Help With Camallanus Worms Parasite

Hello, was wondering if I'm posting in the right forum section. Looking for some advice concerning the Camallanus Worm Parasite.

1 week ago I added a Jewel Cichlid in my aquarium. I noticed the following day something red and spiky - string like was sticking out of it's posterior.

I did some research and to my luck I found out it was a Camallanus worm. I found out it can be treated either orally with Fish Bendazonle (Fenbendazole) or by adding Levamisole hcl straight in the aquarium. I found the fish bendazole on entirelypets.com and levamisole hcl on ebay so I ordered them both to Canada. Both treatments are to be done for 3 days and repeated in 3 weeks just in case eggs or larvae are left.

By the way, I brought the Jewel back to the pet shop and also showed them that more jewels in that tank were clearly infected as well as other fish that runs the same water in that section. They gave me some Seachem Metroplex and Focus to bind it with the food and they said they will immediately treat there fish. I told them that I read those medicines do not work for this internal parasite. Seachem even emailed me a response confirming this...should I calll them and let them know where to get fish bendazole? I even told them about this med at the store but they insisted to go with Metroplex.

Anyhow, I'm now wondering how to go about treating my fish. I know my Green Texas has it because he's acting weird and very shy from food..

Here's my plan, please give me some advice. I will remove the carbon pad from my eheim canister. Than I will bind the Fenbendazole with frozen brine shrimp and pellets with some awuarium water and will feed it to them for 3-4 days.

Afterwards, I will wait 3 days and than I will add some Levamisole to the aquarium. Some people say one works better than the other...but know one knows yet. Once I'm done with the final treatment I'll add a new carbon pad to the filter to remove any medication. 2-3 weeks later I will remove the carbon and repeat the same process with both meds.

In the end I will add another carbon pad and leave it on for a few weeks?

I have 2 questions:

1) Should I use both meds or just 1?
2) Should I add a carbon after the first medication before starting the 2nd med 3 days later and than rinse the carbon pad a bit and reuse it after the 2nd med? Or use a new carbon or just wait that 3 day period between the meds with no carbon?

Please advise, thanks. This is one tough ugly parasite that seems to be spreading so keep an eye out for it...it originated in Japan and is very hard to kill or catch in quarantine..

 

I'm in Canada too and have a fish with Camallanus. Levamisole is banned here and I think Fenbendazole is restricted if not outright banned as well. Not even the vets can get Levamisole so the pet shop is probably insisting your use Metroplex because being a business they have to use only what they can legally get.

A pet store owner gave me some old fish food that contains Levamisole but said the fish wouldn't eat it. He was right! He also said though that the only other person he knew who had to deal with this had success feeding garlic to the patient. I have been doing that and it has definitely helped! Not cured it but Eddy perked right up and is her old self again. Since you've got the Levamisole on order you can try feeding garlic in the meantime. It does seem to help.

 

Thanks! I'll try that! I've got both meds coming, hopefully one makes it through!

 

If it makes you feel any better, from talking to others who have dealt with it from the beginning, Camallanus worms seem to have become less immediately deadly over time. At first they were horribly destructive but they've backed off a bit.

 

So I emailed Dr. Charles Harrison and this was his reply. Now I just wait.


> It takes six weeks to two months for the Nematode to get so crowded in the intestines that it will protrude from the anus of the fish. In larger fishes it may require over three months for the nematode to crowd its way to the anus of the fish. thus the nematode
> hides undetected for a considerable period of time. Fenbendazole has never been a good go to medication for Nematodes. It takes ily such a large amount of it to be eaten to do anything with the Nematode that it is a waste of time and money. The fish would have to eat something around 1/4 of a gram, 250 mg, twice to 3 times a day for at least three days to be deadly for the Nematode. That is virtually impossible despite what you might mix for a treatment mixture. I don’t know how to push this much stuff down the victim’s throat.
>
> Levamisole on the other hand Is absorbed through the skin of the fish. This makes it unnecessary to feed the fish anything. One only needs a small amount of medication dissolved in the water. One 5 Gram package of Levamisole will retreat 100 gallons. Your 130 gallons will take three five gram packs to treat twice.

 

I think I'm going to order some from him when I've finished moving. The garlic has kept things under control and until my life settles down again it will have to do.

Good luck!

 

A very interesting read to anyone interested in this subject and I'm glad I got both meds.

Treating internal parasites with Fenbendazole

 

So I went through a long battle with these...not fun! I first tried peabodys medicated fenbendazole flakes off Amazon, thought it helped, but the worms came back with w vengeance. Tried the food again, no effect the second time. As a side note though my fish ate these flakes with no issues.
Next I ordered levamisole from aquabid... no luck at all. Not sure if it was exposed to light, or just maybe a fake, expired, who knows...just didn't work at all.
Finally I ordered levamisole powder from angels plus in ny... this cleared everything out.
Also got fenbendazole flake to feed them as well from angels plus (fish liked these too) but I probably could've skipped this step... my mindset was go big or go home at the time, was super frustrated dealing with these worms.
Battled these worms for about five months, lost about 10 fish (not bad considering some of the horror stories out there). It's been about three months now and not a worm in sight

 

Started the Levamisole treatment today. Did a 70% water change, removed the carbon, added new water with some prime, adjusted the water temp from 78 to 75, closed the lights, added 6.5 grams of Levamisole HCL powder to 130 gallons of water and placed some large cardboards around the aquarium for 24 hours of darkness. Will remove it in 24 hours and continue everything as back to normal with another 70% water change in 3 days time. Will also add the carbon back.

Hopefully I'm doing this right. Will repeat the same process after 5 days and again after 3 weeks. Some people say 2 treatmemts others 3..

Found a really nice article here too: Levamisole Hydrochloride — Loaches Online

 

Good article! I have also heard that claim that the medicine only works in low pH water so it was interesting to find out where that came from and that it's not actually true.

 

So I had tried three blackout treatments, didn't work seems everyone says to do it differently. For levamisole through angels I did three treatments as well (only two were recommended) just to be safe, but I didn't to a tank blackout. I did keep my lights mostly off, but I also had them on during feedings and during gravel vacs. I found it way more helpful to vacuum up the worms then to let my fish try to snack on them again...needed to see for that
As for pH mine ranges from 7.6 to 8 depending on the tank...

 

I took out a cardboard to take a peak all looked normal. I think having returned the initial infected jewel after one day and a 98% water change the following day may have played a huge role. I'm just a little worried about the Texas as in the beginning he was a feisty eater, than did not eat for 2 weeks, niw he is eating but very weirdly..he will go get floating food from the surface but in a weird way as if he's sometimes thinking about it first and even more confusion/thinking with sinking food. I haven't seen him poo in 3 weeks even when his / her belly gets fatter. He's also had a 3mm whiteish thing coming out if the butt forever now but it may be a part of it's body. Looks like a white little triangle if anyone knows what that is let me know please. I should look at more juvenile green texas pictures maybe it's nothing.

But the fact that this texas came from an aquarium that was right under and to the right of the infected jewel cichlid aquarium at the pet shop and the fact that they told me the same water system was used in that section...and that he was placed in the same bag as the jewel cichlid at the store...and that it's behaving weird with food, although a bit better since the fenbendazole treatmemt, still tells me something is off.

Maybe he has a lot of young dead camallanus in him...hoping they come out now with the levamisole treatment...I did see something white n weird looking floating in the water though maybe just poop? Anyhow closed light and put back cardboard will wait another 12 hrs to look again.

 

After 24 hours fish look beat...most of them just hanging around on the bottom. None feel like eating, added some stability..no worms hanging from anyone.

 

When I used it in the past the worms were pretty much expelled in the first few hours . Did a water change the next day and re treated a few weeks later

 

Thanks that's good to know. So 48 hours passed, never saw any worms hanging out or anywhere. Maybe I was never infected since I caught it early. Most of my fish were pretty much paralyzed or just avoiding light. So I just did a 50% water change, added prime, trace, and some salt, fed them a bit...some started coming out, after 4 hours fed a bit again all are moving and acting much more normal now...

 

Thank you so much for this post, I was so lost. Getting Levamisole immediately.