Effectiveness of levamisole

[crazy loaches]

I now have Levamisole after having one loach die apparently to skinny. And I am soon to setup a new loach tank so I was planning on treating my current tank before migrating over plus I'll probably be getting some more loaches yet.

After reading over Shari's article though I am concerned how well it will work for one. In particular the part about doing thorough gravel vac after treatment since the worms dont actually die has me concerned. It would be very difficult to do a thorough vac as the tank is heavily planted and in many areas you cant even see the bottom, not to mention the gravel is a bit deep and agitating it very much starts stirring up the mulm into the water column which isnt great either. One thought I had was to put my bigger UV unit on the tank for the treatment, with enough flow would the worms more than likely be pulled into the UV and killed? I would of course also gravel vac what I could.

[shari2]

Well, the UV would negate the effect of the med. It is light sensitive.

I'd suggest doing a water change prior and post treatment, as much as you are able, but don't destroy the planted environment in the process. The amount of worms you will find in your tank is not likely to be humongous, right? I wouldn't worry about it too much. Decaying tiny amounts of worms will not have nearly the effect on your tank that the detritus produced by fish waste or plant matter. Yes, levamisole doesn't kill the worms directly, but once they are no longer feeding they die. In effect, the result is death to the worms, it's just that the mechanism of the med does it through paralysis, not direct action.

Personally, for some reason I have found that I can not do large water changes here in my tanks without doing more harm than good, so I don't. Even after a levamisole treatment the most I do is 50%. I also have lots of plants so I vac the substrate that is accessible and leave it at that.

hth

[crazy loaches]

Ahh yes, light sensative would mean no UV of course (but what about turning the UV on a few days after the treatment?). But if the worms do eventually die after having been evicted from thier hosts then I have less to worry about. I was under the impression that the paralized worms laying on the bottom of the tank would eventually find there way into new hosts if not thoroughly removed. I normally do weekly 50% so it wouldnt be a big deal to do a little more even. And no, I dont think there should be a lot of worms, its more a precautionary thing I hope, especially since I did have one loach die in the past of this - well I cant be sure exactly it was the right type of worms but it did shrink to skin an bones over a few months time and ate well and active right up to a few days before it passed. Just want to make sure everyone is at there best going into the new tank since it will be there final home.

[Diana]

What if you set up a powerhead or two that would blow across the substrate, and through the plants and keep things in suspension a little longer? Might improve the chances of the paralyzed worms getting into the filter intake to be removed.
You might also try the opposite of a gravel vac: Use a small pump (or powerhead) and blow the surface of the substrate by hand. You could then direct the flow around all the plants and try to blow the fallen debris (all sorts) to a bare area for vacuuming. Gotta be careful to keep the water flow aimed almost horizontal, if you dip it too low it will plow into the substrate.
I have used a small fountain pump (60 gph) for this, and it was not quite enough water movement, and a slightly larger pump (100 gph) with a piece of vinyl tubing. The vinyl tubing is easy to maneuver in a tank (it worked, anyway: Lots of stuff came out of the planted area, and not much substrate.)

[chefkeith]

You could just treat each fish or small groups of fish in a quarantine tank before they go into the new tank.

[crazy loaches]

Thats true but treating in small enough groups to fit my QT tank would take months, especially if your suppose to do a few treatments. If I just had one or two fish that looked bad I'd probably just do them in QT but I was wanting to do a whole tank treatment just to be safe.

I do have a decent amount of flow in the tank by powerheads, but currently down to only 1 filter (XP3). I coule yet increase the flow in some of the slower areas and clean out the pads daily in the XP3 after the treatment, hopefully that should suffice. Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll probably start the first dose tomorrow.

[crazy loaches]

Ok, a couple questions if anyone is still watching this thread...

I see in the article is says turn the lights off. Without having to override any of my automation, could I simply dose right after lights off? It appears according to the article that it gets metabolised pretty quick, in hours, so would about 14 hrs of lights out be enough or do I need the lights out for a couple days?

And the dosage isnt exactly clear but ascertaining from this:

Going by chefkeith's calculator a very small amount of levamisole powder is needed to treat a 10g tank (.076 grams, or .019 teaspoons)

Then for a 75g tank I'd need 7.5*.019tsp=0.1425tsp. Thats just a hair over an 1/8tsp. But an 1/8 would be about right considering the actual water volume in the tank will be less than posted. Sound right?

[chefkeith]

Yes, you got the math correct. http://www.geocities.com/chefkeithallen/Levamisole.html
This calculator makes the math easier.

Turn off the UV if you have one. Never use UV and meds at the same time.
The lighting cycle you outlined should work fine too.

I think deworming should be treated like getting a tooth pulled. 1st use antibiotics to get rid of any infection, then a few days later pull the tooth (deworm). Then continue with the antibiotics for about a week.