Camallanus worms

[Irishlad123]

Hi guys I just set up a new 240 litre tank and while taking apart another tank I had to put my fish in buckets for a day. The buckets had a heater and a airstone running the whole time. I put my fish into the new tank but I couldnt really see them properly because of the sand and the sediment off the gravel wasnt settled properly. The next day is when I noticed that my 3 angels had a little red worm coming out of their butts. After closer inspection it also seems that a few of my cherry barbs now have it and one of my kribs. And to make the matters worse i saw one of my barbs with white spots on it which im guessing is ich. I started to panic and i decided to put in some meds in because the main ingredient in it was methylene blue. After that i started googling and i read multiple forums and some say levsmosole some say prazi and another said some other one.
Which should i get and im in ireland and you cant just buy straight up drugs like that so what should i do. Is it possible to pull the worms out. Would garlic help the situation. For ich is salt the remedy ive already raosed the tempeture. What should i do. Sorry for long text but i did not want to leave out anything.

 

[mbsqw1d]

I'm in the UK and had to treat mine for this, was about 10 years ago so stuff may have changed, but i used Levamisole. Couldn't get official Levamisole for aquarium use and found through research, one ok to use that was sold for treating pigeons by Harkers

 

[Irishlad123]

Flubenzadole was the other drug I can get that one is it worth getting

 

[mbsqw1d]

Found a good article here that covers both medicines:

https://dianawalstad.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/camallanusarticle4.pdf

A quick browse suggest Flubenzadole needs to be injested so you'll have to soak their food in it whereas Levamisole can just be added to the water.
Also they're a pain to get rid of, the medication doesnt kill the worms but just paralyses them so you then have to routinely clean the substrate between dosing. Anyway, the article looks good, I'll have a bit more of a read. Good luck

 

[Irishlad123]

Thank you very much that article really helps. How do I deal with the ich

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Also in the UK and treated mine for this last year. Bought eSHa-ndx from Amazon, the active ingredient is Levamisole, and it works. No, please don't try to pull the worms out *shudder* they attach themselves to the digestive tract and there are several worms per fish. Even of you could hold the fish and grab the worm you see, there would be more that you can't, and you'd cause bleeding and secondary bacterial infections.

I wouldn't treat for ich yet until someone else has diagnosed it as ich. Can you post photos please of the white spots? If they're battling camallanus worms they'll be stressed and weaker, and treatment can be hard on them. They might have ich, might be fungal, might be all sorts of things, so get a diagnosis first before throwing all sorts of different treatments for different things at once, since meds can kill as much as cure. If they have both camallanus worms and ich, I bet @Colin_T could tell you the best order to treat these things in.

 

[mbsqw1d]

Can you quarantine the barb with the potential ich?

 

[Irishlad123]

Ya but it would have to be in a bucket with cling film on top a heater and airstone

 

[mbsqw1d]

Ya but it would have to be in a bucket with cling film on top a heater and airstone

What filter do you have in the main tank? Does it contain foam media?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Can you quarantine the barb with the potential ich?

I understand the urge, but I wouldn't move any of them to a quarantine tank at this point. If there are camallanus worms, it just means doubling the amount of tanks to treat, since the worms will drop eggs in there too.


Even after treating the worms with levamisole, they're high risk for dying from any dead worms they can't pass, and getting a secondary bacterial infection from the damage the worms left from their mouth pieces inside their intestines. And treating the worms meant blacking out the tanks too, and lots of gravel vac-ing. Once the worms were treated, I had to raise the temp and use salt to reduce the risk of bacerial infections, which might handily treat the ich or any fungal issues too

 

[Irishlad123]

In my main tank i have a cannister filter ya it does have foam coarse medium and fine

 

[Irishlad123]

Could i use a low dose of mebendazole

 

[Essjay]

Levamisole - eSHa ndx
Flubendazole - NT Labs Anti-Fluke and Wormer (liquid) or Kusuri Wormer Plus (powder)

Most worming meds have a 2 course treatment. This first course is to kill worms inside the fish, but won't kill the eggs. The fish then eat the eggs and become re-infected so the second course is to kill these worms before they become mature enough to lay more eggs.

 

[seangee]

I have successfully treated with eSHa ndx. Treat the whole tank as there is no point in separating the fish. I did a third dose for luck as I wasn't going to keep what I didn't use. Worked well and I have had no recurrence.

 

[Colin_T]

Pictures of the fish so we can see if they have white spot?

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Fish can live with intestinal worms for months or even years. If you feed the fish 3-5 times a day it will help the fish produce more blood and they won't suffer as badly form the worms. This will give you time to work on other problems first but we need to know what the fish have before suggesting treatments.

If the fish do have white spot, that needs to be treated first. To treat white spot in tropical fish, just raise the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keep it there for 2 weeks.
Before raising the water temperature, do a 80-90% water change and complete gravel clean. Clean the filter too. Increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

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When treating fish for intestinal worms, they need to be treated once a week for 3-4 weeks to kill any baby worms that hatch out in the fish. Do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treating. Clean the filter too.