White worms

Question
Hi Sam, My female guppy (now deceased)had 3 white cyst looking roundish bumps on her tail, one appeared to be half buried into her just in front of her dorsal fin.  She also developed one on top of her head or inside her mouth, I couldn't distinguish and a couple more on her side.  I took her into Nolan's Super aquarium store where there is a knowledgeable staff.  Several of the staff could not distinguish what the white bumps were.  One guy thought it may be a bacterial infection and gave me several treatments of some expensive stuff to see if it would work.  It didn't.  I dipped her tail in a hypertonic aquarium salt mixture and noticed the cysts seemed to move but wasn't sure.  I scraped the cysts off her tail and they feel to the bottom of her quarantine tank but instead of cysts they were white flat looking worms wriggling around on the bottom. The largest one was in my estimation 1/8".  In my research, I found that the body fluke Gyrodactylus (www.guppyplace.tripod.com) most closely resembles the sucking worms that were on my guppy.  However, the Gyrodactylus is not visible to the naked eye...so this must not be the worms guppy had.  I called a tropical fish farmer and he told me that the worm I describe comes from the cone snail, what I think Susan Fields identified as a Malaysian Trumpet Snail.  The fish farmer told me that the snail is the host for the immature parasite then the parasite moves to a fish and develops into the adult worm.  The life cycle of this worm is snail to fish to snail and repeat.  I read a conversation b/n Susan and Cindy, on this site, about this snail which Susan states is harmless.  However the parasite that uses the snail is a fish killer.  Do you know anything about this parasite?  Is the cycle the fish farmer described to me true?  I would like to know what kills this stinkin parasite.  Anything that cures Ich does not kill it.  I had my guppy in quarantine for several weeks and prior to using the bacterial stuff I was given I treated her with Quick Cure 7 days straight.  During the time she was in quarantine she went from the three cysts on her tail to having 4 more cysts.  Will Formalin or potassium permanganate kill this parasite?  What is this thing???

Answer
Hi Patrick!

Yes, I believe all the things Susan, Cindy, and the fish farmer said is true. The snail is harmless but the parasites it carries can kill your fish if not properly treated. I can't tell what the parasites are unless you send me a clear photo of it. Right now, try turning up the temperature in the quarantine tank a little but higher to speed up the growth rate of the parasites until they die. However, before they die they usually try to reproduce. So change all the water daily to prevent their young from making contact with the fish. UV lights will also help weaken the parasites. Right now your fish is under a high amount of stress because it's the current host. Try the API Stres Coat. It removes stress up 40%. Since we can't identify the parasite, here is a link with a list of anti-parasite medicines you can buy: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=1338

If this doesn't help, please follow up or ask other great experts on this site!

Hope this helps!
~Sam