Firethorn,

Sorry, I didn't get back sooner, but have been at work
for 12 hours.

Actually, you really don't need to scrape the gill
filaments at all, especially of you suspect flukes.
The bad guy that is designated as a gill fluke is
Dactylogyrus and body flukes are Gyrodactylus. The
gill fluke lays eggs and lives in the dark, which has
led to the development of and eye spot. The body fluke
lives on the skin of the fish, bears live young and has
no eyespots. The interesting thing is that body and
gill flukes are virtually always found together and are
usually evenly distributed over the body.

To be sure that there are gill flukes present all you
have to do is do a scraping near to the gills just
under the gill plate. Just lift gill cover and gently
scrape in an upward motion following the curvature of
the the area under the gill cover as close to the the
edge of the gill opening itself. I like using natural
materials and have found that Popsicle or craft sticks
are a good tool. This all depends on the size of the
fish and if the fish is smaller I cut the Popsicle
stick about a third of the way down so the operating
part of the stick is only about 1/8 to a 1/4 of an inch
wide. Do the scraping with the manufactured side of
the stick though, not the edge that you cut. Sanding
the finished and cut side also helps.

Flukes are one of the most compelling reasons for
having a microscope because both the gill and body
fluke can be seen with 40X. They are both tubular with
suction cups and one end and gripping end that features
a ring of small hooks which fan out around a really
vicious looking pair of hooks which are called Haptens.
Inside you will see either a pouch with eggs in it or
if is a body fluke or little ones that are complete
miniatures of the mother.

Without a microscope you are shooting the dark trying
to cure your fish. If you use salt as a blanket
treatment you will kill about 7 pathogens. You could
also treat with Dimilin or Program and you would end up
with only one parasite left behind, the fluke. Because
of the expenses of some of these treatments and if you
have a pond to medicate or large aquariums you could
solve a lot of problems if you have a microscope to see
what you are treating.

I have an Olympus lab model that goes all the up to
1,000X using the oil immersion technique. Although,
400X would be more than enough to see some of the
smallest buggers like Trichodina (100X-200X), Oodinium
(100X), and Costia (300-400X and 1,000X to see the
flagella) .

HTH

Tom L.L.
-------------------------------------------------
Firethorn wrote:
On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 13:51:49 GMT, wrote:


Actually. I have never done a gill scrape nor a live biopsy so I really cant offer
any help. INgrid


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True - but your help has been INVALUABLE to me and you have eased my
worries on a number of occasions. How bout a giant THANKYOU!
*hug*

Firethorn