behaved normal.

But all was not well and soon tiny “growth” started to appear on the fins and occasionally on the bristles of the fish in the group, especially the male.

At first I was panicking, thinking I would lose my breeding group. Having consulted www.planetcatfish.com I received excellent advice. As It turned out the "growths" were actually flukes, parasitic flatworms.

The tank was treated with Kusuri Wormer Plus and within a day there was no sign at all of the parasites.

Edit: I would recommend that especially if it's a heavy infestation to repeat the treatment after the initial seven days as a new outbreak might occur otherwise.

Even though I’m not recommending this there were eggs and larva/fry in the tank when it was treated and so far I have not seen any ill effects on the fry. In fact, I did not see any negative reactions to the treatment at all.

Perhaps my experience and the pictures could be useful for others trying to identifying this parasite. I have certainly learned from my mistake of not treating this wild caught specimen in the quarantine tank.

The fish are back to normal, all and all it's a happy ending!

Melander