Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post - Parasitic blood-sucking worm on purple firefish

solos2 · 12/28/2009, 03:15 AM

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for your post, it really helps!

From my observation I think the parasite you described "Serpentisaccus magnificae" match quite closely with the one I found on my purple firefish.

I've tried to google "Serpentisaccus decora" (for purple firefish Nemateleotris decora) but that didn't yield any results

Base on the experience from another purple firefish owner, who also had the same parasite on his firefish (please refer to the link below), he removed the "egg sac" with a pair of tweezers just to find the egg sac reappear some 2 weeks later, and his fish died later due to stress from the operation:
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic10....aspx?Update=1

If the parasite is deeply embedded in the fish's body I don't think it's going to do any good by manually removing the egg sac, as it'll stress out the fish as well. And like I've mentioned previously, I can actually see the eggs maturing, eventually they'll hatch and will probably be food for my corals.

I'll be watching over this little fella and hope he'll do well, so far he's pretty healthy, flipping his bright colored fins and eating brine shrimps / nori as usual.

Thanks.

12/28/2009, 03:15 AM	#5
solos2 Moved On Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 214	Hi Leslie, Thanks for your post, it really helps! From my observation I think the parasite you described "Serpentisaccus magnificae" match quite closely with the one I found on my purple firefish. I've tried to google "Serpentisaccus decora" (for purple firefish Nemateleotris decora) but that didn't yield any results Base on the experience from another purple firefish owner, who also had the same parasite on his firefish (please refer to the link below), he removed the "egg sac" with a pair of tweezers just to find the egg sac reappear some 2 weeks later, and his fish died later due to stress from the operation: http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic10....aspx?Update=1 If the parasite is deeply embedded in the fish's body I don't think it's going to do any good by manually removing the egg sac, as it'll stress out the fish as well. And like I've mentioned previously, I can actually see the eggs maturing, eventually they'll hatch and will probably be food for my corals. I'll be watching over this little fella and hope he'll do well, so far he's pretty healthy, flipping his bright colored fins and eating brine shrimps / nori as usual. Thanks.