What is the cure for Anchor Worm in fish?

You pull them off with tweezers carefully. You have made a couple of mistakes though. First your tank is way over the stocking limit. 8 fish is far too many, and some of these are goldfish. You should only have ONE goldfish in that tank, nothing else. Another thing you've done is mix the goldfish with swordtails. Goldfish are only supposed to be with goldfish, not even a pleco should be in the tank with goldfish. You will have nothing but problems that you can never correct in such a situation. The smallest recommended tank for goldfish is 20 gallons, and that's only to house one adult goldfish or 2 small goldfish max. You are either going to have to return some fish or buy a suitable tank to house them in. A 55 gallon is a good start, but it wouldn't hold 8 goldfish either. I keep 4 in my 55 gallon and I constantly have to clean it out. For now make sure you are changing a lot of water frequently to compensate for the extremely high stocking density that you have. Change out 25% every other day at least. That situation is going to be impossible to maintain.

Anchor worms themselves can easily be removed by hand with a pair of tweezers. This will not cure the infestation in the tank, but it's a starting place. I would suggest Clout for treatment of anchor worms. It is readily available and very efffective. Another poster has offered Potassium permagante as a treatment and while it is very effective in treating anchor worms, the required dosage will also usually kill your plants and pose a significant threat to your fish if you are not aerating the tank very, very heavily. The correct dosage needs to be calculated using your pH, hardness and the dissolved Oxygen reading in your tank. It is best left to professionals and for pond use. Yes, it works and is safe, if you have been trained in it's use. Dimilin is also very effective if you can find it. As a previous poster said it's just now making it to the hobbist. Thankfully, we needed another good choice available to us. If I can help any further, please feel free to email me. MM

1. The cure for fish lice and anchor worms is easy but the best treatment is hard to obtain. By far the best product is Dimilin. Dimilin is a gyrase inhibitor that is added directly to the pond. It is non toxic to fish and kills fish lice and anchor worms within three to four days. Dimilin is dosed at 1 teaspoon per 1,000 gallons. Dimilin is restricted to commercial aqua cultural use in most areas and just becoming available at retail to hobbyists. Dimilin kills aquatic insects and crustaceans and would be a big problem if it was released into a natural pond environment. It would kill crawfish and other beneficial crustaceans and insects. 2. A number of pond keepers have successfully treated their ponds for anchor worm or fish lice using Program which is a flea pill given to dogs. They used one pill for large dogs per 1000 gallons. Clout is often used to kill lice but may harm invertebrates. Fish lice are crustaceans that look like large alien beings attached to the fish. They can detach and swim to another fish. Anchor worm is a crustacean usually seen as a long white "string" coming off a fish, usually on the back or side. The "string" is actually the eggs of the female anchor worm. Both lice and anchor worm can be treated with dimilin which was hard to find. Program contains lufenuron which is very similar to dimilin and works as well. For more information on this study and results, see www.koivet.com/program.htm. I was contacted by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals which told me that they were registering a new product with actual dimilin to be used to treat fish for anchor worms and fish lice. "Pond Care Dimilin" came out in early 2003. One site that has information on it and sells it is pondliner.com. Most pond stores now sell it.