Camallanus Worms! - i have no idea what i'm doing! :(

[bugz000]

Hey there,
note for admins: i am completely new to this forum so if i have done ANYTHING wrong at all - please do let me know so i can rectify it <3

I've successfully kept several tropical tanks in the past but this one has me worried

about 2 weeks ago i picked up a 200 or 250 gal tank (not sure which, will measure soon for the dosage of medicines) with pump/heater etc - very happy

stocked it up a little, things going well

then my brother decided to move to marine, so he give me all his tropical stock and a plant! AWESOME!

on closer inspection once they were in the tank, little red "hairs" protruding from the rear end of nearly every fish he brought - i inquired what they were and he didn't know - we chatted a while and he went home

i researched and identified this as a rife infection of camallanus worms - nightmare!
i've been reading horror story of people losing thousands worth of stock and resorting to ditching everything, bleaching the tank and starting from absolute scratch

as you can understand i really don't want to do this, i only bought my original stock about a week ago
and as i understand the whole tank is pretty much infected at this point so i've moved the worst ones into a quarantine tank and what's left is small fry he brought in the main tank (impossible to catch)

my quarantine tank leaves a lot to be desired but i'm panicking a little - my logic being as the worms die with treatment - i'd rather them fall into the smaller tank than to scatter around the bigger tank
and any which come out of the fish in the bigger tank will have a lesser chance of being eaten as there's less of them

i've read up and found two medications which seem to be popular

• Levamisole
• Fenbendazole

i also read that i can use both together, with some fish food treated with fenbendazole and treating the water with levamisole

there are snails in here, and i'd like to keep them but are they also prone to these worms? if i move them to my cold tank (aparently they're happy to move to cold - says the pet store) - will they carry worms to my goldfish?

he brought round a ton of tetras aswell but none of them appear to be affected by the worms - are they more immune to them?

this is a cry for help because online sources are erratic in advice, stating wildly different dosages, treatment durations, some treat the whole tank, some drain the tank to a couple inches - at this point i've read pretty much every article on these worms, and from the unreliable resources provided i'm left not knowing what to do

what i'm asking of you guys is to maybe walk through this with me?
suggest a treatment - i post result, so on - i need an experienced eye to watch over the whole thing
i'm sure some of you out there has dealt with this before - is what i've done so far good?
i have so many questions but i'll surely learn from all this

and i thank you all so much in advance - i'm sure you get these kinds of posts a lot - but i truly do appreciate it, i'm asking for years of experience to be thrown my way without charge to cover for my inexperience, and for that i thank you all <3

 

[WILDER]

This article should help.
http://petcha.com/pets/camallanus-worms/
You will have to move the snails as the medications are toxic to them.
I don't think the snails will pass the camallanus worms onto the goldfish.
But I would check as I know nothing about snails.

You will also need to back up with an internal bacteria medications afterwards as the worms cause bacterial infections.
The camallanus worms cause alot of internal damage and sometimes it to late to save the fish if there infested with them.

Good Luck.
Welcome to the board.

 

[nic1]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004HFNV0K/?tag=

This product works well, the instructions are in German, but the first review on the amazon link above gives you a run down.

 

[WILDER]

The Sera medication is the only one you can buy I think here in the UK for Camallanus worms.
I usually recommend that myself.
If you want Leviamsole you have to get a vets prescription in the UK.

 

[bugz000]

thankyou for your replies!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221726048353?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

i'm currently waiting for this in the post - aparently this has leviamasole in it and one source says it worked incredibly well

from what i understand the worms may be immune to various things and it's a case of trial-and-error to get rid of them so the more products you guys can recommend, the better

i am also in the UK so i am limited on what i can get hold of

i've seperated the worst infected fish into a smaller tank - i hold little hope for them as i've read that heavily infested fish can sometimes fail to pass the dead worms - i also suffered one casualty some time last night - woke up to a dead guppy in the quarantine tank but i suspect this was stress from moving tanks twice in one night - to a hastily made up tank and aproximated temperature
the others appear to be perfectly happy in there for now

i have some of this which should help against bacterial infection, unless i need something slightly different?

i have also purchased a big pack of batteries for my tank vac as i'll no doubt be using it a lot in the coming weeks

 

[Essjay]

The active ingredient of eSHa-ndx is levamisole. I only discovered this after using Wormer Plus, then Sera Nematol when the Wormer Plus didn't clear them up.


There is a theoretical risk of the snails transmitting the infection if any worm eggs are in the water on the outside if the snail shell. When I had to treat for camallanus worms, I put my snails in a bucket of water for several days and changed the water a couple of times a day.

You will also need to completely remove any medication before putting the snails back in the tank, and it can take a couple of months before it is safe. I used several batches of carbon, then Underworld Polyfilter and discovered the hard way that the tank was still not safe when I put one of the snails back in the tank.

 

[bugz000]

how toxic is that sera medication to snails? is it much the same?

i figure the snails are quite closely related to the worms or have something in common with them which makes them susceptible to most, if not all treatments i put in for the worms

i would like to start gentle and work my way up to the more toxic chemicals to try and cause as little stress and damage as possible

good idea putting the snails in a bucket and changing the water - if there's no "snail safe" ways of doing it - i shall do this - though i have an assassin snail, 4 small snails, 2 big snails
i feel i'll be left with 2 big snails and a very well fed assassin snail if i put them in a bucket lol
so far they have evaded the assassin snail due to the size of the tank, i intended on them breeding but plans changed when an aquarium nightmare arose

 

[WILDER]

You could use a storage box for the snails if you think the bucket to small.. I would add a net on top to stop them escaping.

All parasites medications are toxic to snails i'm afraid.

 

[nic1]

Pretty toxic, it will kill them.
What other snails do you have? If they are the common ramshron, pond or MTS, lots of people give them away or sell them next to nothing. You can probably get your hands on them quite easily.

 

[bugz000]

Pretty toxic, it will kill them.
What other snails do you have? If they are the common ramshron, pond or MTS, lots of people give them away or sell them next to nothing. You can probably get your hands on them quite easily.

2x red spotted snail (5.00)
4x spiral horn snail (£10.00)
1x assassin snail (was in tank substrate when i bought it)

my fiance spent a long time choosing them so i would like to keep them but if it means keeping them out of the tank for a few months i really don't see how it's practical or humane - the assasin snail is the issue, i don't want to sell them or give them away in fear of infecting another tank, but it seems cruel to keep them in there knowing they'll die to the toxic chemicals
it's tricky

perhaps it's best to keep the other snails in a floating nursery box in the tank (sealed so no water passes) and ditch the assassin snail as these appear to be popular for clearing tanks of snail infestations so should be easy to pick up another one - and they all look very similar

what would you suggest?

i have no idea how hardy these snails are - aparently they'll tolerate cold water too but i mean will they survive happily in a jar with a few algae wafers tossed in once in a while till the tanks good again?
if that's the case i can easilly separate the assassin snail into it's own jar to stop a snail massacre and change the water each day which will mean i get to keep all my snails

 

[Essjay]

My snails survived in an unheated bucket for a couple of weeks, and I put a tray on top of the bucket to stop them escaping. After that I reckoned it was safe to put them in another fish tank, and the fish in there did not contract camallanus worms. The snails stayed in the other tank for a couple of months. It is now two and a half years later and all but the snail I put back too soon are still alive.



For the interest of UK residents, these are the medications we can get, and their active ingredients:
eSHa-ndx - levamisole
Sera Nematol - emamectin
Kusuri Wormer Plus - flubendazole

 

[bugz000]

Hey guys
thank you all for your replies again you're really helping me out with all this

i've been absent as i was waiting for my eSHa-ndx to arrive,

for others searching the same issue, it contains a total of 20ml which can treat a max of 450l

my small tank is 17l and my big tank is 195 (i figure it's 200l and i botched up the vertical measurement somehow - i can't see where the glass ends!)

i've just put treatment in the small tank and i'm going to observe the results
so far the big tank has settled down since moving the stock in and i've just fed them - the fish were in a frenzy for food which tells me they're happy in there!

one of the guppies in the quarantine tank is pineconing so i really don't hold much hope (red one above) - and they're all showing significant worm problems so if any survive out of that tank i'll be suprised

i just want to see if the worms die off and litter the bottom of the tank to see how effective this is and how it behaves (just incase the worms are immune to this one) - then i'll be treating the big tank

dosage is one drop per liter in the instruction booklet so it's going to take a while dropping 200 droplets into the big tank but i guess that's the function of a quarantine tank

the reason i'm treating the whole tank is to rid all the plants/gravel/filter etc of all worms - while not stressing the fish out by draining half the water out (exposing the pump, rendering it useless and half the plants - which could harbor worms until i re-fill it again, putting me right back to where i started)

wish me luck! and i thank you all!

i shall keep you updated and please let me know if my logic is flawed or i have the wrong idea

 

[bugz000]

update: morning after treatment of quarantine tank.

pineconing fish is dead - other fish show zero signs of any worms - one fish still shows significant problems - but i have no idea if it's just dead worms showing

no worms on bottom of tank (that i can see) - i've vacc'd the bottom anyway just to be sure, things are looking good for at least 3 of them in the quarantine tank
see if the worms dissapear from that last guppy (the only one showing now) - and then i'll see about treating the main tank

fish will stay in the quarantine tank for 2 weeks before i re-introduce them to the main tank - then i'll re-treat the main tank 2 weeks after first main tank treatment - meaning the fish in the quarantine tank get a slightly shorter-than-2-week second treatment if that makes sense
that way, being the fish with the worst of the problems, get the most treatment in a short period

i hope this makes sense i have just woken up! haha

 

[Essjay]

Does eSHa-ndx say to repeat the treatment in 2 weeks? When I used Sera Nematol (before I knew about ndx) that said to repeat the dose after, I think, 4 weeks (I can't remember exactly, it is nearly 3 years ago!) so if ndx does specify a time for repeat, use that time.
The Nematol leaflet said this was because the eggs are not harmed by the medication and the second dose was to catch the worms that were eggs during the first dose before they become mature enough to lay their own eggs.

 

[bugz000]

i never actually thought to check whether i can repeat in 2 weeks, i did read somewhere else about a guy who used the levamisole crystal powder to treat the tank twice, 2 weeks apart- but i just checked and the instructions also state:

"In case of oviparous nematodes, repeat the treatment 14 days after fist dosage to eradicate the hatched eggs. in special cases the treatment can be repeated after another 2 weeks."

i figure camallanus worms are oviparous (or similar) thankyou for bringing that to my attention!