Maybe this will help!

This month's topic of interest should be foremost on everyones mind. FLUKES! Flukes are probably one of the most aggravating and prolific parasites that we face. There can be from very few in a fish population to a styfling infestation of thousands,that will choke the life out of a perfectly healthy pond. Flukes share a characteristic of most parasites, in that they are microscopic organisms. In much the same way that most people never know they have "Ich" until white spots appear, flukes can be present in significant numbers on the body and gills without visual detection. Once you can see fluke colonies forming on the villi of the fishes gills, the fish has endured many days of suffocating attack by the parasite. The flukes themselves do not kill fish if there is not an infestation of the parasite on the fishes body. A fish may host a few dozen flukes on their body for a long period of time and never suffer any debilitating ill effects. The problem occurs in the lifecycle of the fluke parasite. Adult flukes are baby fluke factories, and they can proliferate your pond with juvenile embryos, faster than fleas on a dog! When treating for flukes you must break their lifecycle. When you treat for flukes once, the adult will die and fall to the bottom of the pond, but the embryo will still hatch and reinfest. Therefore you must treat twice for flukes several days apart to kill the juveniles. While developing in the bottom of the pond, the fluke picks up detremental bacteria from sedimented waste and other anaerobic debris in the pond. As the fish muck around in the bottom of the pond, the flukes attach themselves to the mouths and undersides of the fish with their haptens (teeth), and proceed to make themselves at home on your pets. The problem comes when every time that a fluke bites into your fish, they create a microscopic puncture wound which by itself heals up very quickly through cellular epithelial reconstruction. The problem is that the detrimental bacteria that the fluke picked up off the pond bottom, or has been on the outer skin of the fish all along, will pass into your fish through the bite mark. A fishes auto immune system can cope with many bacteria strains, much the same as our bodies immune systems work. But for example, when an aeormonas or pseudomonas bacteria gets into the fishes system, the most common result is that the fish will get ulcerations on the outside of their bodies. Most ulcerations occur at a place where the skin is abraided, microscopically or otherwise. One of the greatest reasons that ulcers are most common in the spring is that a fishes immune system is the lowest throughout the winter, and when the water warms up so do the bacterial pathogens, often much faster than the immune systems of the fish. Contrary to popular belief, flukes can be just as prolific in cold water as in warm, and when the water warms, they can already be there ready to do damage. The micrograph above, illustrates a dead adult with a fully beveloped embryo about to hatch. This micrograph was taken from a pond that had no evidence of flukes in the fall, and yet, in February, there were more embryo laden adults than I had ever seen on any fish in a summer pond. The pond had a perfectly clean bottom, so where did they come from? Probably a dirty filter that had not been cleaned regularly. Hint: A good bead filtration system backwashed regularly will keep the muck out of your pond, and greatly reduce a fluke breeding ground. Treating your pond at least annually with Fluke-tabs will keep flukes at bay as long as you continue to quarantine every new thing that goes into your pond, including new plants.

Wishing you and your pond well, Greg Crane

To the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies:

Come and listen to a story bout' a fluke named Fred, poor water qual-i-ty, really kep' his family fed.

Then one day he was lay-in' by the pool, and along came a fluke-tab, and ruined his afternoon.

Killed em' dead that is, haptens flailin, trematodes a tremblin'.

------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - Sorry, couldn't help myself. GC