You won't believe THIS.

[Lady Hobbs]

As you know, I've been trying to find out what is wrong with my angelfish for weeks. You wouldn't believe it but I checked out the filter media today and found a bug that looks like a tic! I was pretty sure I found two in the filter the other day but they were so small and too hard to see to know for certain. This one is big. Well, big for a fish.

What in heck could it be? I have checked every known kind of parasite to fish there is and have seen nothing like this even mentioned. It was kinda hard (hard-shelled?) and had a bunch of legs. Good grief.

I will continue treating just to make sure more aren't under his skin anywhere. How in the world would he get something like this?

[Jacquie]

If you have live plants you could've gotten it then. I managed to get damselfly larvae in my tank, 6 of them about an inch long each. I can only thing that their eggs were attatched to the last lot of plants I got and grew till I noticed them.

[Lady Hobbs]

No live plants at all. Gravel is cleaned every single week with water changes. I have checked every site there is for parasites and not one even closely sounds like this. This fish has had a large wound on his side for weeks and the center had a small black spot. I thought it was a scab but it had to have been this darned bug. It must have crawled under his hide and laid eggs.

Had I been using charcoal filter I never would have seen it but I use that white spun type so could see it clearly. It must have 10 legs.

[Lady Hobbs]

I bet it's a fish louse! It's said to have a hard shell, 4 pair of legs and is hard to see unless you happen to notice the tiny black spots on a fish. It does cause secondary infections.

[kimmers318]

Well, at least now you are getting an idea of what could be causing the problems with your angel fish. It sucks that you managed to get some kind of ugly bug in there, but it sure answers a few ?'s.

[Lady Hobbs]

From what I've read, a fish louse will move from fish to fish and remain on the body. I have not seen anything like this, don't know where it could have come from, and why this thing went inside my fish. Apparently some sort of infection took place for that wound so could that thing have gone inside the wound and been living there?

The ONLY thing I can think of is the wood I added to the tank about that time. I had soaked it in salt for a week to kill and bugs and louches must live off a host fish or they die within 4 days and this wood was in my closet for 3 months. Obviously, I am totally baffled.