Camallanus treatment?

[missie86]

I am just about going out of my mind...first the pet store gives me bad info and I end up killing all my fish...then I have a bloated fish (she is doing much better) then a new male guppy spazzes out and dies within a few hours of purchase...now im starting to get ich in my guppy tank and I think I have camallanus worms on top of everything else... my tank is a 10g fully cycled tank (ammonia-0, nitrite-0 nitrate-10-20 ph 8.0) with a topfin 10 (hob filter) I do 30-40% h2o changes weekly and vacuum every other pwc. I have 5 guppies (1 male 4 female) in the tank. Only thing that was new was the male who died a couple days ago and this female that was purchased with him. They are fed tropical flakes and frozen brine shrimp.

I have been looking into these worms and I know there are 3 possible treatments but my lfs doesnt have any and it must be ordered. Which one is the most effective Levamisole, Fenbendazole, or praziquantel?

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[Linwood]

Levamisole, absolutely.

See here: Camallanus Treatment - Use of Levamisole HCl

That location will also sell you Levamisole if you can't find it locally; I couldn't.

Praziquantel is not effected on camallanus.

Febnendazole is, but I found it very hard to use, as it requires you get it to be consumed and it is only barely soluble in water; levamisole can just be in the water.

 

[missie86]

I clicked the link and didn't see where to buy it...

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[Linwood]

It's a bit obscure on his site, try here: Levamisole, Flubendazole & other chemicals for the aquarium

He's well known for helping people with Camallanus, and will also respond to email questions, etc. My suggestion (since it is not terribly expensive) is to look briefly, locally to see if you can buy it (goat and poultry wormers sometime contain it if you are in a rural area), or just order some from him and do some more reading as you go.

Sometimes a LFS will carry it as well, but I tried about 6 of them when I needed it with no luck (turned out there was one who had it I had not tried).

Do be careful if you have multiple tanks as it is easy to move between tanks (I did so before I realized I had it) - contaminated nets, decorations, plants, even hands.

Do expect some deaths, but the sooner you start treatment the better.

My fish tolerated it well, though reacted strangely to it -- congo tetras seemed to go into some kind of weird mating dance and stopped eating, angels became kind of catatonic, other tetras and plecos were not visibly affected. But as soon as I did a massive water change most came out of their weird behavior (took two changes for the angels) and no more worms. I did do another treatment at 3 weeks as recommended.

Snails and inverts may not survive the treatment, though most of my ramshorns did.

 

[missie86]

Thanks...I just emailed him.

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