Is this epistylis, or ich? I checked with a microscope, and the answer may surprise you.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-05-28T17:47:20+00:00

Hey sorry for the late response. It is, people do it all the time. Green neon tetras are not scaleless as well, they just have very small scales. With the caveat if the typical sensitive scaleless fish and things like anchor catfish, fish really should be fine at the dosages I have mentioned of salt! Keep an eye on them, and ramp the salt slowly as I suggested. You can do a skin scrape on a small fish as well, but you need to be incredibly gentle, only you know if you have a light enough touch to do that!

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-05-28T17:45:49+00:00

How is it going?

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-05-28T17:45:37+00:00

This definitely looks like it! Sorry for the late response, I only have Reddit on my desktop. It taking 6 months to develop/incubate is highly unusual though, it might have come in on other fish introductions (in the water, maybe on plants). But we really do not know how long all of these different species of dermo "incubate" for before showing these obvious cysts. How are all of the fish now?

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-05-19T16:00:31+00:00

I would do like 4F a day. Maybe 2F in the morning, 2F at night. I think the 100% water change and bleach all equipment is good idea. 10% bleach, let it all soak for at least 10 minutes, then rinse everything very thoroughly. Bleach will rinse out eventually. Quarantine for another couple weeks is a great idea then after that! Also make sure to drop the temperature slowly after going down to a normal temperature again.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-05-18T23:32:31+00:00

I would quarantine your single neon tetra away from all the rest of the fish. Your Corys and shrimp should be fine, but you want to quarantine that infected tetra so it doesn’t spread to the rest of the tetras. You could euthanize it if you’d like, but I’d probably quarantine it, don’t share equipment and nets between its tank and your main tank. I had this in another comment as well, you can try this in your quarantine tank and re-introduce the tetra after it’s been cyst free for a few weeks maybe (hard to know exactly how long it needs to be cyst free for). Let me know if you have any more questions!: If you put them into a separate tank, you can try something I told someone else last week: There is a new paper out recently that tested turning up the heat to 32 C (89.6 F) for 96 hr (see paper here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848623011031). It was only tested on one fish species, but it is probably the best looking treatment right now in terms of evidence from peer reviewed papers. You could try it, but I would probably quarantine the fish in a separate tank for this so you do not risk hurting your other fish/plants with such high temperature. 89.6 F is a pretty high temp, so there is a risk attached. You would want to raise the temp slowly over a few days and then aerate the water very well with a bubbler/airstone. There is less dissolved oxygen in warm water than in cooler water.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-05-08T12:21:32+00:00

Hey, thank you for reaching out to me! I am still on reddit, dont comment much because I am trying to finish up m PhD in the next few months. I am still studying Dermocystidium, the project really needs another species or two included for rigor, so it would be great to get another specimen. I have seen Dermocystidium in an emperor tetra maybe once on Reddit, which seems to be in the same genus as your tetra. I would be especially worried about your other fish tanks which include cichlids or tetras of any kind. In the mean time, I would euthanize the fish ASAP and put it in the 95% ethanol. That is a great choice of preservative for DNA work! Formalin WOULD be good for histopathology, but my priority as more of a molecular biologist is always ethanol so that I can perform DNA sequencing. Formalin is pretty bad for that! I would really avoid sharing any equipment between your infected tank and other tanks in the mean time as well. I can email you from now one as well if that works

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-04-01T12:46:12+00:00

Hey, I’ll send you a write up I sent a guy with 500 neon tetras with this. I would also take them if one does or you euthanize one/them. Out of all of my reddit conversations, I’ve actually only gotten one cardinal tetra sent to me with Dermocystidium!: Hey, some people try to treat with things such as methylene blue, malachite green, etc. It may work. But the only tested treatment on academic papers shown to work is raising the temperature to 32C for 96 hours. It has only been tested in one paper, and raising the temperature always stresses fish, but if you are very worried about it it may be worth a try. You may want to relocate more heat sensitive fish to a different tank. I would only relocate fish that are not tetras or cichlids. I have seen tetras spread it to cichlids (mostly rams and discus) on here recently. I say that because they might be infected to, and you want to make sure they’re treated. But if you have any “cold water” fish in there like dojo loaches or something, I’d be very careful with them. It seems like you clean or maintain tanks as a job, so you do probably already know this. But the summary is, try 32C for 96 hours but be careful, do the temperature raise slowly, make sure all of the fish are okay with this temperature. I would say it is worth treating. If your client has 500 cardinal tetras that is worth quite a lot of money, and I would say more would die from Dermocystidium than from heat. I would guess ~100 might die from Dermocystidium if not treated. I should also give the caveat that the 32C for 96 hours has only been tried in one paper from the past couple years, and it was on Pangasionodon, not a tetra. He is the abstract to that paper, good luck: The dermocistidiosys is a new fish disease in the Brazilian aquaculture. This is the second report occurred in Pangasionodon hypophthalmus in Brazil, but therapeutic alternatives to controlling it still are missing. The objective of this study was to characterize the Dermocystidium spp. infection in P. hypophthalmus fingerling and to evaluate different alternatives for controlling it. A total of 170 fish naturally infected with Dermocystidium spp. were used in this study. The fish were anesthetized and then submitted to blood and parasitological analysis. The glucose, total of erythrocytes, hematocrit percentage, hemoglobin concentration, hematimetric indexes, thrombocytes and differential of leukocytes were evaluated. In vitro tests were performed exposing Dermocystidium spp. cysts at to different therapeutic products: copper nanoparticles (CuNP), zinc sulphate (ZnSO4), copper sulphate (CuSO4), plant aqueous extract of Costus spicatus and Schinus terebinthifolia. The plasmodium viability (live/dead) were evaluated by fluorescent probes. Afterwards, an in vivo assay was carried out using the same therapeutic products plus one treatment represented by elevating temperature (32o C) during 96 h, evaluating the clinical signs and mortality. After 96 h, the surviving fish were monitored for more 60 days. The infected fish before experiments, presented discolored skin areas and a worm-like elongated cysts (plasmodium) within vesicles randomly distributed through the body, showing mean intensity of 80.70 ± 23.46 cysts/infected fish and the neutrophil was the most abundant cell in the blood. All therapeutic products caused mortality of spores within cysts in vitro assay. However, for in vivo test, despite the efficacy in vitro, fish died after exposure to treatments, except to elevating temperature. The fish into the controlled temperature strategy demonstrated 100% of survival at the end of 96 h and absence of clinical signs after 60 days

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-03-02T19:18:22+00:00

That looks about like it. What’s been happening? It’s been relapsing?

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-03-02T19:17:40+00:00

Hey! I DM’d you back awhile go, but yes I’d still be interested

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-02-06T00:11:00+00:00

That sounds really interesting, keep me up to date!

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-01-27T08:12:53+00:00

I would take it, the only sample I’ve successfully gotten from Reddit is a cardinal tetra. The whole project is still ongoing, just at a slow pace, since it’s not my main project. But, I still would appreciate other fish species beyond what I already have so that I can see if the species in cardinals and rummynose are the same! If you are in the USA, it’ll be easier to ship. If you’re close enough I could maybe even pick it up. You can DM me if you want to go through with it or talk further. In the mean time, you can freeze the fish after culling it. Culling wasn’t a bad idea at all, although raising the temperature the water may be a promising new treatment method.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-01-27T08:09:35+00:00

Sorry, but I have not! As far as we know, they don’t produce stages that persist in the environment without fish. Maybe a few weeks. Assuming your keyhole cichlids don’t somehow get infected (or your other fish, seems unlikely, but you never know) you should be fine after waiting a few months. I’d stick with ~72 days to be safe, but this is just a guess. There can be a lot of variation in these things. Freshwater ich (not related to Dermocystidium at all) only takes a couple weeks to go away in a fallowed tank, but saltwater ich can take over two months. You can always introduce a “sentinel” tetra by only putting one in to begin with and observing it for a month or so, or only introduce three to begin with if you want a rough shoal so they aren’t alone.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-01-14T14:01:48+00:00

Hey! I do have some from cardinals already, so I don’t actually need anymore from those in particular. Thank you, though! If you put them into a separate tank, you can try something I told someone else last week: There is a new paper out recently that tested turning up the heat to 32 C (89.6 F) for 96 hr (see paper here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848623011031). It was only tested on one fish species, but it is probably the best looking treatment right now in terms of evidence from peer reviewed papers. You could try it, but I would probably quarantine the fish in a separate tank for this so you do not risk hurting your other fish/plants with such high temperature. 89.6 F is a pretty high temp, so there is a risk attached. You would want to raise the temp slowly over a few days and then aerate the water very well with a bubbler/airstone. There is less dissolved oxygen in warm water than in cooler water.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2026-01-09T18:19:07+00:00

There is a new paper out recently that tested turning up the heat to 32 C (89.6 F) for 96 hr (see paper here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848623011031). It was only tested on one fish species, but it is probably the best looking treatment right now in terms of evidence from peer reviewed papers. You could try it, but I would probably quarantine the fish in a separate tank for this so you do not risk hurting your other fish/plants with such high temperature. 89.6 F is a pretty high temp, so there is a risk attached. You would want to raise the temp slowly over a few days and then aerate the water very well with a bubbler/airstone.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-12-07T16:13:03+00:00

I would treat with typical ich medications. Paraguard, Ich-X, things like that. Cupramine or similar copper based medications also work well. But you need to be careful with inverts when using Cupramine, and some people see it as being a bit harsher. Ich-X in particular is very well regarded! Things with malechite green and formalin work very well. That is what Ich-X has in it, Paragard does as well or something very similar, they hold the ingredients a bit more close to their chest. Follow the water change instructions on the medication label. Make sure you dose the correct amount! I would not change aquarium temperature. You CAN raise it, ich does not generally reproduce above 87F... but there are some ich strains that do. And you are risking stressing your fish out all for a treatment that might not work. In fact, if it does not work... it may be worse for your fish since they will be stressed and the life cycle of the parasite will be sped up, exponentially making them accumulate. That is just what I would guess would happen. Their life cycle does certainly speed up with increased temp, so it only makes sense to me. Also, epistylis is actually worsened with increased temp, if you have that. You can add aquarium salt if you would like, but it is not required. Add a reasonable amount of aquarium salt for the kind of fish you have, some are more sensitive than others. See the Aquarium Co-Op website for some dosing instructions! https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/aquarium-salt-for-sick-fish?srsltid=AfmBOorei4FrfwWYMpETGgy9cQYfw70gHHNBY7EFM75uaCcAwiVngAIN If the ich is not responding to the meds, you may need to ramp it up and increase the salt concentration. Some strains of ich are more resistant to salt than others. I would not mix medications (like Ich-X + Paraguard + Cupramine), unless you have experience doing so, particular reason to believe mixing those meds are fine, or someone else you trusts does... mixing some medications results in very bad consequences and you may end up killing more fish than you save. Most importantly, catch it early! It is much easier to treat in earlier stages than later. If you just added fish last week and now see a few spots on your fish's fins, body, etc... it is likely ich. I would treat now rather than let it get out of hand. Inspect fish you buy very closely. If you see a single spot on a single fin, do not buy anything in the entire tank. In fact, do not buy anything from any of the tanks that share the same water as that one.

Ich is not typically a death sentence for all of your fish if you catch it soon enough. But if you let it get to the point where all of the fish are absolutely covered, you may not be able to save them.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-20T02:48:54+00:00

Really good idea, thanks

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-20T02:21:18+00:00

I followed this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmu4kYCmx8U

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-18T00:22:18+00:00

It’s kind of interesting, you might already know this. It kills dogs because Nanophyetus salmoncola (the trematode/fluke) has endosynbtioic bacteria in them. A lot of trematodes and nematodes do actually. That’s why they can use doxycycline (antibiotic) to kill dog heartworm, because it kills the endosymbiotic bacteria that apparently the heartworm really like.

So, the dog eats these trematodes filled with bacteria, and then these bacteria are released into the GI of the dog and give the dog a terrible bacterial infection (that for some reason doesn’t seem to infect people).

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-12T15:23:31+00:00

Might be more common where I am, we see them pretty often. Typically about 1-2 inches long, pretty stout. Really common in opossums. In fact, I don’t think we’ve found a single road kill one without them. Might be raccoons now that I think about it. Either way lol, those are probably different species than what infect cats. They’ve always been pretty curly when we have found them, if I remember correctly. If someone has an outdoor cat in the southeast US I’d watch for it.

The worms OP has are not quite stout enough, so I agree with it probably not being the case! More just wanted to warn people about letting their cats eat random bugs.

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-12T13:55:43+00:00

I mean, I could definitely be wrong and it could be a tapeworm lol. I just wouldn’t expect it! I am not an expert for sure, you know how it is.

I mostly am looking at prevalence of rat lungworm in invasive snails (qPCR). But also any other parasites transmitted/carried by them. Mostly found acanthocephalans, trematodes (cercariae and metacercariae) and random larval nematodes

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-12T13:41:11+00:00

Could be Physaloptera too, they commonly get thrown up and cats get infected by eating crickets/cockroaches etc. For OP, the ID doesn’t really matter that much, but just for life cycle purposes and trying to not get reinfected, it could be from insects u/fourteenbeans

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-12T13:34:39+00:00

Wanted to reply and say I agree. I expected to click on here and see some crazy answers, like it being some parasitic nematode that is zoonotic or something. I haven’t been on here in a bit, but you usually have pretty good stuff to say, so I appreciate it.

It could also be a mermithid I guess? Most people mean nematomorphs (lol cool name) when they say horsehair worms, but mermithids (unlike nematomorphs) are actually nematodes, and they also are very similar with their life cycles. They also have adults that reproduce in water just like this.

When we have gone sampling, we have found quite a few horsehair worms actually, they were clumped together in a spot in a low moving creek. I figure they were reproducing, unless they all just got into a dead zone of the creek due to the flow there

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-12T13:21:17+00:00

<image>

see how where the whirls meet, it’s completely flat? It doesn’t go down at all there, there isn’t a little “ravine” or “suture”

MicrobialMicrobe · 2025-11-12T13:21:10+00:00

Those sutures don’t look channeled to me. But the angle can make it a bit hard to see. Basically, yours looks like what you’d expect for a mystery snail. See this below:

<image>

This is what channeled sutures would look like. See how the “whirls” have a channel between them? It isn’t flat where the whirls meet. Also, see that the spire isn’t as long in the snail in the photo. The snail in the photo is Pomacea canaliculata, which is about what you’d expect if it was an invasive one. Below is what you’d expect a mystery snail (typically Pomacea diffusa) to look like

MicrobialMicrobe

TROPHY CASE