camallanus worms

[Richgrenfell]

:evil: DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT :evil:

No sure where they came from (I have a few wild fish) but as with any internal parasite, by the time you see them, it's usually too late! They have already taken my beautiful breeding pair of albino ancistrus! The little dirtbags! Back in my discus days, I dealt with lots of internal parasites (especially when I wanted to cross in some wild blood). But not these things. The are livebearing, and can multiply in the confines of an aquarium as they don't need an intermediate host! The book i looked them up in calls for the same treatment compound as fluke tabs so I have begun treatment on the tanks in question. In my experience with parasitic worms....they are usually farther along and in greater numbers that you think so I will probably treat all my tanks. Oh well. It's been close to 3 years since i've had any problems. guess I was due.....

Rich

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

I've treated my fish and tanks and gotten rid of this parasite. Hasn't
come back yet...*knock on wood*.

I treated with levamisole hydrochloride that I got from a
domestic animal vet. Its used to treat sheep and cattle for worms
but works great on fish too.

Increase aeration while treating with this - I noticed that fish
were gasping the morning after I treated, but the were back
to normal within 35 minutes of raising the sparybar above the
water line. I also noticed that the fish got REALLY skittish in the
week after the treatment but returned to normal within 2 weeks.

It did get rid of the parasite tho. Infact, I saw them starting to drop
out and die minutes after I started the treatment. My fish resumed
spawning a week later.

Good luck!

[Randall]

Dear Rich,

Fluke Tabs are highly effective in treating parasitic worms, but should be dosed at half strength with dwarf cichlids. As Ghazanfar suggests, from my experience levamisole hydrochloride is also effective, but one must be very careful not to overdose. Both are extremely powerful medications. After treatment, a significant water change is obligatory.

Good luck!

Randall Kohn

[Anonymous]

Hi Randall,
I have been advised in the past to dose with half the recommended dose. I don't pay attention to it though. not to disregard your advice, as I certainly appreciate it. If i dose with half the measure, then it will be required that I treat for a longer period of time. I feel that it is better to just dose at full strength rather than expose my fish to meds for a longer period of time. I have never experienced any problems with this way of medicating. I do thank you for your advice!

Rich

[Randall]

Hi Rich,

Please do be very careful with those Fluke Tabs. Others I know who have dosed their dwarf cichlids at full strength have suffered significant loses. At half strength usually two doses is sufficient.

Good luck in getting rid of those worms.

Randall Kohn

[Richgrenfell]

You know Randall, i do need to correct myself.
I came home this evening and had a tank of ancistrus fry dead. They were quite young, and so i probably shouldn't be surprised. Everyone else seems fine....I do know what you mean when you say be careful. I learned about meds when I was a newbie discus breeder. I had a few mishaps...but learned as I went. One med I have learned to be quite careful with is potassium permaganate. A wonderful external med, but you dose just a little bit over...... and it just isn't pretty at all.

Rich

[Orchid]

What does a camallamus worm look like and where can I find more info on them?

[aspen]

rich, sorry to hear about your apisto babies. i too have heard the warnings about clout, and have not felt the need to treat with this strong med. i prefer potassium permanganate or formalin based meds like plain old formalin 37% or quick cure. also, i am not a fan of using any med for external paraistes which needs to be left in the tank for days. i prefer 4 hour treatments, or dips, then moving to a newly cleaned tank. but, i'm not sure how delicate dwarfs would do when mixed twice into new water, without being properly aclimated. i have used formalin, then have done a large water change, and this seemed to work quite well. (1 ml 37% formalin per 10 gal for 4 hours, followed by a 75% water change) i like to watch my fish during this kind of treatment though, removing the med if any stress is evident.

btw, i have saved pea sized discus fry with pp and with formalin, when they were dying from flukes. after the treatments, the spiraling deaths ceased, and none died in the treatment tank. only 1 died before i acted, and that was the only death. warning for others, never use 2 meds at once, these treatments were applied under VERY controlled conditions, with vigorous aeration- very important.

rick

[Richgrenfell]

orchid, they are a bright red worm, and can usually be seen hanging out of the fishs' anus. Here is a link for some info on them....

http://www.fish-disease.com/Diseases/Camallanus.htm

rich

[Richgrenfell]

Aspen,
I don't really like to use harsh meds either, and I too prefer the 4 hour treatment to the ones that take days. however, pp isn't very good for internal parasites. That's why I opted for the flukes tabs. you take a risk on losing some fish, but it's better than letting the parasite multiply and lose everything.

Rich

[Orchid]

Thanks Rich for the link to the worm site. Man oh man, my sympathies to anyone who has this monster in their tanks.

[aspen]

rich, after reading that bit on the worms, i would have opted for pipezine, or panacur. panacur i have used a few times, either for worms or when i have suspected them. this med has never harmed any of my fish, and is quite benign. unlike most meds, it has no effect on the fish. it is directed at the worms only. the worm loses it's ability to osmoregulate, and when expelled, they are dying.

i had a really bad intestinal worm problem with a bunch of small discus i got. after treatment, worms were thick in the tank. the fish were actually eating them as they were flying around the tank. when i dosed a second time, a week later as per instructions, there was not one left. i have treated theses fish at other times, and i've never seen a trace of these or any other worms. i have never used pipezine, although it is available at most pet stores catering to dogs. it is also quite inexpensive. but i am not clear on dosing, so i would therefore stick to panacur.

rick

rick

[Richgrenfell]

I was advised that a certain compound (i don't remember which one as I don't have the book right here.) was what I was looking for, flukes tabs had exactly that, so i used it. i do wish i had a bit more time to look around. The thing with camallanus worms is that they attach themselves to the intestinal wall, and suck blood from the fishes system. once that part if the intestine dies, it moves to another healthy spot. I needed to react quickly so that the fish didn't end up with a perforated intestine. it doesn't much matter now though as that is exactly what happened. I lost all my ancistrus.... i have saved your advice however. The next time I order wild caught fish, I will certainly try to have some of those items on hand! When I was doing discus, I used to have to treat most anything that came in wild. Mostly tapeworms, but once in a while i'd get some roundworms or something. Flubendazole always worked, so that was pretty much the only med I used aside from PP. I had never encountered anything like them before. oh well, you live and you learn!



Rich

[Anonymous]

These worms are becoming a real pain. I have a thorough infestation through which I have lost three fish, including my beautiful male agasizzi. Currently, my cacatuoide pair, my reamaining agasizzi, my angel, and keyholes have this parasite. I have set up two quarantine tanks, and heave treated both with pipzine. I would also like to mix the pipzine with their food, however I want to do this properly.

SO far I mixed one capsule of pipzine with 1.5 oz of frozen brine and water. Hopefully this will work. Does anyone else have better advice?

Also, I have left my farowella (stick catfish) in the main tank. Will the parasite latch onto him and/or propagate through him? How about through cardina japonica?... amano's shrimp.

-thank you so much,
steve

[aspen]

hi, i believe that for pipezine to be effective, it needs to be ingested. also, a full cap, likely intended for a small dog, would surely kill any one of your fish. i believe that you need to get it into the fish, by using some food that will soak it up. i use beefheart. can you make anything like this up, that your fish will eat? putting it in the water may kill the ones floating around, but i doubt it will kill the ones in the fish, unless you can get the concentration in the water very high, likely high enough to kill the fish.

i would definately consider anything could carry these worms, unless you know better. that means, treat the shrimp, and the farlowella, and all of the fish. also, i would leave the tank empty of fish etc, for at least a month, to ensure against another infestation, or tear it down and sanitise.

rick

[Xanathos]

When using powdered medications like levamisole or piperazine , it gives way better results when mixed in food and directly given to the fish ( if they still eat... ) I think you can get piperzine in drug stores too, it's a human anti-worm. This is where I took mine, even if the pharmacist looked at me with a weird face like " Do you really have worms ? " :)


I've nvr tried it but I heard that raising temperature over 34 celsisus degrees for a shot period ( 4-5 hours ) also clean the fish,....

You really can see the worms coming out of the fish, just like with cats... it's a bit disgusting :(

Good luck
Phil

[Anonymous]

If treating freeze dried brine with garlic elixer and pipzine and feeding to the fish, how long should the worm elimination process take? I have been treating for 4 days and have not noticed any change in status.

Steve

[aspen]

i treated my discus with panacur, and the worms were expelled in a few hours, the first were seen in 20 mins or so. worm meds work almost immediately on the worms, ime. fyi, my water was thick with worms from 30 1" discus.

what dosage was used? where did you get the directions? i use a solid food, that holds meds well (beefheart). i wouldn't be surprised if most if not all of the med was simply dissipitated into the water. you have to get it into the gut of the fish. you can buy beefheart at most lfs's. get them eating it properly first, then mix it in.

rick

[heslipst]

Here is a tough one.

I have a one-eyed keyhole cichlid who does not eat that well. I honestly have never seen him eat anything. How do I treat this guy!?

[heslipst]

Also, is beef heart something that I can pick up at a grocery store? I don't believe that the stores around here carry it.

I was mixing 1 capsule of pipzine per 1.5 oz of frozen brine... mix it in, then freeze it again and use it as necessary.

Steve

[mordor]

I tried almost everything available in fishstores without success. I even tried cat wormer Erliworm :-) I went to a vet to get prescription for Panacur but when I calculated that it would be more expensive than my fishes I gave up. Finally I found on some Discus group that there is medication available without prescription: Discomed. It contains levamisole. Dosage was quite experimental, I soaked frosen food in it and used it as the only food for 10 days. Then I got a week break and another 10 days. It looks that none of my fish got symptoms anymore.

[aspen]

panacur is cheap. i bought some from a fellow hobbiest for 1 dollar can (.65 u.s.) per gram. 3.4 gram = 1 tsp. 1/8 tsp per 84 grams of beefheart, will treat 24 adult discus.

the expensive part was the vet's prescription. find a cheaper source for your meds, and you will be more able to use them when you need them.

rick

[heslipst]

The worms are dead!!!!!! After ridiculous struggles with these nematodes, and trying just about everything, it was fluke tabs that did the trick. I experienced no stress on plants (that I could see) like many were suggesting.

Everyone is happy again back in the main tank... and funny, it looks like my agassizi and cacatuoides even bonded through the experience...?

Thank you for your input everyone.... this was just one big learning experience.

-Steve