camallanus worms and plants

[dhjaksu]

so I have a large planted tank and fish that have camallanus worms. ive moved the fish to a smaller tank for treatment so I dont have to use as much medication but i want to make sure the large tank and decor is safe/clear of any sign of plants before adding the fish back.

so i plan on completely replacing the filters, boiling the wood and rocks, thoroughly rinsing the substrate, getting new floating plants. but i dont know what to do with all the other plants. theres at least $300 worth of plants so i dont want to just throw them out but i also want to make sure theres no chance of the fish getting worms again from anything in the tank.
so what should i do?

 

[Colin_T]

Treat the fish in the main tank otherwise they will become re-infected when you move them back.

If you drop the water level down a bit, you won't need as much medication. Just make sure the filter and heater continue to work properly.

Depending on where you get the medication, stock feeders used to sell Nilverm (Levamisole) and you could buy it for cattle, sheep or poultry. They all contained the same product but at different concentrations. The cattle formula was the strongest and poultry formula the weakest. I used the cattle one and could treat a lot of tanks for quite a cheap price. I also bought a 20 litre bottle of it, not the 1 litre bottle. There wasn't much difference between the 20 litre and 1 litre bottle in terms of price.

You will need enough medication to treat the tank 3-4 times. You normally treat once a week for 3-4 weeks to kill off any worms that hatch from eggs. You can treat once every 2 weeks for 3 treatments and that does the job too.

Do a huge water change and gravel clean the substrate 24-48 hours after treatment. The gravel cleaning part can be an issue in planted tanks. If this is the case, just hoover over the plants and substrate to try and pick up any worms that have been expelled from the fish.

Clean the filter after treatment too.

The following link has information about treating fish with intestinal worms. See section 3.

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

 

[GaryE]

@Colin_T 's post is outstanding. If you meet these nematodes outside of Australia, you will need different brand names for the very specific med used, but do what he says!

When you see the red worm 'hanging out', that's because it's spraying eggs all over the tank. I have encountered these beasts a couple of times, and have never boiled, bleached or discarded anything. I have used the meds as suggested, and followed up with treatments even after I saw no more signs of the parasites, to get the newly hatched nematodes. Stay the course, kill the parasite and move on.

 

[dhjaksu]

Here

Treat the fish in the main tank otherwise they will become re-infected when you move them back.

If you drop the water level down a bit, you won't need as much medication. Just make sure the filter and heater continue to work properly.

Depending on where you get the medication, stock feeders used to sell Nilverm (Levamisole) and you could buy it for cattle, sheep or poultry. They all contained the same product but at different concentrations. The cattle formula was the strongest and poultry formula the weakest. I used the cattle one and could treat a lot of tanks for quite a cheap price. I also bought a 20 litre bottle of it, not the 1 litre bottle. There wasn't much difference between the 20 litre and 1 litre bottle in terms of price.

You will need enough medication to treat the tank 3-4 times. You normally treat once a week for 3-4 weeks to kill off any worms that hatch from eggs. You can treat once every 2 weeks for 3 treatments and that does the job too.

Do a huge water change and gravel clean the substrate 24-48 hours after treatment. The gravel cleaning part can be an issue in planted tanks. If this is the case, just hoover over the plants and substrate to try and pick up any worms that have been expelled from the fish.

Clean the filter after treatment too.

The following link has information about treating fish with intestinal worms. See section 3.

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

in Australia it’s incredibly hard to find and expensive. None of the local pet shops have it in any form. I definitely am not treating the whole large tank. I’ve moved all the fish to a smaller 40 litre tank and already started treatment.

I want to know how to make everything in the main tank safe. I’m confident with everything except the plants.

 

[GaryE]

The only way to succeed is to treat the lot. You now have 2 infected tanks - one full of dormant eggs. It cost me $50 CAD to treat the last time it showed up here. That med is pricey everywhere.

 

[Colin_T]

I would work out the volume of water in the tank and get a 1 litre bottle of the cattle product, which is the most concentrated, and use that. But before you buy any, work out how much water is in the tank, and how much medication you need.

The loach website (link below) is what I used yrs ago and says use 2mg/l of active ingredient. According to the link for Nilverm, the active ingredient in the bottle is 68g/l. My brain hurt last time I tried to work this out so others might be better at it.

But a 1 litre bottle of the cattle dewormer should be more than ample for a big tank.

And yes the price has gone up a bit since I last bought it. No idea why.
A Google search or eBay might help you find some cheaper.

Levamisole Hydrochloride — Loaches Online

Its application and usage in freshwater aquariums.

www.loaches.com

Nilverm LV Oral Wormer

Nilverm LV Oral Wormer controls levamisole sensitive roundworms in sheep & cattle plus sensitive strains of roundworms in pigs & poultry.

specialistsales.com.au

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I dealt with camallanus worms in three tanks - trust me, you want to follow the advice above and treat the main tank. Drop the water level so it's less expensive, but even with the cost of medication, it's less expensive than having to medicate a second time because your fish got reinfected, or having to throw out $300 worth of live plants.

The eggs can transfer easily. When treating I also used a dilute bleach solution to soak buckets, nets, gravel cleaning syphons, tank cleaning sponges - any equipment I'd been using on the tanks that could be disinfected, because I didn't go hard enough and treat all of my tanks the first time round, and regretted it.