Advice urgently needed to treat nematode infection

[parkap]

Hi all,

I just posted this in the Emergency room area, but am putting it here as well, in case there's any apisto specific things I need to worry about.

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Hi All,

Can anyone advise what treatment to use for a nematode infection? It looks to have come into my 6x2x2 display tank via my Apistogramma bitaeniata's and ahs now psread to at least my angels, if not more of the apisto's. The male bitaeniata died on the weekend, but I managed to fish him out before then. The female is stillin the tank avoiding capture.

She has little red tubicles/fibres sticking out of her rectum, so am sure it's a nematode infection.

What do I use to treat this and where can I get it from?

Regards,
Peter.

[Noddy65]

Hi Pete
Sounds like calamanus worms to me...usual treatment is to use a liquid Levamisole at 1ml per 7 liters of aquarium water...
There are many products available, you may be able to get it from your LFS or a stock feeding shop. Try and keep away from any of the products for birds if you can, it usually has extras like sugars etc added...

Also do a search here for Levamisole,,,the info on this forum is good and mostly accurate.

Good luck

Mike

[antwan]

Hi there, it sounds to me like what you have is camallanus. I too had this in my bitaeniata, but was able to fix them with levamisole (this is a bird dewormer, and can be found at your local vet).

Do a really big water change; 90% or so making sure to vacuum the bottom of the tank well. Add the amount of levamisole needed for your sized tank (1mL per 20L) (pays to get a cup of aquarium water and mix in the levamisole to that, then tip it into the tank). Make sure to monitor your fish well throughout the medication, you can do a 48 hour treatment if the fish look fine, but 24 hours will suffice. After the 24/48 hours do another massive 90% water change making sure to vacuum the bottom really well again. Wait two weeks, then repeat the whole process.

This process worked for me and my apistos really well, they didn't look unwell at all during the whole process.

How long have you noticed the fish having the camallanus? They are nematodes, and feed on blood from the inside of the fish (that's why they're red). This means they're doing damage to the insides of your fish, a small infestation can be fine, but a larger one will require furthur treatment to heal the fishes insides.

Make sure when you do your gravel vacuuming, that you do it VERY well, this point cannot be stressed enough, as this is where the eggs of the worms are.

Good luck, I hope you find some levamisole (I would send you some, but it would be a bit difficult) and get these fish of yours cleaned up.

[Sime76]

Theres heaps of stuff on this condition on this forum. As the other guys have said, levamisole is the go. Look for Big L by Sykes - its a wormer for poultry and pigs, I got mine from a stock feed joint and its pretty cheap too about 20 for 500ml.

[Merrilyn]

Mike, I know you're a vet. I wonder if you would confirm the dosage rate of Levamisole please.

I've also asked this question of Andrew (fishgeek) who is also a vet.

I've always recommended a dose rate of 1 ml per 7 litres of tank water, with a repeat dose in 7 days.

If you have other suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. :P

[wickedglass]

sometimes the suggested period of 24 hour levamisole and then water change isn't enough as I've recently found with some of my apistos. The most recent thing I tried is a 7 day treatment of the whole tank (my holding tank) at 1 ml per 7 liters ... I've also had success at double the dosage for 3 days.
I've treated Apistos with levamisole several times now at varying doses and time spans and had no ill effects. It seems levamisole is pretty gentle on the fish. I also have cories and livebearers in my holding tanks, and they were ok, too, every time.

The one I've found to be a lot more aggressive is praziquantal tapeworm and gillfluke treatment ... one time I used it it ate up my glass cats' fins until the cats were just transparent red stumps ... and that was at half the dose with the catfish in mind :/ my cacas died during that treatment, too.

[Noddy65]

Hi Merrilyn

The 1 ml per 7 liters is generally OK as long as your using the Levamisole which has the 16 mg/ l concentration.
The recommended dose is 1 - 2 mg liter of aquarium water. Since Levamisole seems to be pretty safe lets go for 2 mg per liter.

To make things easier assume the tank is 50 liters therefor you want 50 (liters) x 2 (mg) which gives a total of 100 mg required.
Now divide that by the concentration on the bottle, lets assume its 16 mg / ml (or 16 gms per litre) which gives 100/16 = which will give the total number of mils required for the tank, in this case its just over 6 mls.

To check the 1 ml per 7 litres just divide 50 litres by 7 and multiply by the 16 mg/ml concentration. this gives roughly 114 mg which again is pretty close to the required dose.

As far as I know this is an effective dose ie 1 -2 ml per liter. It wouldn't hurt to repeat in 7 days.

Mike

[Merrilyn]

Thanks so much Mike.

I appreciate that :P

[parkap]

Hi all,

Thanks for the advice. This is exactly the same info given to me in the Emergency Room.

I've responded to the replies there. basically I've isolated my angels but can't find the bitaeniata anywhere in the tank after extensive searching, although there are plenty of places for it to hide in.

Thanks again,
p.

[Robdog]

The one I've found to be a lot more aggressive is praziquantal tapeworm and gillfluke treatment

I've also has some crook experiences treating apisto's with Prazi. I treated an old Orange Flash with prazi and to my knowledge it was the correct dosage, it not only killed the little guy but over a period of 48-72 hrs it actually disolved him almost to his bones.

[Reillin]

Make sure tou treat the angels as well. And everthing in the original tank will need to be treated. The new tank with the angels will need to be treated as well.

[fishgeek]

How did it all end up?

[parkap]

How did it all end up?

Mate,

It's all ended in tears, which along with having a lot on until now is one of the reason I've stayed away from the forum.

I just didn't notice the infection quick enough.

I'm so annoyed by all this, just when my tank was doing so well and healthy. All b/c I was sold the infected bitaeniatas.

Basically my losses are these:
- 1 pair bitaeniatas
- 3 pairs of yellow/blue borellii
- 2 male gold veijitas
- 1 male silver angel (which had been spawning with my female)
- 1 male guppy
- 1 male orange flash cacatuoide

The female angel recovered after treatment, as do the female gold veijitas look like doing.

But I've decided I'm buying no more apistos until I have my fish room built, which is going to be 9-12 months away at the earliest.

My baenschi's are doing really well. No sign of infection and two succesful display tank spawns from two different F0 couples.

I'm going to convert the tank into a community tank again, although I'll maintain the low pH for the remaining apisto's. I bought some clown loaches on the weekend to get into all the snails plus some new baby angels.

:( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

Regards,
Peter.

[Robdog]

That's bad luck man. Those gold veijitas were beautiful. Have you got any males left?

[parkap]

That's bad luck man. Those gold veijitas were beautiful. Have you got any males left?

The only male apisto's that have survived are the baenschi's. Funny how the infection seem to hit the males hardest.

Yeah, the gold veijita's were such fantastic additions to the tank too. Heaps of character and looked like they'd spawn at any minute. They really paired up well.

p.

[Th0mas]

Mate,

Really sorry to hear about the losses. Hate to say it but this is another reason for quarantine tank(s) to avoid repeat of such (unless the fis is from source you trust, otherwise don't risk it).

Some infection can be really difficult to notice unless the fish observed in an isolated environment allowing time for the symptoms to come out.

Therefore don't really have to hold back for 9-12 months, just establish some tanks for quarantine and allow for 3-4 weeks to observe for problem.

Hope all this trouble didn't turn you away from the apistos.

Thomas.

[parkap]

Very good point Thomas. The only problem is the visual evidence of the symptoms didn't appear for about 8 weeks. So they would have been in and out of quarantine before anything was noticed.

It's put me off apisto's until I'm properly set up with quarantine tanks, etc. To do that I might as well go the whole hog. While I was going to do it all the first half of this year, I'm actually studying again (to get a few more eltters after my name, with the exam in June), am planning on a trip to Africa in August and need to speand cash on getting my roof guttering fixed up. So the first six months are out in regard to planninig and building the fish room.

But the female gold veijitas, or at least one of them, and all my inka 50's are doing really well now. So I'll still have them.

p.

[Th0mas]

Yeah -- it is true quarantine can't catch everything. Especially for those infection that can incubate for months (eg. TB). Kind of make us wonder why AQIS requires a 2 weeks quarantine check on all cichlid import - just bump up the cost and don't really add much value.

Thomas.