Fungal Infections And Camullanus Worms...

these are a few of my least favorite things...

Tank

What is the water volume of the tank? 35 gallons
How long has the tank been running? Almost a month
Does it have a filter? Yes, its an aquaclear 500/110 so I'm overfiltered
Does it have a heater? Yes,
What is the water temperature? 76°f (I think I may had set the heater too low on accident, I keep meaning to adjust it but keep forgetting)
What is the entire stocking of this tank? (Please list all fish and inverts.)
1 honey gourami
8 neon tetras
2 nerite snails

Maintenance
How often do you change the water? Once a week
How much of the water do you change? Close to 10 gallons I think?
What do you use to treat your water?
Tetra aquasafe
Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water?
Trying to vacuum the substrate, going from gravel to sand has been a learning curve
*Parameters - Very Important
Did you cycle your tank before adding fish? I seeded with cycled media
What do you use to test the water? API master test kit
What are your parameters? We need to know the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10-20
pH: 7.6

Feeding
How often do you feed your fish? Twice a day
How much do you feed your fish?
A small pinch, I watch to see how much they will eat and adjust accordingly so sometimes more and sometimes less
What brand of food do you feed your fish?
Omega super color and tetra min
Do you feed frozen or freeze-dried foods?
I have some freeze dried bloodworms, I don't feed that much at all though because the honey doesn't eat them

Illness & Symptoms
How long have you had this fish? Since early May, so close to 3 months
How long ago did you first notice these symptoms?
In the honey gourami early last week, he was stressed and pale but nothing else.
The neon was sunday
In a few words, can you explain the symptoms?
Honey gourami is stressed and skittish, pale, and has worms poking out of his anal vent
The neon had a small wound from nipping (they have a problem with this, I have 8 more neons in quarantine and am hoping upping the school will help) and on Sunday it had a fluffy white spot on it. He was also paler than the other neons
Have you started any treatment for the illness?
I treated with tea tree oil Sunday night
Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase?
No
How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all?
The gourami is less active, doesn't come up to see me when I walk up to the tank like he used to, isn't eating, and is very pale.
The neon is paler and had white fluffy spots, seems to he improving after treatment
Explain your emergency situation in detail.
Let's start by saying overall I think I know what is going on. I'm just looking for advice I guess. I think it was last Tuesday. We had a thunderstorm and I found my honey gourami hiding. While he normally comes out to see me he stayed hidden. Because my tank is near a window that shakes when it thunders I assumed he was being scared by the storm. He seemed to improve the day after, but then not so much. He was still skittish, was less interested in food, and hid all the time. I had no idea what could be causing it besides still being scared, and no symptoms that could really pinpoint one thing or another. Then Sunday came and my focus was on the neon tetra. I noticed the fluffy white spots on the neon and determined that more than likely the fungus came from my driftwood. I removed the driftwood and treated the whole tank with tea tree oil. The next morning everyone seemed to be doing better, except the honey gourami who looked worse than ever. He was pale and sitting on the ground. But I chalked it up to the stress of removing the driftwood, he is a nervous fish after all. That is until I noticed redish worms poking out of him later in the day. I have been paying close attention to him, and have not noticed them until now. He is near the surface now where I have anacharis floating and barely moves, he is so pale and looks so stressed I feel so bad.

Right now my guess is that all of this is being cause by my driftwood. I am using driftwood I found because I can never find pieces I like in stores. I soaked it in hot water and some hydrogen peroxide. (The water from our tap comes out nearly scalding, it was too big to boil so I did my best with that.) I was originally going to use bleach to disinfect them, but accidentally bought low splash bleach so I figured hydrogen peroxide would do the job. Apperently not.

At this point I just want to figure out the best course of action from here. If someone would like to critisize me for my choice to use driftwood I found please just leave, I'm beating myself up over this enough already and right now I just want to help my fish.

I was talking with another hobbyist on discord who was very helpful and at this point I am looking at Fenbendazole as a treatment for the camullanus worms. Has anyone else used this and have any advice? Dosing it going to be difficult from what I am reading. Or is there something else that might work that might be easier to dose?

I am going to be treating in the 35 gallon because a larger water volume seems to be easier to dose, but once that is done my plan it to tear down the tank and clean it out in case anything else survives the treatment. I have extra ten gallon tanks I can keep the fish in in the mean time.

I'm trying to think of more but that is all I have for now. Any and all advice is welcome. Experiences. Article links. I want to have a clear plan before I start treatment so I don't make any mistakes.



I also have pictures of the honey below, I can't believe I didnt see any worms before now when there are all of the sudden so many poking out of him.

 

I've been using levamisole to treat camallanus worms. It's not too difficult to measure but may require a bit of estimation. I believe that's the preferred treatment with fenbendazole as a second choice. I'd treat the display tank but not break it down afterward.

Some links below in case they're helpful.

On a separate note, are you using well water? I noticed the water treatment you referenced is a bacteria booster (not needed in an established, cycled tank) but it doesn't treat the chlorine/chloramine that's typically present in municipal tap water (in the US). A product like Seachem Prime will.

Levamisole Hydrochloride — Loaches Online

Levamisole Dosage Calculator

Treating Your water with Levamisole

 

Ah yes, sorry, I wrote the wrong one. I use aquasafe to treat the water.

 

Thank you so much for the links!
You're sure it will be safe just with treatment? I would much rather be safe than sorry.

 

Thank you so much for the links!
You're sure it will be safe just with treatment? I would much rather be safe than sorry.

From what I've read, levamisole is very effective. The biggest debate is whether to dose at 2-3 ppm or 13 ppm. I started with a few rounds at 3 ppm and have seen no evidence of worms since BUT I might dose at the 13 ppm level now. My issue is that the tank is heavily planted with driftwood and I cannot vacuum the substrate completely so I'm not confident that there are no eggs.

 

Ok, that is reassuring. The eggs are what I am worried about too. I have black diamond blasting sand in my tank, is there a way to deep clean that without just sucking it all out of the tank? I also have some jungle val on one side and it can be hard to clean on that end.

Also, will the levamisole affect my snails? They don't seem to be doing great after the tea tree oil treatment already. I read it is safe for them, but they haven't moved since. I checked if they were still alive today and moved a little but still are curled up into their shells.

 

It did not hurt my shrimp. It's supposedly okay with snails (I don't have any so I don't know for sure) but to be honest, I'd treat the tank with them either way as snails can be carriers.

I have BDBS in my tanks too. I vacuum it often, just lightly touching the gravel vac to the surface to remove detritus but sometimes digging deep for a more thorough cleaning. It doesn't get pulled out; it just swirls a bit at the bottom of the tube then falls back down when I lift up the siphon. Mine is medium grit 20/40 though. If you have fine grit 30/60 it might be light enough to be sucked out.

A word of caution: meds with oil might negatively impact labyrinth fish like your gourami. I see it mentioned a lot in association with Melafix, which has tea tree oil, where bettas and gouramis have died after treatment. It's something to do with their surface breathing and the oil. I'm not saying it's always harmful but it's a topic that comes up a lot. I just wanted to mention it.

 

Mine is medium grit too, I guess I'll have to try different things. It has mostly been trial and error for me going from gravel to sand, I'm still figuring out the best way to do it.

I did read about that with labyrinth fish (after I treated of course..) and have been keeping a close eye on him. He seems to be breathing fine from what I can tell.

Thanks for you help

 

I did the 2ppm dosage of Levamisole as well and did 3 treatments two weeks apart. From my understanding, it paralyzes the worms causing them to be expelled from the fish, they die and decompose really quickly, like within 36 hours. A subsequent dosage two weeks later gets any hatchling worms. 3 doses for good measure.

I had a really bad case of camallanus. They were in the tank for 2.5 years before I noticed. I did the treatments and no issues since (knock on wood). I used the 2 or 3ppm dosage in my tank with assassin snails and they were fine. I can't say Levamisole is safe with inverts, but sticking to the lower dosage didn't seem to have any effect on inverts or fish.

I did lose a lot of my fish though It was unfortunately too late for some since I didn't notice in time.

 

Ok I will be trying the 3ppm dosage thank you. I'm sorry about your fish. I am definitely worried about my honey, he isn't looking well at all. But hopefully I caught it early enough to save them.

I guess on the bright side, at least I haven't finished stocking this tank. Less potential losses than if I had.

 

Yes you are right! I still haven't restocked my tank and I finished treating 1.5 years ago. I'm too scared to add fish! I have 16 flame tetras in QT since November, I dewormed them but still haven't used PraziPro, so I'll have to do that before I move them to the main community. But just so you know, I have 8 grown up angelfish, 3 rams and a few old tetras that made it through and are doing well today. I firmly believe if I hadn't treated the tank, I would be losing all the fish.