Camallanus without Meds?? What do I do?!

[Ryo Watanabe]

Hi everyone. 
I’ve stumbled upon a pretty bad problem. 

I’ve noticed that one of my rainbowfish has camallanus red worms 🪱

The tank is 65 gallons (4x1.5x1.5ft)  I’ve got a bunch of plants and a few fish in this tank. 8 rainbows and  5 small tetras.  Substrate is about 45lb of gravel.
 

Only 1 of my rainbows are showing signs of camallanus. I can see the little red worms sticking from its butt. I’ve been feeding this guy fbs and fbw. He doesn’t eat pellets and flakes unlike all the other rainbows. I’m guessing this guy was fed live foods or frozen foods prior to buying him.

 

Now the thing that stinks is, I’m in Japan and we can’t get LEVAMISOLE, FENBENDAZOLE  or FLUBENDAZOLE. 
However, we can get Sera Med Nematol.
 

Has anyone ever experienced camallanus red worms and how would you get rid of it without the meds? I seriously don’t want to take this tank down, sterilise, and reset it. Because what happens if I get it again in the future 🤔 I’ll just have to reset again 😭

I’ve placed an order for Sera Nematol and hopefully it arrives soon. Please let me know your experience with this nasty parasite.

 

Thanks, 

Ryo

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Ryo Watanabe

[Ryo Watanabe]

Also, I’ve taken the affected rainbow out of the main tank and put him into a small 5 gallon tank and added some salts to hopefully help him push out those worms. I understand that I’ll still have to treat the main 4ft tank.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Ryo Watanabe

[laritheloud]

I don't know if there is an effective treatment without the appropriate meds. It looks like the active ingredient in Sera Nematol is emamectin benzoate, which google is telling me gets used to treat sea lice effectively. It can work with camallanus worms, but there are some reports of resistance to it, not sure if there's any stock in that. Sounds like the Nematol med is your best option, it's apparently very gentle on the fish and the bio filter. I hope it comes in quickly for you!

[MattyIce]

I had it bad with Jack Dempseys, tried Prozi, salt and epsom salt for a week, it got worse so I switched to feeding metroplex with focus and garlic guard, along with the salts for a week and worse still. 

I got some levamisole and the worms stopped moving soon after dosing, after about 4 hours they started falling out of the fish.

I have never tried Nematol, the active ingredient seems to be something for those types of worms so I would think it would work, I would try it.

 

 

[Amanda]

I had camallanus worms and they spread to my whole qt tank and I didn't notice until after the standard med trio quarantining. It took several rounds of levamisole and the fish that brought it in didn't make it. I dont know what kills it other than levamisole. Sorry.

These worms are so nasty I would consider breaking down the tank or running it empty for a couple of months. It may work to run the tank empty for a few months and see if they can die out without hosts but I'm not researched enough to know it that will work with these worms. Apparently (and surprisingly) ramshorn snails have been documented hosting it as well. If you decide break down the tank, you'll want to quarantine all the plants just incase of a carrier snail.