Treatment for Camallanus Quest

[kitty]

I have given my 2nd generation guppies ( the first generation died)1 course of treatment with PIPZINE a brand name for Piperazine Citrate, I put prescribed doses in the water and mixed aprox 25mg to 1/3 OZ of flake food. Have you a suggestion as to the best method for mixing powered and water/soluble medicine with flake food? I understand from my reading that these small red-brown worms which appear from the vents of affected fish are very difficult to treat. I do plan on giving my guppies a 10 to 14 day rest and then treating them again. Has anyone had success in riding their guppies of nematodes?

[John]

I personally have not had many encounters with them but if i remember correctly salt baths do the trick.

[kitty]

John, Thank you for your help. I found a recipie for Salt Baths in "Common Sense Guide to Fish Health," by Terry Fairfield. Says
bathe fish 30 minutes in solution of 3 ounces Table Salt per Gallon of water. What recipie do you use? Table salt doesn't seem right to me Aquarium Salt seems better, and I use 4 heaping teaspoons /Gal to hatch my brine shrimp..so that should be strong enough, shouldn't it? Also what time frame do you use for your salt bath soak time? And do you treat the water with drops to remove chlorine, chloramine, & etc. Let me know what you think, ok? Please and Thanks again.

[John]

Many have had success. Yeah use the salt packets from your brine shrimp hatchery kit. This will shock the fish and the parasite most likely it will kill many of them.

[djdsk8]

"I understand from my reading that these small red-brown worms which appear from the vents of affected fish"

does this mean that there is worm coming out of the anus of the affected fish?

[kitty]

Hi djdsk8, yes presisely, they are difficult to spot, sometimes. but they look like coarse hairs comming from the anus. I have just finished my 2nd course of treatment with piperazine sulfate. a couple of my fishies still have them. I'll give them a break (10 days) and try again. Have you ever treated any guppies sucessfully ? Do you think you're guppies may have them? I suspect that salt baths won't work but you never know, maybe I'll try that. Kitty:confused:

[djdsk8]

I have treated guppies successfully for bacterial infections but nothing else. I have seen red-brown things hanging from the anus of three of my fish. At first I was worried that it might be a worm of some kind but after a month and no adverse reaction I just discounted it a something they must of ate. Now I'm thinking that it could be nematodes that are affecting them and it's just very subtle. Do you have any suggestions on how to identify them?

[kitty]

Dear djdsk8,:confused::rolleyes:
I got a book at the Library The Manual of Fish Health,
by: Dr. Chris Andrews, Adrian Exell, & Dr. Neville Carrington, 1988 , ISBN: 3-923880-37-5, Indexed at local library: #639.34.
Be worth it to borrow this book or order it from any other library which has it to borrow and get help w/ diagnosis. The photos are good.. and not all the books I've seen have such good photos.. I e-mailed Tetra Press to request a re-printing of this book.. If all Guppy lovers and tropical fish lovers in general would do this.. they might re-print it.. because it's out of print now.
To ID this bad creature.. if you've seen a red-brown worms from the anus of your fishies then they too have 'em, I'm sure. Normally Camallanus needs a copepod to complete its life cycle, and so it's not that harmful to other fish types..BUT, not so for guppies they carry on infecting from mother to off-spring.. and possibly from one to another, ( I hunch this last, I don't know for sure,ok?) But I do know they p*** from Mom to fry.. that's what happened w/mine. This is the heart of the problem. I don't wish to take my guppies to the vet. He would see them, and prescribe the meds they need, one author I read says Fenbendazole, by Pancur. It would cost me a lot , relative I know but $29/visit makes me not wish to go to vet. Garlic is a natural antihelmintic, and I have been giving my fishies some of that, too.. now and then, not all the time. it's supposed to help control the out breaks, not necessarily cure, but who knows? I bought Garlic Extract, name:"Garlic Guard" by Seachem, which I wet the food flakes with and then serve on a sea shell dish since wet flakes turn to mush.. The guppies do have a tremendous liking for the garlic, feeding frenzy like.. this second course of treatment, I added garlic extract to the powered meds.. hard to do.. took apart a capsule of 250 mg,,divided it into 10 equal parts and used 2/10ths to 2/3rds oz of flake food... makes a mush when you mix it, I may have slighted the mixture, an entire capsule of "pipzine", piperazine citrate, is 250mg, and it can be mixed with 1.5 oz. flake food. keeps 10days in fridge.
Two tips on this.. my plants suffered a bit when I put the Pipzine in the water (recommended on the label, in addition to adding to the feed)...they recovered but got damaged..Tip #2 Garlic does cloud and probably enrich the water.. my algae loves it too, not only the fish.
So.. the ID of the worms.. they aparently are easier to see when the fish are at rest.. sometimes when they are flitting around the worms can retract & you can't see them anyway.. I spent a long time with a magnifying gl***, watching the various fishies to see the buggers! Problem is everytime I saw them.. the individual eventually died. But it took 3 months between the death of one fish, before I saw any sign in some of the rest..that's why I think they may p*** from fish to fish, not just from mom to fry, perhaps someone else at this forum knows. My guess is that they weaken the fish.. and so they also succumb to some other kinds of afflictions..like fin rot or ick, but the mouth parts of Camallanus have rasps which do wound the guts, of your fish.So with enough worms, they also would kill, fish gets hollow bellied and swims poorly, and then succumbs, AY! Caramba!:( If you succeed with something let me know.. and I will up-date my progress here too, Kitty

[bigdougg]

I currently have the same problem and have spent hours on the web searching for answers. I lost all but two of my guppies. The first thing that I noticed was the females stopped reproducing and remained thin. Then I saw the worms hanging out of there rectum. There are a number of recommended treatments. Here is a list of different Meds That I found online. I have not tried any yet because I lost 8 guppies. The first is a Livestock de-wormer called "Levamisole Hydrochloride" or "levasole" "levaside" . Levasole can be purchased at your local farm supply store or from this killi fish site.
http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/ . There is also a very informative article linked to the site . http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/CamellanusTreatment.pdf

Another you can get from your farm supply store is called "Piperazine"

Brand named meds are Discomed, lifebearer,

These are apparently pretty stubborn worms and normal parasite meds are not effective. There are other pet de-wormers for cats and dogs that contain these farm meds. I was told that Hagen pet products make one but there web site was no help. I hope that you solve this problem soon before it wipes out your Guppies. Make sure you read that article, its the most informative I have found.

[kitty]

Thank You Sooo Much Bigdougg,
I went to Charles Harrison's site and Thank God I had an Adobe Acrobat reader, read the article.. didn't think the copepod that completed the life cycle was alive and well in my very tank, Now I do think so (but I do remember from my reading that guppies can pass this on from Moms to fry). I've been in touch with him and will do an evaluation of Flubendazole for him first before I try the Levamisol. I will let the forum here know how it works out.
Thanks Again, for your thoughtful kindness.
Kitty:)

[kitty]

I treated my guppies with flubendazole, which Charles Harrison graceously sent for me to evaluate. It took me three weeks to get set up and ready. I bought another 10 Gallon tank and started it up. I got my brine shrimp hatcheries going. and treated the fishies, on 19 & 20 April. (just 2 days in a row, after 1/3rd water change.)
The goal was to get the shrimps into the fish to keep the guts cleaned out with the shrimp roughage and also to get a bit of the water soluable flubendazole medicine inside the guppies as they ate them.
At first I didn't think it worked. because several fish still had worms..I dispatched 6 of them when I moved all the fish to the new sterile tank. Then I cleaned out the origional tank; boiled the rocks, soaked every thing which could be in bleach solution. I think about 1/2cup bleach to 3 gallons of water (put air stones and air hoses and small air filters, nets,etc...) I also put my plants in a weaker bleach solution dip. Since then I have been watching one fish.. in case it may still have the worms; but so far so good. the first fry born were only one or two, and I was too busy to save them, but last ten days or so the moms have had regular birthings of fry. Now I have too many babies(I guess about 100!) The 23 guppies I have left are healthy and happy (except for one I'm still watching) lot's hungrier and livelier now than before.
So I do think the flubendazole is a good treatment.
I noticed before that it took a couple (up to three months) for
another guppy to show the worm after a previous one had died.
So I will report back an a couple more months. Thanks All, Kitty
PS: The Pipzine didn't work, but it probably helped a little.

[keithlittlerock]

Thank you for all the information on this subject. Currently I am trying a treatment that petsmart recommended from Jungle labs. I will know in about a week in this treatment will work. I have also posted a topic with a few bites of information in it. Total I have lost three fish from this nasty little creep. Any other information you may have will greatly help.

Also, from what I have read, salt baths are not enough to kill this pest. I wish it was that easy. If the jungle labs treatment does not work I may try it anyway.

Cleaning your aquarium from top to bottom and breaking it apart after this treatment is a good idea from numerous sources on the web.

Thanks again and have a wonderful day.

[keithlittlerock]

I have found a website www.valleyvet.com that sells the levasole in a 18.15 gm bottle that is water Soluble. If you use the formula from the website I quoted from bigdougg you should be able to treat these pests and have healthy fish again. If the jungle labs treatment I am trying does not work I will try this. I have already ordered this product and by visiting several websites seems to be the cheapest. They also take www.paypal.com payments. The total was $18.49. This should last for years and has a shelf life of 3 years in the bottle. I hope this information helps anyone else that may have a problem with these parasites.


Levasole can be purchased at your local farm supply store or from this killi fish site.
http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/ . There is also a very informative article linked to the site . http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/CamellanusTreatment.pdf