Help - Skinny Botia Sidthimunki

[ey2006]

Thanks for replying in my other thread Bloo and sorry to hear about your loach. Hope you can find a treatment to prevent this happening in the future.

As for my my friend's clown loach, we are still unsure if the little fellow is suffering from skinny disease as neither its head or body is sunken or skinny, its just skinnier compared to the other 4 clown loaches, although all 5 were purchased at the same time. When the were purchased, they were roughly the same size, so I guess you can say some have grown faster than others, with this weaker one hardly growing.

Sorry for going offtrack.

Sorry to hear this.

Not every waste case is caused by internal parasites -- bacteria and genetics are other causes, but the majority of them IMO are. A small worm is easy to overlook unless you are looking under a microscope, and the worm also may be dead few hours after the fish died -- no food. Nearly total absence of blood/tissue points toward something like a tapeworm. (In the case of my dead polka-dot we saw no blood on the autopsy, and it took a magnifying glass to locate the tapeworm).

I'd still suggest at least one anti-worm treatment for every loach, ideally immediately after you buy it. The minimal statistics I have on my loaches (see the PM) makes me think that about 1 out of 3 carries worms. And some of them are capable of reproducing in the tank leading to major wipeouts (seen this too, recently, and it was baaad).

Hi mikev, what anti-worm treatment would you recommend for clown loaches? In my other thread, neither me or my friend are sure if her clown loach has skinny disease.

If its worms, would symptoms would there be? What would be the best form of treatment?

I'm in Australia, so there might be a lot of medications not available here, but we'd definitely like to find out what the problem may be and help the smallest clown loach eat more and grow quickly to catch up to the others.

 

[mikev]

Hi, EY,

Sorry -- did not see your other thread.

Hi mikev, what anti-worm treatment would you recommend for clown loaches? In my other thread, neither me or my friend are sure if her clown loach has skinny disease.

If its worms, would symptoms would there be? What would be the best form of treatment?

Symptomes depend on the size of the loach, type of the worm, and on how long the disease was there.
In the mildest case you see next to nothing, expect for perhaps slow growth problems; in more severe cases you see really skinny appearance caused by the lost of blood and tissue. Loss of appetite or asocial behavior are also indications of A PROBLEM. (And if the worm is directly reproducible, things are MUCH worse.)

Sometimes it is possible to diagnose the disease with a photo of your loach taken from above.

As for my my friend's clown loach, we are still unsure if the little fellow is suffering from skinny disease as neither its head or body is sunken or skinny, its just skinnier compared to the other 4 clown loaches, although all 5 were purchased at the same time. When the were purchased, they were roughly the same size, so I guess you can say some have grown faster than others, with this weaker one hardly growing

Let's say if the growth rate differs by 20%-30% you should be concerned. Growth rates are of course different for different individuals, but not too drastically.

In my tank, I treated four of my clowns in Feb. At the time I did not suspect skinny disease, but the effect of the treatment on the smallest clown was so radical, that it is now clear that he did have a mild form.

My personal stats on Clowns is that out of the 7 I bought, 2 certainly had internal parasites, 3 probably were clean, and the latest two I'll never know -- I now treat them right away, it beats IMHO having to wait weeks or months for a disease to develop.

In his case, UltraCarePX was the med that did the trick, but I'd personally suggest Levamisole as a better approach (kills more types of worms).

I'm in Australia, so there might be a lot of medications not available here, but we'd definitely like to find out what the problem may be and help the smallest clown loach eat more and grow quickly to catch up to the others.

Given that Australia has a large cattle industry, levimisole is probably available. Check farm supplies rather than vets or pet stores. Probably you can order online from the site I gave above.

hth

Good luck!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hi there Mikev, i believe my common plec has internal parasites (i thinking tapeworm), i'm having a vet come around tommorrow to look at my fish so he can perscribe some Levamisole for them, my stocking is as follows in my main tank currently;

125gal tank:
25guppys+,
16 platys,
10 pearl danios,
10 leopard danios,
24 neon tetras,
6 albino corys,
4 peppered corys,
3 panda corys,
9 WCMM,
1 RTBS,
8 oto's,
4 black khuli loaches,
1 7inch common plec,
1 8inch common plec,
1 7inch sailfin plec,
1 5inch para plec(L075),
1 1-2inch clown plec,
3 apple snails,

Do you think adding a dose of levamisole to the tank would harm/kill any of my fish? What dose do you suggest? The vet advised treating the fish in a separate tank because he was wary of the effects of levamisole on them as it is not a licensed freshwater tropical fish medicine, but i would prefer to treat them as a whole- what do you advise since you have experience with this medicine?
I'm concerned other fish that may be carry internal parasites, but have not started to show any obvious symptoms, may re-infect fish that i treat/cure with the med.

 

[mikev]

Hi, Tokis-Phoenix.

On Common Plec: a strange thing happen to mine. Back in Feb I treated the tank with UltraCarePX (it is an antiparasite food that is based on prazil, not levimisole). The pleco at that time was 6.5" and -- I thought -- fit and fat and at the max size--no growth for a couple of months. I never thought he might have a problem. Well, he is 9" now...., and it is his growth that is becoming a problem.

UltraCare will take care of tapeworms, so it is an option too. Also, you can spike only Pleco's pellets so your other fish would not get much of it.

I myself give Levimisole to every new fish now---given a recent pretty bad encounter with nematodes (in hillstream loaches of all things!)---this is the only way to keep my sanity.

The only *possible* negative effect I've seen was with WCMM's -- they skept one feeding. No effect on snails (unfortunately). I don't have oto's, cory's or livebearers here, so no direct experience with these, but there was a journal article about a month ago promoting levimisole for livebearers, and that article advocated half the dosage comparing to what I quoted above. This is what I'd do in your place. And I'd run a google search on "levimisole+oto" and "levimisole+cory" just in case ---- I have no reasons to think that there is any reason for concern, but better safe than sorry.

And I'd certainly treat the entire tank (and ALL other tanks you have). Not only because of reinfection -- this almost never happens with tapeworms -- but because you may have a few worms in fish you never suspect, like I discovered after treatments here.

hth

 

[Bloo]

Well I've been hunting around to find a proper worming medication (not many pig farmers in London! so no levimisole), but I have come across this "wormer plus ©". I only just received it in the post yesterday, so haven't had a chance to look at it properly yet. It comes recommended by a discus keeper I know.

It seems the active main "ingredient" in this product (which comes as pre-packed powder sachets where each packet treats 50 gallons), is Flubendazole. The link given is one I found googling around to find out exactly what this is - and seems to treat "skinny disease" very well !

My only concern is my amano shrimp
Expensive critters at 2.50 each and I have 8 of them. If I remove them during the tank treatment, is there a chance that they can carry the parasites back into the tank (if there shrimp are not treated) ? All my current fish are fine, but knowing what I know about loaches now - and having had one die on me like that - I'm very keen to treat the whole tank.

What do you think Mike ?

 

[mikev]

What do you think Mike ?

Hard to say.
From what I know about these drugs, it does look like a good candidate: it is effective against both tapeworms and roundworms and is probably safe (a related drug, Fenbendazole is safe, at least when used in medicated food, and so is one other member of the family).

The chances are 99:1 it is good.
I, however, would not consider using it unless all attempts to find levimisole fail.

Here is why:

1. We really don't know about its safety; it has not been used widely enough. Surprises are possible. Consider: another popular dewormer used among koi people in the UK is fatal to goldfish (?!). Otoh, levimisole has been used for thirty years, and at least one fish store -- in the UK -- uses it to deworm all their wild-caught fish w/o problems.
2. Nobody studied proper dosage.
3. We don't know if it kills all or just some of tapeworms/roundworms. For example, I saw mentioned that it kills Capillari nematodes (this is the pest I've encountered recently), but the author of your .pdf link seems to be using Levimisole for Camallanus -- why?
4. What else does it kill besides worms? Levimisole has fairly narrow targeting, but this one kills hydra and protozoa -- how about snails and your shrimp and your biofilter?

Just to be on the safe side, perhaps test it on your hospital tank with some less valuable fish first?