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Camallanus Round Worm. "prickles in anus and wasting away". Worming Tablets.
By katef from the Parasitic Disease - Internal Parasites - Camallanus - Round Worm - Sterazin - Worming Tablets department, Section Ask Guppylog Posted on Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 12:33:51 PM PST Tags: (all tags)

Treating Parasitic Diseases - Internal parasites - Camallanus - Round Worm. Symptoms - "prickles in anus", "wasting away". Medication for Internal Parasites or Parasitic Diseases - Sterazin (a Parasiticide) versus Worming Tablets. Is Levamisole in Australia and will a peppermint catfish tolerate it?

Dear Gupplylog,

I have way too many hours PLUS reading the internet about guppy diseases! Alot of my time is spent on guppylog - your site is definitely the definitive guide when it comes to guppies! Guppylog is a great site but there is alot of layered information and only when you know what is actually wrong with your guppy do you sometimes begin to find the answers ie keywords in your searching and in titles of your entries are very important!

I am new to the world of guppies but have had my son's fish tank for a year now. We had 6 goldifsh before the guppys - in a 90 L AquaOne tank. It was a case of one dying then the next until there were none left. Ich was our first disease, then I think it was a case of our water being too soft - the shop I bought the tank from never mentioned kH powder and the importance of keeping your water buffered.

A new local aquarium shop managed to convince me that if I got my water right (biological filters) and pH and kH powders I would have few problems in the future. My weekly water tests show my water to be excellent and no deaths in my now established 13 guppies and 1 peppermint catfish tank plus some fry hiding! However about a month ago I noticed two red "prickles" sticking out of my bright red guppy's anus. In all other ways the guppy looked very healthy. I wondered if it might be part of his reproductive cycle or just fine fins (they were red and he was too!). However slowly over the month he lost weight and before my eyes wasted away.

I am posting this so that in future people might find relevant information more quickly than I did.

The problems I have had are often in the multiple naming of things and the little information the mediation bottles have on them. Is camallanus also called round worm which is why in theory Sterazin should work? The woman at the fish shop said this wasn't a parasite therefore Wardly Promethyasul wouldn't work (It was all I had at home and it said on the bottle that it was suitable for parasitic diseases...). However I now realise this is an internal parasite. It would be great if some fish guru at your site could maybe present such information for us novices more clearly. Your site keeps mentioning treating with Levimisole - however I am not sure it is available in Australia? Also I read somewhere that catfish don't tolerate it - is this true? Perhaps providing info of the medications on the market in different countries and what they do and HOW they do it would be useful.

Because my email address was rejecting your password I ended up writing to Waterlife - below are my letters and their replies. I am going to try a small amount of the human worming tablet on my 1 guppy separately before giving to the whole tank. ie see if he survives it and if the worm falls out of his anus before giving it to the whole tank. Has anyone else tried this method? Will the peppermint catfish survive such medication?

Finally the freshwater mussels I have were sort of living ornamental additions for the tank (which also supposedly help purify the water). Does anyone else have them - they have gone from 25 C to 15 C (in a bucket with no heater or filtration or moving water). It looks like I might have to get another tank but in the meantime does anyone know how best to keep them alive and if they are not treated will they reinfect the tank?

I am still concerned about where the worms came from and I am not convinced that our rainwater tank is not the source. It is pretty scummy at the bottom and possum poo, bird poo, mosquitos, frogs? must all get in to the system. I wonder what other people think about using rainwater for the tank and if there is any product I should be putting in it prior to using? I don't currently use the dechlorinator you need to use if on Mains water - I do add Aqua Pics conditioning crystals (mostly salt I think) and KH powder (calcium carbonate).

Any comments would be greatly appreciated

Kate

Dear Waterlife

I have purchased your product - Sterazin from my local fish shop to treat worms - I can not find the active ingredients in your product but think my guppies have camallanus worms - only two so far - one is now nearly dead and had two large "prickles" protruding out of it's anus for about a month. Only today have I noticed it "flicking it's tail" and it is definitely nearly dead. Another I have just noticed has one "prickle" protruding - from photos on the net it looks like camallanus (is this round worm or a variation of roundworm?). Some sites say to use levamisole (But this catfish may not like this) or Praziquantel (could also be a problem for catfish). The fish shop said he didn't have these but had your product but when I got home I could find little info about it. All my other guppies (11) and my peppermint cattail are healthy but I am now treating the whole (90l) tank as per instructions on the bottle (6ml day 1,3,6,8,10). I have fry but have given full dose as there is a good chance they will be eaten anyway!!! - they are still alive after day 1 so that is good. One site said you needed to double the dose or it doesn't work. But mostly because the desciption of what specific parasites sterazin treats is abit vague I wanted to know if it will kill this worm that I have - I think it is reddish in colour if that helps.

Finally I have freshwater mussels which the man said to remove before treatment - why will the treatment kill them and is it possible that they can continue to carry the parasite if untreated?

Regards

Kate

Dear Kate,
Sterazin is a Piperazine based product. It will kill callamanus worms but may need a couple of courses. You can double the dosage by treating a normal dose in the morning and a normal dose in the evening ( effectively a double dose over the course of the day). The most effective way to treat internal worms and the safest is to take a cat or dog worming tablet and crush it into a fine powder, dampen some flake food and sprinkle about a quarter of the powder over the food. Leave to air dry and then feed to the fish. The worms will drop out over the next couple of hours. You will need to siphon the bottom of the tank. You should re-treat 7 days later.
Regards,
WATERLIFE.

Dear Mike,

Thanks for the prompt response and info - the two worms I extracted from my now dead guppy were still alive after a normal dose and then a strong - 5 drops in 1 liter dose of sterazin. Is it supposed to kill the worm eventually or target a life cycle? These two worms have been in the fish for at least a month so they obviously live awhile...

A couple of courses of double dosing sterazin works out to be a pretty expensive and time consuming method (it is $20 for 1 course 180 litres so two courses double dosing is $40 and three $60...).

WRT the worm tablets - can you use human? I happen to have one left from a family course a year back - it is a single dose mebendazole 100mg. Should I treat only the guppy with the visible worm or the whole tank? My only expensive fish is a peppermint catfish and I don't want him killed byal the drugs nor do I want him to have worms... All the other fish (including the peppermint) look healthy but my experience (we had goldfish before) was once one dies they all start to!

One other question - we have a rain water tank in our household (ie we are not on mains water) and have since boiled our water for drinking. I have no idea what your background is but do you think worms could be getting into the aquarium from this rainwater source? Should I thus be treating my water changes with something before putting into the tank - ie to stop re-infecting the tank with worms in the future.

Finally any ideas on the freshwater mussels and whether all these chemical will kill them (they have just gone from 25 C to room temp around 15 C at night so not sure if they will like that either!!!)

Oh the joys of 8 year old birthday presents!!!

Kind regards

Kate

Dear Kate,
Piperazine does not kill the worms, it paralyses the mouth parts so they can no longer hold onto the inside of the fish. That is why you need to siphon the bottom to stop the fish eating them and getting reinfected.
I have not used human worming tablets but see no reason why they would not work. As the medication is not one that we make we can not give any guarantees.
It is probably best to treat all the fish at the same time in case any of them are infected. However you could try the treatment on the guppy in a separate tank to check it works in the first instance.
It is highly unlikely that the worms are coming from the rain water unless there are fish in the water butt.
Sterazin will not damage the mussels we can not promise the same for the worming tablets and as such it will be best to remove them for the duration of the treatment.
Regards,
Mike.

< Treating Camellanus with Levamisole Hydrochloride | the guppy that I tried to help died anyway... >

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· Also by katef

Camallanus Round Worm. "prickles in anus and wasting away". Worming Tablets. | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Levamisole Hydrochloride in Australia (none / 0) (#2)
by katef on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 05:25:15 AM PST

I eventually rang the vets and the only product we could find containing levamisole was Nilvern Pig and Poultry Wormer. I think it is prescription only medicine but because we have chickens I happen to have some at home... The solution is 16 g/L levamisole hydrochloride equivalent to 14 g/L Levamisole. How do I work out how much to add to the fish food for feeding ( I don't want to overdose the fish!).

Re: Camallanus OR Callamanus? (none / 0) (#1)
by katef on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 07:18:27 PM PST

I have just noticed this spelling issue. Is it Camallanus or Callamanus? - I have just searched on the web and get equal returns on both spellings - Are they the same thing?

Wow! Thank you for wading through a lot (none / 0) (#3)
by unclescott on Thu Apr 19, 2007 at 07:57:36 AM PST

of material on Guppylog. Your observation that the
"there is a lot of layered information and only when you know what is actually wrong with your guppy do you sometimes begin to find the answers ie keywords in your searching and in titles" is certainly true. That is why Miskairal (one of several neat correspondents from Oz) organized Immediate Help. She and a couple other pretty key resource people have moved on to other sites and or responsibilities. I tried futilely to get a club index together last year or the year before and haven't had the time beyond the 1-3 hours a day I sometimes spend with Guppylog.

I was just thinking of e-mailing Scott or Miskairal for how to add a couple of useful recent threads to Immediate Help. I understand for some symptoms it is hard using IH. In some cases Google searching GL helps, especially since we have fallen behind on recommending stuff for IH. For "is my guppy pregnant?" which has lead a few to flee shrieking from GL, I think it is very useful. ;)

Yours is an interesting question about catfish and Levamisole. It had never occurred to me that it might be harmful to them - unless they were unable to pass dead Camallanus worms. That is a risk other fish face too.

I would disagree with the that one manufacturer's representative though about the (right) anthelmintic (Levamisole, Flubendazole, Parziquantel, Piperazine, etc) not killing the worms. In time because of disruption of the worms' digestive system, they will starve. That is why Charles suggests a full treatment of a week or more.

The ingredients of Promethyasul (which I don't think we have, at least by that name, here) are mostly medicinal dyes and probably an antibiotic. They might work against skin parasites, but there is no orthophosphate (which I try to avoid when possible) or anthelmintic to kill worms, either external (flukes) or internal.

Your peppermint "pleco" is a neat and undoubtedly valuable fish. They can indeed become pets.

Briefly searched Planet Catfish. A forum thread seemed ok with using Levamisole against parasitic worms. Googling Levamisole and catfish produced several scholarly articles, mostly aimed at the aquaculture industry. Mostly just the abstracts were available. The consensus of the first half dozen articles was that not only did Levamisole eliminate worms, but increased their resistance to diseases in general.

But I do remember an anecdotal reference here where a Cory was stressed by treatment. Do watch your peppermint. If it shows stress, take the Parancistrus L30" from the aquarium. Maybe try a half dose on the side.

One of the things that puzzled me about the research articles was that they were feeding the catfish Levamisole. In a pond that makes economic sense. Miskairal (with both a nursing and animal husbandry background) noted that it could be overdosed in the feed of horses. Charles Harrison (The Inkmaker) is dosing the water in reasonably close quarters. It is his and some others' contention that anthelmintics will only dissolve to a certain point and therefore they are almost impossible to overdose in water. A terrific advantage of that is that the fish can absorb the anthelmintic(s) through the gills.

In some cases, Hexamita for instance, the administration of the antibiotic Metronidazole is best applied through the food. However since Hexamita can make it impossible to swallow food, that is a problem. Another application suggested is Metronidazole baths, at a much higher concentration of Metronidazole.

PeterW’s run down on anthelmintics at
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2004/12/20/1366/5618
will be very helpful. Not all anthelmintics are effective Helminthicides (worm killers) of all species. Something like Jungle's Anti-parasite treatment has (according to Peter) both Levamisole and Parziquantel and Metronidazole (for secondary infections?) I think Fluke tabs does something similar. (Peter is an Australian living in San Francisco and one of the most innovative posters here. He certainly has chased down some of those key words/concepts you mention.)

Interesting your observation of spellings for Camallanus. It is not unusual for Google to offer hits for miss-spelled aquatic terms. One may get
17,100 hits for Camallanus. There will be 258 for Callamanus.

In this case the people have spoken and they are correct! ;) (Having done a 16-hour gig as an election judge yesterday, this is comforting.)

Indeed, when I am in a hurry and type something which clearly isn't quite right, I sometimes copy and paste into Google. Often if it is miss-spelled, they will ask if I'm looking for ... (and offer the correct spelling). Bless 'em. Of course sometimes my spelling is so awful that neither Google nor this site's spell checking is of any use. Then it is Webster time.

Another way around dubious spellings of a disease (or ever changing fish) genus is to look for the species. The tropical C. cotti is the one mostly plaguing our fish. The tropical C. cotti has been spread around a lot of the world though by tropical fish farm escapes and releases of aquarium fish. The authoritative work on North American fish parasites lists six temperate zone native (somewhat fish specific) species of Camallanus and the exotic cotti.

People can and do get Camallanus. This means that they are not only cooking it fully, but are ingesting the entire fish! Especially in SE Asia people are treated with Levamisole. (Small world!) See Charles' comment on the palatability of Levamisole below.

Discomed from Aquatronics (pink package) contains Levamisole. Levamisole sometimes is marketed as Ergamisole and also is sold by vets as Tramisol. There are a number of other commercial treatments available in the US which also do have it. And yes, it is amazing what one can buy on the Internet!

A couple of threads on dosing:
http://www.guppylog.com/story/2006/4/29/164717/627

http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/5/6/12123/81868

An e-mail from Charles suggests that "Five grams of Levamisole will treat 100 gallons. A dose of 0.5 grams of 5% powder Flubendazole in 5 gal of water relieves the fish by removing the parasite from its gut."

Also..."Dissolve the 5 grams of medication in a known amount of water. An 8 ounce bottle of drinking water would be good. You know there is 8 ounces there. Now, half of that, 4 ounces, will treat 50 gallons of water. 2 ounces will treat 25 gallons. When you have done your treatment, mark the bottle with a permanent marker as to what is in it, cap it tight and put it in the refrigerator. It will keep for 3 months there but I would throw it out after 2. You might tape the cap closed just to keep others from trying to drink it. It is not really harmful but not intended for human consumption. It taste terrible! Very bitter and tends to cling to the palette."

http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/CamallanusTreatment/CamallanusTreatment.pdf

Thank you for writing a genuine log. It has been fun reading it and considering responses. I may have missed something which you asked. Please mention it. Sorry if I have.

I'm pretty tired from a bunch of stuff lately (whinge, whinge...) Hope this isn't too incoherent. My lady is growing to resent the considerable time spent on-line and I am answering more when she has retired for the evening. I did remove a couple comments and patch up a few grammatical gaffs "the morning after". Please note that the case of the distressed Cory and Levamisole was added.

Our dog (my Jiminy Cricket) was telling me last night that it was time for bed. He had been grumbling and whining since 11:30. Before he built up to a full Odie BARK and woke everyone, I felt the need to hurry an answer and turn in for a couple of hours. ;)

All the best!

[ Parent ]

Many thanks for all the information (none / 0) (#4)
by katef on Thu Apr 19, 2007 at 05:24:29 PM PST

I have had rather an interesting and equally frustrating time trying to work out how to medicate the fish - my husband has just about had it with them - too much time and money!

4 or 5 of the fish now have red worms sticking out of thier anus - so I clearly have an infestation happening. Fortunately they all still look happy and are otherwise healthy.

Went to Boronia Aquarium shop who said that the only thing to use was Ivermectin Ivomec 10 mg/ml but couldn't give me any as it is a prescription drug for sheep worming. They were disappointingly unhelpful and you wonder if they just wait for your fish to die so then you will buy more!

I found this good link by Adrian Tapin
http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Worms.htm
I think Ivermectin sounds cancer causing so will try Levamisole first.

I also found this paper saying triclabendazole is one of the best to use ito of working on their worms anyway:
http://www.int-res.com/articles/dao/33/d033p187.pdf
Mebendazole looked better than flubendazole in this study and I know I can buy this in Australia so will try this if I can't source any Levamisole powder. I have rung a fish vet trying to source the powder - waiting for him to ring me back.

I have worked out that Charles is suggesting a 13 mg/l final solution of Levamisole and Adrian in the above link suggests 30 mg/l. This suggests to me that I need to add 1 to 2 ml of the Nilvern 14 mg/ml Levamisol per litre of water. Because I have a 90 litre tank this would be 90 ml minium and I have been giving them about 1/4 ml on their food so no where near enough! The wormer cost $20 for 50 ml so this is not economic (hence my reason for now trying to get levamisole powder)

I am going to have to buy a smaller hospital tank (I tried to put some of the fish in a 1 l jug in the tank so they maintain temp, but am causing them alot of stress!) with a clear glass bottom so I can siphon up the poo etc easily. I'll leave my fry and the peppermint in the maintank for now and keep treating it with sterazin as I think if they are not infected internally it may break the external cycle and I don't want to keep experimenting on the peppermint. Am I right in thinking that he/she may or may not be infected? Also the freshwater mussels are still alive!

If I am buying a new "hospital/quarantine tank potential baby fry tank" what is the best size and filtration system? I only ever intend to have about 15 guppies and two peppermints in the main tank.

One question about future water changes - I mentioned we are on rain water. My husband said I should boil it!! I normally do a 10 litre water change weekly but if I need to do 50 to 90 % water changes with this parasite I don't want to put the problem back in! Can I sterilize it with anything "like" iodine or Milton Anti-bacterial tablets (500 mg of sodium dichloroisocyanurate) ( I have a packet of 30 tablet but 1 tablet only does 2 litres of water so it wouldn't last long!!!) and then remove with dechlorinator? Basically I need to come up with a cost effective and time efficient way of getting clean disease free water into my tank. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Kate

[ Parent ]

Re: Many thanks for all the information (none / 0) (#6)
by warp on Thu Apr 26, 2007 at 04:16:35 AM PST

Hi Kate,

I live in Western Australia, I found Levamisole Through "city farmers" a store over here that deals with pretty much all dometic and comercial animals. This stuff comes as a worming drench for cattle and sheep. I will let you know how it goes when I treat my fish with it. The product is called sykes Big.L, and is made over in Vic by sykes vet international 27 healey rd dandenong vic 3175. If you would like to get a hold of some. There are no other ingredients in this product purely 27g/l of levamisole the 500ml bottle cost 15 bucks and I expect will be able to treat a 50gal tank many times over, I've yet to calculate it out. Anyhow hope this helps.

Also just so your aware rainwater is no good for tropical fish kept in aquariums. I am not sure where I have read about this but I think it has to do with the foreign bits n pieces in the water and elevated nitrates due to the poop on the roof that drains into the tank. I will find the article I read and post a link here, but based on what I read I would definitely invest in a water purifier of some sort. UV steriliser or something that will cleanse the water before putting your fish in it. Don't know about milton tablets and a dechlorinator... If your going to do that why not try using regular pool chlorine and a dechlorinator to cut back on the expense? Might be worth a shot so long as you test the water prior... Most De-chlorinators turn the amonia etc into nitrates.. Higher nitrates can do damage to your fish and is the reason for doing water changes in the first place hehe.. kind of defeats the purpose a little hey. I use RO water Reverse Ozmosis and add buffer to the water. Works a treat but the initial outlay may not be so hot. My RO unit which produces 200L per day cost around $250... But I do a lot of water changes with alot of tanks so works out good for me. If you have a single tank? I'd say stick to trying to kill the bugs n bits with some form of chlorine and dechlorinate, or boil it.. but making sure the water you put into the tank has no chlorine and very low nitrates if any at all. Another alternative is to add live plants to the tank, they help break down nitrates and use part of it as food. But then you need lighting and may have issues with algae. Keeping fish these days is just not the simple old thing it used to be eh hehehe. Gone are the days when all you check is Ph, and scratch your head if a fish dies for no reason. Anyhow I will post more on the water later when I find this link I mentioned, I saved it somewhere in my favourites just a matter of finding it.

Cheers

Mike.

[ Parent ]

Lavamisole (none / 0) (#9)
by katef on Fri May 04, 2007 at 12:18:13 AM PST

Dear MIke,

Thanks for the reply and info - I gave up on the fish for awhile. The aquarium I purchased them from wanted me to complete the sterazin course (10 days) before doing anything else and the vet who rang me back said levamisole was very expensive and that ivermectin was the only med I needed - cost $25 for the med and $20 to talk to him for 5 mins. Very easy to overdose on ivermectin so I didn't purchase.

So last week I finished the Sterazin course and one fish lost it's worms but the other didn't. Have been really busy but have just noticed a couple of fish are now not very happy. Deliberating over whether to take the contents of my tank back to the aquarium shop. All have been purchased from her in the last few months so she said she would take them back which is very good - but once I start messing with levamisole or ivermectin she doesn't guarantee what might happen and she also insisted that sterazin worked on their very expensive discus(?) fish.

I rang Sykes Vet international and it is $21 to deliver the levamisole to my door - she said the Big L is 200 g/L ie 200 mg/ml NOT 27 g/L you mention inyour post.

I worked out the conc in the tank needs to be 15 to 30 mg/L so this is 7.5 - 15 ml for a 100L tank if it is 200 mg/ml conc but is 50 to 100 ml for a 100 L tank if is is 27 mg/ml like you mention. (Don't know how all you guys in the US manage your math when everything is constantly confused by gallons)

Can you let me know what you worked out for your tank?

Thanks also for your thoughts on rain water - I read something somewhere too - but I can never find it again! We boil the water for drinking so I don't fancy boiling for water changes too... We have to buy a filter/distiller or something so I will check out reverse ozmosis too.

Kate

[ Parent ]

Re: Many thanks for all the information (none / 0) (#7)
by warp on Fri Apr 27, 2007 at 04:23:36 AM PST

Hmm Well I can't seem to find the link I was looking for, and after doing some googling... seems rainwater is fine.... Wish I knew where I saw that link because it came as a bit of a shock which is why I saved it.... I thought. Hehe not to worry... If your worried about the rainwater test it for phosphate, nitrates, and its general PH.. if the phospates are low means you won't suffer any algae probs except if you over feed. The ph you should try to keep around 7ish (neutral) and nitrates as low as possible.

And the rest should be fine so long as no baddies are in the tank.. ie rust deposits, dead animals hehe or if theres a heck of a lot of animal waste from the roof or where ever. If there is it might pay to try your chlorinate/dechlorinate method or boil it like hubby recons.

[ Parent ]

You are right, some rainwater can dilute a variety (none / 0) (#8)
by unclescott on Sun Apr 29, 2007 at 07:16:09 PM PST

of minerals. Indeed cutting tap water with rainwater (if it is clean - don't collect it until it has had 20 brisk minutes to wash out the air and roof and doesn't smell) is a way to gradually lower the mineral content of some rainforest fishes to that they will mature sexually and produce viable eggs. A lot of killifish, tetras, some Rasbora, Discus, wild angelfish, Apistogramma and some other dwarf cichlids, the peacock gudgeon and many other can be helped this way. Even some behaviors change. There are even a couple of livebearers from waters with very modest mineral levels.

On the other hand, water with less mineral is also less buffered and with over feeding or a casual approach to weekly partial water changes, as pH plunge and acidosis. Guppies will be less likely to thrive if the mineral content gets really limited.

Lowering phosphates is a popular way of limiting algae growth. If we depend upon that too exclusively and make significantly fewer partial water changes,we can mess up their immune systems and encourage quite a variety of diseases.

[ Parent ]

Good morning Kate! (none / 0) (#5)
by unclescott on Mon Apr 23, 2007 at 03:23:39 AM PST

You address so much to say here that (when briefly in town a couple of times) I've gotten tangled up trying to respond to everything at once. I want to try again and do my best (which will not be good enough, but is a start anyway). Especially in terms of the medicines and diseases, do understand that as a chemist or veterinarian, I was a pretty good history teacher. ;)

I understand your husband's frustration on expenses. Sometimes one has to wonder, nasty as it sounds, if euthanizing a tank of fish and everything in that tank isn't cheaper that treating them. Having said that, I worked through a vet to secure a stock solution of Praziquantel to treat a bunch of fish collected (by me and more significantly by a team of others) under permit in Missouri some months before, for a reoccurring case of anchorworm. (Unlike the livebearing Camallanus, anchorworm I discovered, to my sorrow, lay eggs impervious to treatment and so one must treat them a couple of times at length.) I slipped a digit and they made up 10 times what I needed of the Praziquantel.

I asked if the animal hospital would be able to use the extra solution. Realizing that they would basically have to toss it out after a time, I used a charge card and bought the whole thing. My lady, who is our Chancellor of the Exchequer, has never said a thing. If she wants to go antiquing, it would be only fair.

1. If "4 or 5 of the fish now have red worms sticking out of their anus" realize that those worms are females releasing 100s or 1000s of microscopic larvae. Stage one of those larvae is mostly tail (they don't even have a fully developed digestive tract yet). Those tails thrash around and make themselves so attractive to the guppies THAT EVERY LAST FISH IN YOUR TANK, especially the fry, have inhaled some of those larval Camallanus. A good number (actually a bad number) of the larvae lodge in the intestinal tract, developing their spiny heads in order to hold on while a digestive system matures and they can suck blood from the fish. It may be three months before their presence is discovered.

In this case every last fish, maybe snail, must be treated within that tank. Removing the adults to a small hospital tank, often a good idea, isn't in this case. They all need to be treated.

If you wish to treat in a container smaller than your tank, get every fish and snail (and resident copepode?) out of the aquarium and into your treatment reservoir. Free swimming Camallanus larvae are supposed to die off after a day or two in your regular tank, if they can find no host.

Just a quick Googling of Ivermectin justifies your use of an anthelmintic. At a large dosage, it sounds like Ivermectin can kill the fish and everything in the tank. While anthelmintics can be overdosed via the food, the Inkmaker (Charles Harrison) and Pathologist Barry Cooper, formerly of Cornell U. and Web Daddy of the American Killifish Association's site and Killietalk mailing list, have suggested that anthelmintics will only dissolve to a certain point and those points vary by medicine.

I discovered Adrian Tapin's site via my interest in Rainbowfish and ANGFA. His stuff is often terrifically useful. A lot of my limited understanding of Fish Tuberculosis is thanks to him.

I spent too much time with that paper you suggested. It is very interesting. Their concern with feeding the treatment in the food has a lot to do with the fact that they are offering their research to fish farmers who can't afford to treat whole ponds and small lakes.

But Gill flukes are not Camallanus and anthelmintics effective against them may not be effective against Camallanus. So while both scourges are worms, they are not vulnerable to the same treatments. The recommendations for treating gill flukes may not work at all on Camallanus.

More later...

All the best!

[ Parent ]

Camallanus Round Worm. "prickles in anus and wasting away". Worming Tablets. | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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