contemplating worm treatment

[Alice B]

and the thread I was following last weekend has vanished from my notifications. I just did seals on my 40 gallon tank. I don't know that my fish have worms, but I don't know that they don't have worms. Trying to decide what to do before the tank count goes up. My little catfish, julii corydoras, were in with the mollies for a while, at least part were. The baby molly still spends a lot of time at the top of her 10 gallon, but the adults, in with my bronze corydoras, look normal. I did buy 2 fancy male guppies, when I moved the one from the 29 to the 55 I went down to one fancy male guppy, and I have 5 red eye tetras that I also bought recently. I wasn't quarantining for worms, I was mainly looking for garden variety ich, etc. I have praziquantel and I do think I treated the corydoras and mollies with it (need to check my calendar), but it doesn't work on camallanus worms I gather. Right now I have occupied - one 29 with 3 tetras, 2 ten gallons, a 38 gallon hex with guppies, a male abn and his children, tiny albino bristlenose fish., a 29 with mollies and bronze cories, and a 55 with guppies, a clown pleco, and a female albino bristle nose (that does have a shrimp but I could move the amano shrimp to a betta tank during treatment if need be)

Before the situation gets further out of hand, can I get some solid quarantine / deworming advice? While I have seen no symptoms I did lose one fancy male guppy, I lost a male ABN either to cyanobacteria or a bad quarantine tank situation with inadequate filtration when I moved him.

 

[Alice B]

Since no one replied I have explored my fish meds, which include Paracide X - actually for koi parasites and probably not safe to use in the confines of an aquarium, and searched the internet and searched various pet vendors only to find that levamisole is vanished and fishbenzadole has also vanished from availability. On Aquarium Nexus I found a recommendation for a med from Amazon, which is quite expensive but does treat 2000 gallons. If it actually works. The aquatics medicine industry seems to be the least patrolled by the FDA.

I would be less worried about treating if I hadn't hosted my daughter's fish during SnowMageddon in Feb 2021, including one very bloated yoyo loach. That loach was in my 38 gallon hex for several months and I have recently bred Albino Bristlenose in that tank and there are at least 10 fry that I can't catch.

I would be less worried about treating if I didn't have a slightly circle swimming mollie who was born in my 29 from new fish store parents. I can get the sand out of her tank and treat where she is and see what comes out. I have 3 empty tanks I can run bare for medication tests to see if anyone is sick, but the 38 gallon hex is going to be hard to get albino bristlenose babies to eat medicated food.

And then I did buy 2 male guppies, and 5 tetras from a fish store and quarantine and add them to my 55. Which means my most likely infected tanks are the 55, the 29 which has mollies and bronze cories and my 38 hex. And the 10 the baby molly is in but that is the easiest to deal with. At least the 40 is resealed so if I move fish to a 29 bare tank for treatment or to see if anything falls out during treatment, I can put them in a bare 40 that is clean afterward. I am going to wonder if anyone actually is going to read this post, and post the medicine I may order. Interestingly enough the local FB Aquarium group isn't talking on Camallanus worms, but they have an auction coming up. And if I can't quarantine for these worms I won't buy another fish. I sure hope the little Panda Garras I put in the 100 were clean. This is what I might order, but apparently Aquarium Nexus gets a kickback:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085TQ7BWN/?tag=ff0d01-20

 

[jaylach]

Sorry that you have not had a response. Mayhaps a photo would help. I'm sorry that I can't really comment on your issue but I just don't consider myself qualified to do so.

 

[Naughts]

This is the only advise I follow. Go to section 3.
Do all tanks at the same time. Move the shrimp if you wish but all fish should be treated.
I also recommend future treatments for all new stock when they are in quarantine.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Alice B]

I went to section 3, and I can't find the levamisole anywhere, so I ordered a flubendazole product. I have praziquantel and metronidazole but mixing anything with metro is usually a bad idea. I'm going to move the shrimp and some carefully rinsed plants to a small tank to get him out of the way and remove all the sand from the tank with the mollie who is acting funny, move to sun to dry, that will be used for sanding down old furniture gently. I don't have a photo of a camallanus worm in a fish to post, I haven't seen one, I just have some suspicions and I went thru bleaching all my tanks in 2020 over diseases and ich that had gotten loose. I don't want to go thru that again. EVER. I lost most of my fish before I bleached the tanks

 

[Naughts]

Levamisole

Levamisole medication

selectaquatics.com

 

[Alice B]

thank you. the other stuff will be here tomorrow. It is my understanding that levamisole only paralyzes the worms, and if they are not removed from the tank by vacuuming they will be re-ingested and still alive. Starting a new worm life cycle. Since my tanks aren't bare glass, they are undergravel filtered I need to actually kill the worms. so while this is very nice to know and I will bookmark their site, I am not going to rush and spend more right now.

 

[Alice B]

right now it is in the 90s outdoors. I want to nuke the tanks for worms, what if I put all my tropical fish outside that are in my under gravel filtered tanks and just dosed them... I haven't figured out how to do this yet without bleaching the tanks, gravel and all, but I am considering bleaching my tanks. I am not fond of disease levels coming from aquarium wholesalers and stores at all. I didn't buy any fish for several years and the ones I had were stable and I use a reasonably good pet store but I'm having trouble trusting them.

 

[Alice B]

found out fenbendazole will probably kill all my albino bristlenose, ordered the levamisole for the bristlenose tank. this is not going to be fun.

 

[Colin_T]

use the flubendazole.
do a big water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment.
re-treat the tank one or two weeks later for a total of 3 treatments.
it will get rid of all the worms and that will be that.

 

[Alice B]

I don't want to kill my bristle nose or my clown. I have evaluated the situation.

There is a remote possibility of worms in the 55. Because I did add 2 male guppies. And my daughter's non-bloated loach to hunt snails for a month or so. There is a clown pleco and a female bristle nose in the 55. There are crypts that I think maybe some don't like meds. Because this was the tank with red cyano it has its own scrubber and nets, but it also was always cleaned last. Meaning if eggs were in the 29 or the hex, they could have been transmitted. I did a 60% water change on it tonight, in spite of almost no nitrates and a pH of 8.0

I am pretty sure my white mollies have worms, simply because first the baby and now the male aren't acting right and There was only one batch of babies. These are mollies they breed incessantly. They have been in with my 5 bronze corydoras. That are still in the 29. and a couple of my julii cories that are in a 10. I run the water from the tanks into my bathtub during water changes, and I have a screen strainer in it. I have not seen a darn worm. Not even on the mollies. But I put all 3 in the baby's 10 tonight, removed all ornaments, left the moss balls from the 29 and a small anubias and the sponge filter. It definitely gets flubendazole when it comes tomorrow. I did a 50% water change on the 29 tonight, with a starting pH of 8 and no nitrates. (my tap is 8+)

The hex tank worries me. It had the bloated loach for about 3 months. At one time it had about 30 guppies, not young, but it also had 3 older red eye tetras, very old, in there to eat baby guppies (these were my plain guppies, btw, both loaches for several months, bloated and non, bristle nose plecos that defintely ate at least one older female guppy, presumably after she died. There were and probably still are 10 baby albino BN, plus daddy. Daddy is still there and the babies have a lot of cover. I did not do a water change on the hex. It is the reason I ordered the levamisole but I have no idea when it will come. Small vendor in Colorado.

I removed all the sand from the 10 with the mollies so it's bare and ready to treat

I didn't touch the 10 with the julii's , don't want to infect if they aren't, do we know what flubendazole will do to corydoras?

I didn't touch the 29 with 3 Buenos Aires in quarantine, but its bare glass, trying to get more BA's from the same source and treat them all at once. Tomorrow should be fun.

I have not seen a worm on a fish or in a tank or in the tub after water changes. and I check between tanks and rinse the tub. I just have some very suspicious looking mollies and the worm Camallanus worms seem to be fairly prevalent on mollies according to my research. I've had one dead guppy in the 55, one in the hex last week, and none in the 29 or any of the 10s.

 

[Alice B]

Meds came - well flubenzadole came. Levamisole is out of stock there too. I have to work early in the morning and my least favorite thing is a fish emergency before work. The molly tank is having a bacterial bloom after its 100% water change and sand removal. It's a 10 with a massive 80 gallon sponge filter, it will recover, I gave it some fritz and fed everyone dinner. The amazon medicine isn't a crush in food, it's a put in water. I like that already. I think I am off tuesday, probably treat as soon as I get home from work tomorrow. the shrimp is settled into a betta tank with a filter and a couple of plants. No other crustaceans or snails or anything. I picked up the rest of the Buenos Aires tetras this afternoon and they are tanked with the others. I do not expect them to have worms but if I'm treating I am treating all.

 

[Colin_T]

You don't need levamisole if you use flubendazole.
Flubendazole will treat tapeworms, round/ thread worms, and most other types of worms.

 

[GaryE]

I don't get why you are treating. If you have nematodes, you know it. They are devastating, and show their work fairly quickly.

I treat some new arrivals with praziquantel for helminth worms. It isn't hard on the fish and it worms. Sometimes those usually present worms will get out of control after shipping stress, with newly arrived fish.

But a blind shot with heavier meds?

Flubendazole is poorly water soluble, and ius usually dissolved in alcohol or acids. When I have had to work with pure powder, I mix it into a paste food recipe so it will get into the fish and get to the nematodes. I make a blendered mix with white fish, veggies and gelatin to bind it. The fish don't gain from gelatin, which passes through undigested, but it gets the meds to the gut where the worms are.

 

[Alice B]

I have 3 fish I am pretty sure have some kind of worm - mollies - 2 out of 3 act sick, the female seems normal and dark poop but how long can mollies go without breeding? Had her since spring. had all 3 of them since spring @GaryE I also had my daughter's really bloated fish in my hex tank for several months last year. I think that fish is still alive at her house, and again I haven't seen a worm, the fish currently in that tank I don't want to risk unnecessarily. The mollies were in with my bronze corydoras, and were in with some of my julii corydoras. Right now I haven't done anything. When unsure I do nothing. Right now I have 6 tanks up. I will have 9 fairly soon, I do not want migrating illness from tank to tank. Have I considered euthanizing the mollies to resolve the issue, yes. Am I going to? No. I will treat with something and see what comes out. So maybe I just treat the mollie tank with the flubenzadole and observe, since I removed the sand, and see what comes out of these poorly fish, before I decide what to do with the rest.