"Mephistopheles" wrote in
message ink.net...
Some of you may recall I posted several months ago regarding some
puzzling fish deaths in my 165 gallon South American tank. First, my
prize Uaru died. It acted as if it had something stuck in its throat,
but my autopsy did not discover anything. Then a Severum died, and
various small white threads could be seen trailing from its gills.
The
best guess then was gill flukes. But I was skeptical of this
explanation
since only one fish seemed to be affected at a time.

After reading an article in the American Cichlid Association's recent
edition of "Buntbarsche Bulletin" about a researcher's struggles to
diagnose and treat a disease plaguing his wild caught Julidichromis, I
have deduced that my problem is definitely the dinoflagellate
oodinium,
which is commonly known as velvet. Never thought of velvet because I
thought its classic symptom is supposed to be rust-colored velvety
patches. However, after consulting Baensch, I discovered that it can
also appear as bluish-gray patches on the size of the fish. I
purchased
four small Uaru several months ago, and one of them had this patch on
its
side (and still does). However, as I have also discovered now, the
fish
can be affected by this parasite without ever showing anything on its
skin. In my case, the fish were essentially suffocated by a massive
gill
infestation.

In any event, I am now treating as for ich -- QuickCure (formalin and
malachite green), raised temperature (around 87 degrees), salt, low
lights. No real progress so far, and looking over old posts this
seems
to be a difficult disease to eradicate. Does anyone have any advice
or
experiences to share regarding this nasty and sneaky parasite?

Meph

You should ask Frank....he hangs over at alt.aquaria....I will crosspost
this. I wish Frank would hang on a few other groups too...like this
one...He is fairly good on ailments and treatments....