Fish Deworming

[kykeeper26]

I have a friend who has a large 3500 gallon freshwater aquarium full of native fish to Kentucky. Recently, he used fenbendazol to deworm all of the fish in the tank. The tank included crappies, bluegill, 2 species of gar, channel catfish, blue catfish, white bass, and shellcrackers. All of the fish were fine except after a day or so all of the catfish started to have open bleeding sores all over the bodies. I have heard before that you shouldn't use this type of dewormer on scaleless fish like cats. I was just wondering if this is true and if anyone else has any experience more so in this field so I can relay the information to my friend. Thanks a million.-Zaden

 

[chibi]

Wow!! 3500 gallons?! That's HUGE!! Does he have salt in the tank? If not, I'd add freshwater salt (sounds like an oxymoron). Salt in the tank is always a great defense against parasites, worms, disease, etc. 1 tsp per gallon. The salt shouldn't hurt the fish, although I'm not 10000% sure. Correct me if I'm wrong, everyone!!

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

omg that would be 3500 tsp!

 

[chibi]

Discus, you're right! XD I'd convert it to a bigger measurement. 3500 tsp is the same as about 4.5 gallons of salt. Geeeeeez, that's sooo much salt O___O!!!

 

[kykeeper26]

Thanks for the info, but we already put salt in there for the reasons mentioned above. Anyone know about dewormer toxicity to catfish? Thanks again for any replies-Zaden

 

[paulf]

Flubenol is ok with fish, its what its mixed with to make it soluble thats the problem, most are mixed with either acetone or DMSO, neither of which are good for fish....
Not sure about those catfish, but salts ok for corys if that helps at all

 

[gazuk]

when i was keeping discus id make up a beefhart mix and id ad 2 puppy worming tablets.i never had any trouble with worms after that.


theres always rock salt i used that on the discus fry and again it worked for me.


i hope this help u gazuk

 

[NightStalker]

I think you should heal those catfish with some meds or something.

My ID shark catfish family i guess has 2 sores, ones white now with what looks like fungus, the other just growing and i suspect itd happen aswell. Apparently due to the high nitrate and low kh infecting a wound or something, so im not sure if any of that stuff would raise or lower those levels.

Then again i dont know to much, i just try to give ideas if i can, i only got a 55 gallon, so yours is about 63 times bigger.....probably know more then me but i hope i helped in some way shape or form.

 

[paulf]

when i was keeping discus id make up a beefhart mix and id ad 2 puppy worming tablets.i never had any trouble with worms after that.

The problem with that is most puppy wormers contain praziquantel and that isnt on the VMD list of approved substances for fish use as a wormer, so there are legal implications/penalties for its use on fish which could result in serious penalties if not administered by a vet in the uk. In the states the laws are different, it depends where you are.
The other problem with adding meds to food rather than to the water is that the sick fish are usually the last to feed...