Does anyone have experience treating camellanus?

Question

TY Andy, I have read Mr. Harrison's article many times in the past and several times again today. But I don't know where to obtain levamisole hydrocholoride. I am hoping metronidazole will work but cannot find significant information supporting this.

MM, yes, - feed them the stuff but that still leaves the other lifecycles in the tank to be dealt with.

Answer 1

Yep, those and various other nematodes. Literally thousands of cases a year. The only truly effective therapy is with antiparasitic medicated foods.

levamisole is quite effective but tough on the fish and should be used only 3-4 days total.

Phenothiazine is also effective but again rough on most fish and treatment should be limited to 3 days at 0.1% of the total feed rate. Very tough to calculate for a tank of small fish.

Tramisol ( 1.025 - 0.1 % of feed rate by weight) given for 7 days is effective against almost any nematode.

On the plus side, All nematodes such as this require an intermediate host so once the cycle in the fish host is completed, it will break the life cycle and you can't have reinfection. Of course, different nematodes have different hosts, so be sure you have no shrimp or other crustaceans in the tank with the infected fish.

No treatment will be effective against species that can encyst in the flesh of the fish or within internal organs and those can reinfest the fish at a future date, usually within 3 months.

All of these medications can be tough to find from fish stores but a vet can easily supply them or tell you where in your area carries such medications. Medicated feeds carried by fish stores are usually quite effective within 7-10 days.

Nematode infestations are rarely fatal in and of themselves, but they do open the fish to a variety of bacterial diseases so eliminating the worms is a good idea.

Hope this helps

MM

Answer 2

You have to get this through farm supply stores or a veterinarian. It's a livestock dewormer.

It works, but be careful of pH changes during treatment- the HCl will lower pH, but never to an extent that it cause my fish any problems through two separate rounds of infection at the university where I worked.

Also, the treatment regime I saw recommended when I first treated for this suggested two treatments (I'm not sure about this, but I believe it was 3 days apart) to be sure all parasites are killed. I'll see if I can find the reference.

NOTE: availability may depend on the country where you live - I'm speaking for the US.

Answer 3

I've only ever had problems with Discus, which was easy as i used the normal beef heart mix and crushed up half a dog worming tablet which worked, however without knowing what fish you have and whether they're large enough to eat prepared foods that you could put the stuff in?
Also whether the same worming tablets contain the same as in the U.K. you'd need to check but in the meantime heres a site.

http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/CamellanusTreatment.pdf

AJ

Oh I did ask a friend who's a vet what sort of dosage and if it would work.