Tubellarian picnic or Chem/Temp shock?

[horge]

Hi Henry, Frank, bill, and all:

Offhand, guys, what are the qualitative, visual differences between the symptoms of nitrite or ammonia based skin burns (or the spotting some fishes exhibit with temp shock)
--AND--
the lovely spotting we all know and cherish courtesy of Tubellarian flatworms (black ich) and a number of parasitic flukes?

The more I look back on the years of diagnosing things based on visuals (just pics, even), the fuzzier things get.

Great idea, this forum, BTW!

[billsreef]

My observations of ammonia burn are based on unpacking deliveries of fish which were not adequately bagged to prevent such problems :(

Generally in such cases ammonia burn manifests itself as rapid respiration, faded colors redness and even fin erosion in severe cases. Of course this often leads to secondary bacterial and/or protozoan infections. These symptoms also are very simular to those brought on by various protozoan infections, the difference in diagnosis being in the environmental variables.

Tubellarian flatworms leave the tell tale black spots leading to the name black ich and hence an easy diagnosis. Other symptoms such as rapid respiration and loss of color usually only occur in advanced cases.

Parasitic flukes often lead to rapid respiration and loss of color. Often cloudy areas are observed on the skin. If these cloudy areas are looked at closely they often seem to be undulating and slightly raised, these are the actuall flukes.

HTH

------------------
Bill

If damsels grew as big as sharks, the sharks would run in fear!
My dive photos (http://hometown.aol.com/billsreef/)
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