Loaches Online Forum

Hi all. I am going to pick up some pills for my 4 (out of 6) new remaining botia striata babies in my 10 gallon qt. After scanning the forums here and reading the levamisole information on the site and studying the calculator I'm a bit nervous. I know the pills are messy and not easy to dose, but one post mentions putting the dose in the filter in a coffee filter. Sounds good... but I am not sure how to measure out .019 of a teaspoon, I don't have any gram measurer so if anyone has any suggestions I thank you in advance! I'm going double check if other ingredients are in the pills and hopefully buy a few.

Has anyone had issues with treating super small loaches, I don't want to lose another one. I got them from liveaquaria on Friday and lost one each day since. Well, one Sunday, and one Monday.

Thanks for your help!

The sheep bolus I have (but have not used) are 184mg levamisole per pill. I can't find the dosage thing right now but maybe this will help you figure it out. I ended up getting & using the pig worming powder on all my loaches.

I went into Linens and things and found some kitchen measuring spoons that were in CCs so that solved my dosing problems...lol

I use the powder.


Kevin

This reminds me that I need to update the calculator.

The calculator is specifically for the levamisole hydrochloride pig wormer powder, so keep that in mind.

A very simple way to measure small dosages is to make a stock solution.

To do this-
Fill up a bottle with water. Enter the amount of water in the bottle in the "amount of stock solution" in the calculator. For instance, A bottle of water is usually 500 ml's. So enter 500 ml's.

Next enter the dosage size you prefer. If you want 1 tablespoon of the solution to treat 10 gallons of water then enter 14.79 ml's in "dosage size", then enter 10 gallons in "amount of water to treat".

The calculator then tells that .64 teaspoons of levamisole hydrochloride pig wormer powder is needed for the stock solution.
The solution will last a few months in the fridge.

For more accuracy, one should get a digital pocket scale. Cheap ones are only about $15-20 on e-bay.

The bottle I bought at the Feed and Seed store came in a big bottle with the powder in the bottom and you would fill up the bottle with water and that would last for several months. It was just easier to get the spoon, parcel out what I needed and add it too the tank that to mess with the liquid volume.

Kevin

I used the info in the article on some Clowns that were about 1-1/2" long. One was really too thin, the others, well, I could tell they had parasites, but the guy at the store was telling me how good they looked. I lost the littlest/thinnest one during treatment, the others lived and grew fast for several months. Lost one more when a tank leaked, and I had to move them. Perhaps the stress of the move. The remaining 3 are between 3-4" long now, and about 2 years old.

I broke up the tablet (sheep wormer) and eyeballed the dose by dividing and sub-diving the piles of yellow powder. I then wrapped it in a coffee filter, and set the coffee filter in the fastest water flow through the filter. (Eclipse tank with the tray-like filter in the hood)

I think the stock solution method would have been better, more accurate.

Thanks everyone for your input. I'll give it a go today and hopefully my 4 babies will pull through. I'm doing it based on the recommendation to treat new wild caught loaches, not due to signs so I am a bit leery.

Thanks again.

Really, its not going to hurt them. All my new fish get the treatment in my Q-Tank.


Also, the main tanks get it about once every 3-6 months. If you take a look at the instructions, its used as a preventative as well as a curative.

Since its a pig/sheep dewormer, it's used on animals sold as food, so again, not gonna hurt the fishies.


Kevin

Thanks grizzlyone, that makes me feel much better. I actually treated the tank 2 days ago with a half dose jungle's parasite clear and today vac'd up two live worms. Ew. Now I've done a 50% water change and added the lev. dose...

I don't have any instructions for the pills, just what I've researched here... The feed store I got them from only gave me some pills in a baggy. I didn't buy a whole bottle.

A while back, someone said they'd used the sheep boluses at a rate of one per ten gallons. Since I have sheep, I actually had some on hand. I treated a very small skinny kuhli with that and it didn't hurt him, though the yellow was very messy (as I had been warned). I just let the pill dissolve in the 10 gallon tank.