Microscope?

[Overawed]

I am seriously thinking about buying a microscope to become more aware of the bugs on my fish. Anyone else get into that? Any suggestions?

[merlyn2221]

Except OA, how will you look at the fish [i:e12a656f81]under[/i:e12a656f81] the microscope?

I'm sure you don't mean to squish your little fishy charges between slides, do you? How will you hold them still? :lol:

I guess you are referring to after they have "passed on" and you would analyze their tissue. If that's what you mean, then do it! It is cool. When I bought my first serious fish disease book [b:e12a656f81]Handbook of Fish Diseases[/b:e12a656f81] by [i:e12a656f81]Dieter Untergasser[/i:e12a656f81] it talked all about making slides to help determine what illness was present in the deceased fish. I used to do it all the time. It teaches you alot, but you have to be willing to dissect the fish to do it. Sometimes, depending on the fish it was, I couldn't bear to do it. Most of the time though, it was no problem. 8)

[Overawed]

Well, I think it would be a bit difficult to get my 10 inch Serveum under the lens of a Ziess Microscope. I was thinking of using my "Shrinking Ray" to decrease his size a bit. :lol:

Seriously though, I have read that swaps of an infected fish's gills can be used to examine under the scope so the aquarist can find what kind of parasite is causing the problem. It sounds stressful to an already sick fish though, so I was wondering if anyone else here has experience with doing this.

[merlyn2221]

Nice visual image there! :lol:


I was tempted to, but never had the chance. They always died first.

It actually isn't "painful" according to my vet. All you do is scrape off some slime and tissue and swab it on the slide to look at it. But who knows?