Should I treat my tank with Levamisole?

Recently one of my fish, the Gold Ram, has shown signs of Camallanus worms. The worms already poked out of his anus and moved back and forth. The fish was added 3 weeks ago, and for now he's the only one that shows the symptom, others are still fine.

Should I treat the whole tank with Levamisole? As I searched up on many forums, it's most likely the med will kill some fish too. So I was wondering if it's really necessary to do it now, as all of my fish (not the ram) are doing great. I already ordered some from Charles, but still struggling between treating or not.

 

Do you have a hospital tank?

 

Do you have a hospital tank?

Yea I do

 

I would treat him in the hospital tank if you don't see any symptoms on the other fish.

 

I would treat him in the hospital tank if you don't see any symptoms on the other fish.

Thanks. Have you been through this before?

 

No I've never had camallanus worms. but i'm currently treating my BP's for some sort of bacterial infection.Lots of treatments can harm your display tank's biofilter and also require more medication in larger tanks. So it's better to put your fish in a smaller amount of water to conserve the amount of meds as well as keep other fish who may not be affected from having to go through treatment.

Edit: I retract my previous advice. It looks like camallanus worms require an entire tank treatment. Check this thread out

Important - How To Get Rid Of Camallanus/nematode Worms

 

Definitely treat the entire tank. You have to worry about eggs in the substrate and water column, nearly microscopic. I'm current fighting off an infection of my own in a 15 gallon. Fenbendazole didn't have any effect, but my levamisole should be here today. Fingers crossed.

 

Definitely treat the entire tank. You have to worry about eggs in the substrate and water column, nearly microscopic. I'm current fighting off an infection of my own in a 15 gallon. Fenbendazole didn't have any effect, but my levamisole should be here today. Fingers crossed.

Thank you! Was yours Camallanus as well? Also I was wondering if the Levamisole is safe for my cories and BNPleco

 

bluesky2111 As I said before, my common pleco had no adverse effects. I did lose a lot of corydora, I lost more Albino than I did peppered, but I didn't lose my whole stock. Don't feed your fish 2-3 days before treatment. Make thwm hungry so they eat the medicated food. Then feed your fish a high protien diet like frozen brine shrimp amd bloodworms during the treatment. And dose the whole tank. I'm not sure if you realize how "contagious" this parasite is. Just because the gold ram is the only one showing signs, doesn't mean everyone else is safe. If you ram has been in the tank for more than 12 hours, it's safe to say everyone has it. (Let's say you have 2 tanks. One has camallanus, one does not. If 1 drop of contaminated tank water gets into the clean tank, that tank now has camallanus eggs. When they hatch, your fish become hosts). Maybe you caught it earlier than I did, and you won't have as bad of a die off. But those fish will die without treatment. And as Araneae said, Fenbendazole does not work on this strain. I do wish you the best of luck, but moving your gold ram into a QT will not work. Once he goes back into the main tank after treatment he will get reinfected.

 

bluesky2111 As I said before, my common pleco had no adverse effects. I did lose a lot of corydora, I lost more Albino than I did peppered, but I didn't lose my whole stock. Don't feed your fish 2-3 days before treatment. Make thwm hungry so they eat the medicated food. Then feed your fish a high protien diet like frozen brine shrimp amd bloodworms during the treatment. And dose the whole tank. I'm not sure if you realize how "contagious" this parasite is. Just because the gold ram is the only one showing signs, doesn't mean everyone else is safe. If you ram has been in the tank for more than 12 hours, it's safe to say everyone has it. (Let's say you have 2 tanks. One has camallanus, one does not. If 1 drop of contaminated tank water gets into the clean tank, that tank now has camallanus eggs. When they hatch, your fish become hosts). Maybe you caught it earlier than I did, and you won't have as bad of a die off. But those fish will die without treatment. And as Araneae said, Fenbendazole does not work on this strain. I do wish you the best of luck, but moving your gold ram into a QT will not work. Once he goes back into the main tank after treatment he will get reinfected.

Thank you again Maci14. I was just worried that the med might kill off some of my fish. But that's when I hadn't done much research. Now I know, so this thread might be useless. But thanks for all of your tips!

 

bluesky2111 I hope I haven't seemed pushy or overbearing. I DO hope you don't lose any stock, and if they happen (very little chance but still) to not have the worms they should do fine as they are strong enough. What I have decided to do, when adding new fish, is to treat them with Levamisole in a QT tank. If they die, which is unfortunate, they would be replaced if my store allows it. One of my LFS gas a 14 Day guarentee, the other I'm not so sure of. If they survive, you know you won't be adding any C. Worms to your main tank. And when breaking down your QT, let everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that was in the tank dry for 48 hours. That will kill any eggs leftover. The Levamisole only kills the adults, not the eggs. That is why it's important to treat twice, 3 weeks apart.

 

Just fyI I don't expect you to lose many fish, I've treated pygmy and hasbrosus cories in my qt tank with no signs of stress, I would expect the larger fish to be less affected, although sudden death of a high parasite load can cause blockages in their intestines and kill them. If the ram just brought it to your tank recently the other fish shouldn't be too severely infested. I'd treat asap to prevent losses. The only thing I've had it outright kill is pest snails...which I considered good personally

 

No you never sounded pushy or overbearing. I was actually afraid I might bother you or something like that.

I also thought of treating new fish with Levamisole in a QT tank. That way I will be sure there's no harm to him as well as with other fish in the main tank. Thank you for reminding me!

Just fyI I don't expect you to lose many fish, I've treated pygmy and hasbrosus cories in my qt tank with no signs of stress, I would expect the larger fish to be less affected, although sudden death of a high parasite load can cause blockages in their intestines and kill them. If the ram just brought it to your tank recently the other fish shouldn't be too severely infested. I'd treat asap to prevent losses. The only thing I've had it outright kill is pest snails...which I considered good personally

Thank you Superbutterfly, that's a relieve for me

 

@ I hope I haven't seemed pushy or overbearing. I DO hope you don't lose any stock, and if they happen (very little chance but still) to not have the worms they should do fine as they are strong enough. What I have decided to do, when adding new fish, is to treat them with Levamisole in a QT tank. If they die, which is unfortunate, they would be replaced if my store allows it. One of my LFS gas a 14 Day guarentee, the other I'm not so sure of. If they survive, you know you won't be adding any C. Worms to your main tank. And when breaking down your QT, let everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that was in the tank dry for 48 hours. That will kill any eggs leftover. The Levamisole only kills the adults, not the eggs. That is why it's important to treat twice, 3 weeks apart.

Yes! I keep my new fish in qt long enough to treat twice so I don't have to breakdown quite as much and start a new cycle
Yea I keep

 

Yes! I keep my new fish in qt long enough to treat twice so I don't have to breakdown quite as much and start a new cycle
Yea I keep

fishkeepers nowadays should do that, cuz I still saw many (including me before) brought the fish home and put them in the main tank right away.

 

Thank you Superbutterfly, that's a relieve for me

If the med kills them, they were already sick with something if you're following the dosage recommended. It's not a very toxic med for fish. If you were to use 10x he correct dosage you'd probably start killing off fish, but I've even done high doses to sort out pest snails from a batch of shrimp with java moss before adding to the tank. After 20 minutes some shrimp were clearly doing bad but they all seemed to recover just fine once put in the new tank and no snails!