A story with a happy ending.

I noticed a swelling in the gill of the female in our pair of purple firefish. It was difficult to discern whether it was a swelling of the gill, a tumor of some kind, or some type of parasite. I was continually changing my mind as to what I thought it was so I called on the expertise of the very knowledgable Andrew Butterworth (thanx Butters) . She originally looked like this (anyone thinking this is a bad shot has never tried to take a photo of a dartfish, particularly the inside of the gills.

 

You may notice that no identifiable features of the isopod were visible - sometimes it looked like a row of legs, sometimes not.

 

 

Similarly, Andrew couldn't decide definitively what it was either. I decided I would rather treat for parasites than risk killing her by inactivity and risking the rest of the members of the community tank.

I pulled her and our male firefish, who had been in quarantine with her, into my 40 litre quarantine tank. I decided that if she was infected he ran a risk also, and it was a better bet to treat them both. I treated with the recommended amount of Aquatopia Para-Blast Tablets (available at Wonderfish )

The following morning there was something strange in the tank.I pulled out this:

I damn near screamed.

Note the distended body that my imagination horribly told me may have been full of eggs.

They have since been returned to the community tank and have been happy and healthy *touches wood*.

Thanks to Andrew, Ian and anyone else I bothered, panicked and annoyed at the time. As I understand decoras are fairly susceptible to parasites so keep an eye on yours, as I do on the ones that we import.

Tim