Levamisole and snails/shrimp

[basketballqt]

I have another question about sick fish!

I purchased some guppies from petco a while back and they eventually got REALLY infected with anchor worms.. I treated them over and over, and eventually had to pick out the worms from their skin..

Well now my sunrise guppy that was VERY infected with anchor worms ( I picked 5 off of her at one time!) is sitting near the botton of her little hospital tank and is pooping a lot of stringy white stuff all the time... I tried feeding anti parasite meds but she won't eat anything.. I've been feeding it to my main aquarium as well just to be on the safe side of things.

Here's my question. I have a LOT of RCS and 2 apple snails in my 20L. I was going to go ahead and dose it with levamisole as soon as I get it in the mail just to make sure that nothing else in infected. Would it kill my snails and shrimp? I've read all over the internet about conflicted views of this, but most of the posts are from 2006 or 2007. any help would be awesome!

 

[dkpate]

I found info on this site, it's a good one:
http://www.loaches.com/Members/shari2/levamisole-hydrochloride-1

I didn't see anything about killing snails, but a different med is mentioned in the article, and it DOES kill snails.

I also found this:
http://www.applesnail.net/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20387&p=170619

The last post says people have used it with snails, you just have to make sure you use the correct dosage, and do not overdose the tank.

Good luck with the worms, and keep us posted.

 

[dkpate]

Here is a good article on the anchor worm, it's not actually a worm it's a copepod, so you have to treat accordingly.
http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/anchor_worms/

 

[basketballqt]

Thanks so much Darby! I actually came across the first website when i was doing my own searching =) I couldn't find anything about RCS tho so I guess I just shouldn't worry about them!

 

[dkpate]

I would assume the RCS are the same as snails, since they are inverts, and treat them the same. I would make sure the levamisole will treat the anchor worms before using it though, no need to unnecessarily treat the fish.