8 replies to this topic

[don212]

today i was staring at the feeder tank asi am wont to do when i discovered the guppies had large bumps in various places internally, i mentioned it to the manager and she said their supplier said they were snails growing in their bodies from eating snail eggs, though i have not seen this in my fish it concerns me since snails vastly outnumber my fish . is this a hazard? how dangerous is it, matter of fact , is it hazardous to me?

[fundulus]

I've never heard of that, I'd guess rather that the bumps are some kind of bacterial or viral cysts. Although I will say that it would make a great hook for a sci fi movie.

[gzeiger]

Voodoo is always a hazard to the gullible

[dac343]

Maybe he meant they had been eating snails and are now infected with trematodes? Or yellow grubs?

[gerald]

Agree with dac -- the shop manager got parts of the story, but not all. Snails are not internal parasites in fish, but they are an intermediate host for many kinds of trematode flukes including yellow-grub and black-spot flukes. The fish dont have to eat snails or snail eggs to get infected -- the fluke larvae leave the snail's body when they're ready, then infect fish, either through the skin or by being eaten. The snails can only get infected from the poop of fish-eating birds, so aquarium-born snails will not spread flukes. The fish must then be eaten by a bird for the flukes to complete their cycle. A feeder fish with yellow-grub or black-spot flukes cannot transmit the parasites to another fish that eats it, according to what I have read.

[don212]

thanks,so first gen snails in my aquarium can be a threat but not their many descendents, what a complicated life cycle. do we have any snail borne human diseases in US ?

[gerald]

"swimmers itch" or "clam-diggers itch" is from trematode larvae searching for fish and finding people by mistake. They dont live long in human flesh, but cause a nasty rash when they die. And yes there's several flukes that infect human liver, lungs, and intestines that are carried by snails now in the US, including the Malaysian trumpet snail or Red-rim melania (Melanoides tuberculata) which is widespread in the aquarium hobby and has become invasive in warmer parts of the US. Not sure if any fluke infections in US have been traced to them yet, but the potential is there.

[don212]

wow, that,s invasive to a new level, i remember vaguely of some really bad fluke infections in africa and asia not even present in us. why do we allow importation of known pathogen carriers, for something as trivial as keeping an exotic aquarium?

[al10]

The liver fluke lives in a aquatic snail whenit eats a plant with the larvae on it, and then a fish/human eat the snail and it carries on.