Callamanus Worms

I have one tank which has been infected with callamanus worms, no fish have been added for 6 months or more, so they must have come on plants I got recently. The tank contains my P Leopoldi (wild angels) 4 x L066 and a family group of Apistogramma cacatuoides, originally there were a pair, but about a dozen now. There are also a couple of guppys that the angels decided not to eat at the fry stage and have grown up in there.

The combined capacty of tank and sump is 300 litres. First I treated with recomended dose of Flubernol 15(F15) - no results. Next I treated with F15 at 2.5 times stated dose (it is supposed to be safe up to 10 times recommended dose). When that did not work I fed bloodworms soaked in F15 powder every second day for 6 days, all the fish (to my knowledge) ate the mix. I think this is working as many more worms are visable on the apistos as if they are leavign the body. Only 1 angel is affected, none of the L066 but all the A cacatuoides and the two guppies. It is gross to see the red worms hanging from the fishes anus.

The video below contains footage of the first casulty to the worms and some microscope footage of the worms - not pleasant viewing for the screamish - be warned.




Daragh

That's incredible footage Daragh. What do you use to video at microscopic levels?

I hope you are right and the treatments working.

I used a Lidl/Aldi video microscope, that Acara picked up for me some time ago. It think it was €119 or €149, it is an amazing bit of kit for the price.

Daragh

great work daragh i never seen anything like that befor thanks for your knowledge in case it ever happins to me

fantastic video daragh. gruesome subject but educational.

Hello Darragh,
brilliant filming, but onto the problem.
I had these in my angel tank 7 months ago and they drove me mad.
I brought them in with guppies i had in the tank to mature it and to provide live food for my angels.
once you see the red worm hanging out you have had them for ages the red colour is the worm filled with your fishes blood, and when they are hanging out the worm is shedding thousands of eggs into the aquarium.
i eventualy got rid of them by using panacur
here is the dosage i used
one slightly heaped teaspoon per 100 litres
the method i used was panacur into a cup poured hot water over the panacure disolved it as much as possible and let stand till it cooled down. added a cube of frozen bloodworm let it sit there another while and then poured the whole cup into the tank the fish ate the blood worm.
the water turned greyish with the panacur but was cleared up the next day. the worms hanging out the of the fish started to curl up and fall out within a couple of hours.
day two no sign of any worms
and i repeated the same treatment 5 days later.
I did no additional water changes or anything else.
i have had no recurence of these ba%**$*s to date , fingers crossed.

above is exactly what i did and in the order that i did it I tried other methods with no success.
though if this had not worked for me my next course of action was going to mix fresh garlic with the fishes food as i have a feling that this would flush out the worms from the fish ......no evidence that it works ..just a bit of faith in garlic!!

have ago with the panacure if you do not have any give me a shout and Iwill sort you out
regards
joe mc

Yeah,it was 199e in Lidl.Amazing value for such a piece of kit.They usually have things a second time around,keep a look out.

€199, that much, ah well still worth it.

Joemc. I will see if I can source Panacur, do you know what % version you have there seems to be endless variations. After a quick google I can find the doag for everything including, Lions Togers and Pumas, but not fish!


Daragh

oooops,typo 119e

Fenbendazole
Fenbendazole is another anthelmintic medication. This often goes under the name of PanacurTM or Safe-GuardTM. I have personally used Panacur TM to treat pinworm infections in tortoises. Some people have also had great success treating camallanus with Fenbendazole; however it seems most effective when ingested. Some folks claim that Fenbendazole causes less stress on fish than another common anthelmintic, Levamisole. There is a write-up about the successful use of Fenbendazole to treat camallanus on PetFish.net [9], but the dosing rate discussed is very ambiguous. One veterinarian site suggests adding 2mg per liter (mg/L) of tank water once a day for seven days [10]. Another suggested medicating orally at 11mg per kilogram of fish bodyweight per day for three to five days [11]. Most of the dosing recommendations I saw were based on the weight of the fish or as a percentage of feed. I personally think this is problematic because I’d have trouble estimating how many kilograms my bite- sized half-dollar sized fish weigh. As for adding to the feed, I would say the average dose I saw was anywhere from 0.1 to 0.25% of feed given for three days then repeated in two to three weeks [12].

This is a copy - paste, it's not writen by me.

I thought 199 was pretty good value, 119 is amazing. If anyone spots these on sale again could the post here to let people know. I'll let my mother know to keep an eye out - she studies the lidl/aldi brochures as if she had an exam in them coming up.

Hi Daragh
you can use a metronidazol also 1 pills for 100l of tank i have some of them i can give you as you wish

Impressive footage Daragh !

Thanks.

Valerie

hello Darragh,
the panacur i used was 'pig panacure' I cannot remember what the strength is, it is also used for worming snakes and lizards.
the method i posted was after trying two or three others i found on different web sites and did not work for me anyway.
if you have a quick look on the web for pig panacure it will give you the strength, i have never heard of fish being killed by overdosing on it though 'every day for ten days' seems a bit excessive
regards
joe mc

Amazing footage Daragh. Hope the treatment works for the angels and the L66.

excellent footage but gruesome. glad I had dinner first. poor fish. I hope the treatment works for the rest it doesnt look pleasant.