# treated levamisole and worms still there



## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

Did you turn your lights off when you dosed levamisole? It is destroyed by light, so you need to black out the tank for 24 hours.


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

So yes, you need to do it again, the worms will pass in the dark.

You can also soak bloodworms in levamisole paste and feed to them just before treatment.


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

seriously? i didn't... Dosed at 11am...lights were on from 11am till 9pm...


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

Might also have been an insufficient dose.

I had some guppies with with callamanus. Before treating, I looked up various treatment protocols; which varied widely. The most common dose seemed to be 5mg/L, but some were up to 23mg/L for resistant cases that had failed to respond to fenbendazole and other anthelmintics. Toxic levels are suspected to be 100mg/L.

I tried 5mg/L first to be on the safe side. No blackout, but added the medication at the beginning of my tanks' 16 hour dark period. The visible worms curled up and mostly stopped moving, but recovered within a day; and none appeared to be passed.

Fearing too many botched attempts might lead to them developing a resistance, I went straight to 23mg/L on my next attempt. That did the trick. No negative effects on anything but the worms.

Remember, you must do follow-up treatments, since Levamisole doesn't kill eggs. I did two follow-ups at 10 day intervals. It's been about three months since, and I haven't seen callamanus since, knock on wood.

If you lack a gram scale, 1 tsp. = 3,480mg of Levamisole HCl according to my notes.


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

I have 7.5% levamisole powder. How much of this should i have dosed per 10 gallons? 
I added 1/2 teaspoon per 20 gallons as i've heard people recommend. It this correct for the 7.5% powder? 
Everytime i do this damn math i get different numbers... Most of the damn formulas are in metric liters... not gallons...
For my 36 gallon tank i dosed 3/4 teaspoon as per the internet, but when i do the math i get somewhere around 4 teaspoons to dose... I've been wasting too much time to find the proper dose...


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

It looks like you dosed at the higher rate, 23mg/L.

Since it didn't work:

1) The Levamisole was destroyed by light.
2) The Levamisole was destroyed/absorbed by something else (charcoal, Purigen, UV sterilizer, H2O2, etc.)
3) Or you have some callamanus which are extraordinarily resistant.

Mordalphus was probably right from the start. Verify #2 isn't an issue, then repeat treatment with a 24 hour blackout. His tip of soaking the food might also be worthwhile. Mix the Levamisole with a small amount of water and just enough food that they will reliably eat it all, then dump it all in. Make sure it's something they can't resist, otherwise they may refuse it; meds do taste bad after all.

Good luck!

A sample of working through the conversion math:

10 gallons is 37.85 liters (according to Google's conversion service).
The higher dosage rate is 23mg/L.
So you need 23 x 37.85 = 871mg (rounded)

1 tsp. of Levamisole HCL = 3,480mg
Divide once (1/2 tsp.) = 1740mg
Divide again (1/4 tsp.) = 870mg
Only 1mg off, I call that perfect. 

From that we can easily figure the dosage for other size tanks.
For 20G, that's easy. Double it to 1/2 tsp, which matches what you read.
For 36G, it's about half way between tripling it (3/4 tsp.) and quadrupling it (4/4=1 tsp.). 7/8 would be closest in neat fractions, but 3/4 tsp. really should have been close enough.

It helps if you type out your math as I've done above; not just numbers, but units of measure and notes, in plain English. Then do it again to verify. If you come up with a different answer, it's easy to figure out where you did something different and decide which is correct. Keep the notes - if you ever have to treat again months or years down the road, you'll thank yourself.


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

Thank u so much. That really helps me out. Yesterday I mixed some meds with food.... turned off the lights and did it again. 24 hrs passed, did a large waterchange. There's tons of algae everywhere... and the worms are still there... if they're still there by Tuesday night I'm gonna try this again with a larger dose of meds I guess..... I'm very frustrated nothing has worked. I previously used dog dewormer with no luck....


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

Well it looks like a few worms on the male look curled now... so I think this is a good sign...


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## mordalphus (Jun 23, 2010)

How long ago did you open your vermisol/levamisole? If it's from a container that has been open for a while and that wasn't refrigerated, it could just be deteriorated... In that case, try using the powder from the very bottom of the bottle, it might still be good down there.


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

+1 to Mordalphus' suggestion about freshness.

The curling shows it's starting to work, but isn't a guarantee they'll pass.

It took almost three days for all the worms to pass in my case. I'll keep my fingers crossed with you.


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

Well, I just opened the bottle Friday. And the Exp. Is 04/13... I just added some Epson salt....ill keep an update as to what the future brings...


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

Well the worms never left... so 2 days ago I dosed the tank again. This time I put 2 tablespoons in of my vermisol 7.5%. 24 hrs passed. Did a large waterchange. Everything was very slimy. The filter was barely flowing... worms are still there... today is another day and I don't see any changes. The only thing this dose did was kill my shrimp... if they're still there tomorrow I'm gonna try and catch these 2 apistos, put them in another tank and use an even larger dose... I don't know what else to do except manually remove them at this point... I'm getting very mad at this point... any suggestions before I potentially kill these apisto?
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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

I'm very sorry to hear that. 

As I mentioned, the LD50 (dose at which 50% of treated animals die as a result of toxicity) for aquatic fauna is suspected to be 100mg/L, which was estimated from the LD50 of other animals. Your final dose was close to this.

*Flu*bendazole (not *Fen*bendazole) is the only remaining treatment I'm aware of that you haven't already tried. I read about it in case Levamisole failed me. I haven't tried it and know comparatively little about it.

Flubendazole is a rare treatment. As Callamanus seems to develop resistance to anthelmintics readily, rare is good.

http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/ is the only source of Flubendazole I'm aware of, and has a PDF file detailing its use.

Flubendazole has a reputation as a _guaranteed_ snail killer. Which may be good or bad, depending on situation. Some people apparently use it to _specifically_ kill snails. *I do not advocate this use.* Because if Callamanus develops a resistance to Flubendazole too through repeated sublethal doses, we are all in _serious trouble_.

I suggest Googling "flubendazole callamanus" for additional info.


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

I tried fenbenz... already... didn't work... oh, and only 1 shrimp died. Just a quincidence.... according to info I found, they said dose 1.5ml of levamisol per 7.5 liters of water if using the 7.5% solution. This comes to 28ml for my 36 gallon tank... which is about 2 tablespoons. And that is from the guy who 1st use levamisol. I think the 1/2 teaspoon per 20 gallon dose people are recommending is wrong. Maybe for something stronger than 7.5% it could be right... 

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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

fast93accord said:


> I tried fenbenz... already... didn't work...


Not *FEN*-bendazole, *FLU*-bendazole. I marked the first three letters in bold in my last post to make sure you didn't misread that since the spelling is so similar, but maybe that doesn't show up on your mobile device. FLU- and FEN- bendazole are completely different medications.

As for the Levamisole, I believe we're using the exact same product, Vermisol 7.5. Here's a picture I took to make sure:










And it worked for me at the dosages we originally discussed (23mg/L or 7/8 tsp. for 36G), in four tanks (ranging from 3G to 46G) using that same ratio. For the 46G, I dosed 1 tsp. I did verify the dosage ranges through several sources before using it. No slime, no filter clogging, no shrimp deaths; all that suggests an overdose.

It's always possible one of us made a mistake, but at this point I just can't see where; and I'm inclined to conclude that your Callamanus have become resistant to Levamisole, just like they were to FEN-bendazole.

Note that this product is actually intended for making a solution for oral administration to birds, so the instructions on the bottle and some you might find elsewhere are useless.


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

Yes thats the stuff...


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## oaomcg (Sep 24, 2010)

fast93accord said:


> Yes thats the stuff...
> 
> 
> Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk


maybe try the other then


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## fast93accord (Nov 14, 2010)

I'm young, own a house and pay for 4. So I don't really have extra money to keep buying stuff that doesn't work... the apisto pair were $30, and I've already spent that much on different meds. If I could catch them there getting an extreme dose. This aquarium is costing me too much time frustration and money at this point.... if all my cheap fish die, so be it... I like the plants better anyway...
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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

I understand. Wish these meds were more readily available, and sold in smaller and cheaper quantities. If I had some Flubendazole, I'd send you a packet.


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