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Camallanus YUCK

aarhud

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5 Year Member
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343
I found a dead female endler with a nasty red worming wiggling out of the anus. A quick google search points towards camallanus.

The bad part is that I used water and substrate from my main tank to get the cycle going on two smaller tanks I setup. These are fishless right now. Would you simply treat these tanks as they have fish?

I am kind of torn about how to treat the 125g. I was planning to move the inhabitants on sooner rather than later. I don't really want to do an extended treatment and then pass the fish on for a few dollars...If I remove all of the fish and substrate and then treat with levisamole would I have a better shot at clearing the whole tank from eggs/worms?

I'm glad I found this BEFORE I brought in Apistogramma. I was planning receiving fish early next week.
 

aarhud

Active Member
5 Year Member
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343
I treated all tanks with levamisole. Tomorrow I will vacuum the thin layer of sand from the small tanks. I'm going to remove the rocks and wood from the large tank and a portion of the sand.

All fish are still eating. Hopefully with no substrate and a few treatments of Levamisole the camallanus will be cleared. Some people seem to have a really difficult time clearing the tank completely. Others say a few simple treatments of Levamisole takes care of the problem.
 

dw1305

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5 Year Member
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2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I treated all tanks with levamisole. Tomorrow I will vacuum the thin layer of sand from the small tanks. I'm going to remove the rocks and wood from the large tank and a portion of the sand.

All fish are still eating. Hopefully with no substrate and a few treatments of Levamisole the camallanus will be cleared. Some people seem to have a really difficult time clearing the tank completely. Others say a few simple treatments of Levamisole takes care of the problem.
You should be all right with two treatment of levamisole, and you don't need to remove everything from the tank.

Transmission of Camallanus is from fish to fish, and assuming you don't have any Copepods in the tank then the minimum time period (after treatment with levamisole) is three weeks. The reference for this is <"Transmission ecology and larval .....">.

The best general reference I've found is still the <"Loaches on-line"> article.

cheers Darrel
 

gerald

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1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
Over the past few decades Camallanus cotti (native to eastern Asia) has been introduced all over the world via aquarium fish: https://folia.paru.cas.cz/pdfs/fol/2006/04/05.pdf It infects an extremely wide range of freshwater fishes and marine species that enter freshwater: rays, sturgeon, sculpin, salmon, livebearers, killifish. gobies, cichlids, loaches, cyprinids, catfish, anabantoids, catfish, and others. It is now found in wild fish populations nearly everywhere that aquarium fishes have been imported.
 

aarhud

Active Member
5 Year Member
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343
What a terrible sid effect of our hobby Gerald.

I should have known something was up earlier. The fish were showing classic signs. Skittishness, lack of appetite, dull coloration, and a couple of the cichlids have swollen vent areas.

I'll treat all new fish with two rounds of Levisamole during the QT period from now on. I'm not sure which fish brought this in originally. I have not bought anything new in over 6+ months if memory serves.
 

aarhud

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5 Year Member
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343
Last question;

From what I understand about the life cycle, there would be no reason for me to hold off on ordering my fish? If I am going to treat the new fish proactively, then any remaining worms would be killed during the treatment?
 

aarhud

Active Member
5 Year Member
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343
I forgot about my ponds...They are rubbermaid stock tanks. Would draining the ponds and letting them sit in the scorching hot SC sun take care of any worms/eggs?
 

Happyfins

Member
Messages
93
Location
Sydney
What a terrible sid effect of our hobby Gerald.

I should have known something was up earlier. The fish were showing classic signs. Skittishness, lack of appetite, dull coloration, and a couple of the cichlids have swollen vent areas.

I'll treat all new fish with two rounds of Levisamole during the QT period from now on. I'm not sure which fish brought this in originally. I have not bought anything new in over 6+ months if memory serves.

I tried doing this. The problem is you don't know whether you have successfully treated after 2 rounds of Levamisol. Some strains are getting quite resistant to Levamisole and I just finished treating my latest infection with 5.8g/180l because the usual recommendations didn't work and I have had the same problem in the past when I got rid of it with double the recommended dose.
So if you prophylactically treat and assume you have done the job you might get a surprise later plus you have potentially added to creating a more resistant Camallanus strain. My recommendation would be: quarantine everything for 6 months and don't treat unless you know you have it. After treatment wait 6 months before you potentially spread it all through your tanks. Guppies or Endlers females show Camallanus well so are good sentinel fish provided they are clean to start off with. Sound excessive? Absolutely, but much better to have Camallanus in one tank (60-80l is a good size for a quarantine tank imo) than 8.
 

Happyfins

Member
Messages
93
Location
Sydney
Last question;

From what I understand about the life cycle, there would be no reason for me to hold off on ordering my fish? If I am going to treat the new fish proactively, then any remaining worms would be killed during the treatment?
Provided you have the dose right and done 2 treatments 3 weeks apart.
 

aarhud

Active Member
5 Year Member
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343
Thank you Happyfins! You do make me nervous about resistant strains. I will keep checking the endlers.

Does anyone know if I could see the worms by euthanizing a endler and doing an autospy? The endlers overpopulate easily.
 

Happyfins

Member
Messages
93
Location
Sydney
Thank you Happyfins! You do make me nervous about resistant strains. I will keep checking the endlers.

Does anyone know if I could see the worms by euthanizing a endler and doing an autospy? The endlers overpopulate easily.

With a microscope and a good dissection technique, possibly. However, it would be much easier if someone developed a good Camallanus PCR test. That would cut down quarantine time too. I'm surprised the large fish distributors and breeders haven't looked into this yet.
 

gerald

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5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
Hmmm ... How about building a pathogen-DNA meter for us? You just dip it in a tank or bag, turn it on, and it displays the names of all fish pathogens whose DNA is present. Let us know when you've got a working prototype we can test out!
 

dw1305

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5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
You can see the worms internally before they become externally visible, the worms themselves are clear, but red when they are full of blood.
With a microscope and a good dissection technique, possibly. However, it would be much easier if someone developed a good Camallanus PCR test. That would cut down quarantine time too. I'm surprised the large fish distributors and breeders haven't looked into this yet.
I imagine it will only be a matter of time. They are using eDNA to detect <"Myzoan infections of Cnidaria"> and <"as a survey tool for amphibians">.

If Camallanus becomes a problem in labs. breeding <"Zebra "fish"> (Danio rerio) I would imagine that would lead to a DNA test pretty quickly.

My suspicion would be that a lot of <"fish farms"> are infected with some forms of (resistant?) Camallanus cotti, that these nematicide resistant forms (should they exist) are less virulent than the wild type, and the fish can survive this parasite load until they reach saleable size.

A cynic might wonder if, as long as they can "export" the problem, they don't care too much.

cheers Darrel
 
Last edited:

aarhud

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
343
I feel pretty confident that if the farms can "export" their problem, then they most surely will. Truthfully, would they even know it was a huge problem?

I treated again today. The Loaches online article suggested treating a total of three times. I'll follow up again in three weeks for the final treatment. Some of the fish look markedly better. Others still have swollen vents. I suppose the ones with swollen vents are having a hard time passing the worms and/or may be suffering internal damage?

I received 6 wild Apistogramma cacatuoides in the mail today. I am treating them as well.
 

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