Camallanus Incident During Cycle: Please Advise

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AnimalKrazed

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
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103
Location
Ontario
This afternoon, I was taking a break from doing homework when I noticed one of my guppies having a long, white crap in my cycling 10G. Did a quick research blitz online and found out that not only is that a common sign of internal parasites, but that livebearers often carry something called Camallanus. Went to the store and got PraziPro, which was advised by sites online as well as the guy at the fish specialty store. A lot of what I see online says this is going to be a nightmare, especially since I have seen what I'm now calling the red threads of doom. I'm not planning on doing anything than what the instructions on the bottle advise me to at the moment: so once or twice a week dosage, with weekly water changes focusing on deep cleaning the substrate.

Fortunately, I am using gravel in this tank so doing a deep clean should be relatively easy (at least when compared to sand). I am worried about how this treatment process is going to affect the cycling I am doing on the tank. Any advice?
 
Disclaimer: I haven’t used this particular medication, but I don’t believe it should effect your cycle. That said you may not be able to follow the instructions exactly if you’re still cycling (because your ammonia or nitrite might climb too high going a whole week without water changes.) I’d just make sure that you’re testing for both during treatment.

If ammonia/nitrite does go up a little but you don’t want to do a water change because of the med dosing, you could probably dose prime to detoxify it.

Some meds can decrease oxygen in the water during treatment so you might also consider an air stone or lowering your water level slightly to counteract that.
 
Disclaimer: I haven’t used this particular medication, but I don’t believe it should effect your cycle. That said you may not be able to follow the instructions exactly if you’re still cycling (because your ammonia or nitrite might climb too high going a whole week without water changes.) I’d just make sure that you’re testing for both during treatment.

If ammonia/nitrite does go up a little but you don’t want to do a water change because of the med dosing, you could probably dose prime to detoxify it.

Some meds can decrease oxygen in the water during treatment so you might also consider an air stone or lowering your water level slightly to counteract that.
Thanks for the advice. Definitely going to keep this in mind. I have been monitoring the parameters as the cycle goes on, doing a test every day or so. Ammonia in the 10G is at 0.25ppm at the moment, so doing a water change was on the list of things that needed doing anyway. Hopefully, some nitrites pick up before I do the but I'm not holding out that hope.
Praziquantel won't kill camallanus.
You need levamisole HCI...
Unfortunately, as a Canadian, that medicine is not available. I checked for it in the fish store and was a little sad I didn't find it. Searched PetSmart too, still nada. Only found out that Levamisole is unavailable in stores in Canada thanks to a google search. Going to stick with Prazi for now, hopefully I got the strain of Camallanus that is vulnerable to it still.
 
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