Can I use Expel P in a large 125 gallon aquarium?

[Gannon]

Hello. Nearly a month ago one of my archerfish started acting weird, stopped eating, became a little lethargic, had this weird tiny spasms, and seemed stiff. Then one day he rapidly got worse and passed away. I treated with paracleanse out of suspicion of parasites when he started getting really bad and the tank got real cloudy but everything was okay besides the archer that passed away. Cloudiness was not from him decomposing or anything. 

Since that archer died ive had another that for the last several weeks has been not eating and acting a little weird, but not quite as weird. I figured maybe the issue with the other archer was a result of an injury or something, but now I'm not so sure. I want to try treating with Expel P, but it is obviously going to be expensive to do so.

Also, 3 years ago when I had to treat for a bacterial issue, it had some really bad effects on the oxygen content of the tank despite lots of circulation and lower water temperatures. I wanted to make sure Expel P is not going to do this to my tank. I also wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on the strange symptoms of my archerfish lately. They haven't had one health problem in the 3 years I've had them and this has been a very distressing time for me. Thanks for any help anyone can offer. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Sorry you’re going through it. I can’t speak to the issue with the Archers, but I can speak to my experience with Expel P. 
 

I used it to treat Camallanus red worms in a 55 gallon tank, and it worked as intended. No issues with oxygen that I was aware of, and I didn’t lose any fish. I was specifically treated my breeding pair of Panda Angels that are in 1/3 of the 55 gallon tank, and on the other side of the sponge wall (or the other 2/3 of the tank) is a grow out for all their fry. Not a single fish lost, not a single additional issue that I was ever aware of, and the red worms were eradicated. For Camallanus red worms specifically, my experience with Expel P was great. 

[Gannon]

On 4/6/2024 at 8:07 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Sorry you’re going through it. I can’t speak to the issue with the Archers, but I can speak to my experience with Expel P. 
 

I used it to treat Camallanus red worms in a 55 gallon tank, and it worked as intended. No issues with oxygen that I was aware of, and I didn’t lose any fish. I was specifically treated my breeding pair of Panda Angels that are in 1/3 of the 55 gallon tank, and on the other side of the sponge wall (or the other 2/3 of the tank) is a grow out for all their fry. Not a single fish lost, not a single additional issue that I was ever aware of, and the red worms were eradicated. For Camallanus red worms specifically, my experience with Expel P was great. 

Hopefully whatever this is is killed by this. I have to imagine expel p is the best choice. I can’t say I’ve ever seen subtle bacterial infections before, at least communicable ones, and paracleanse didn’t work so I imagine this is the only thing I can do :/

[jwcarlson]

The cloudiness could have been from whatever buffer is included with the Expel P.  It's part of why I try to buy pure meds when possible.  A packet of Expel P contains 113 mg of levamisole and 887 mg of... buffer... something...?  Not sure as the SDS doesn't say, but the levamisole is only 12% of the packet.  The dose is one packet per 38 liters (10 gallons), which puts it at a good dose (3 PPM... 113 mg/38 L).  But there's 23 ppm of who knows what that's also going in.  Which I suspect contributes to your cloudiness.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

@jwcarlson maybe I misread, but I don’t believe they have dosed with Expel P yet. I think they said they believed Paracleanse resulted in the cloudy water. 
 

Regardless, good to know about the dose volume per packet. Thanks for sharing!

[jwcarlson]

On 4/6/2024 at 9:51 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

@jwcarlson maybe I misread, but I don’t believe they have dosed with Expel P yet. I think they said they believed Paracleanse resulted in the cloudy water. 
 

Regardless, good to know about the dose volume per packet. Thanks for sharing!

Whoops, you're correct!

Paracleanse is a little bit better, it only contains 675 mg per packet of buffer and 325 mg of active ingredient 25% metro 7.5% prazi.  So, the point still stands.  I'd love to know what the buffer is, honestly.  

[Gannon]

On 4/6/2024 at 9:54 PM, jwcarlson said:

Whoops, you're correct!

Paracleanse is a little bit better, it only contains 675 mg per packet of buffer and 325 mg of active ingredient 25% metro 7.5% prazi.  So, the point still stands.  I'd love to know what the buffer is, honestly.  

Well I gotta try expel p now cloudiness or not I suppose

[jwcarlson]

I don't think the cloudiness is an issue, just to be clear.  I think it's just important to realize that the most available meds are not pure and in some cases may not hit a therapeutic dose for some animals AND there's A LOT of other solids in that packet, in fact, the vast majority is not the med... and that has to do/go somewhere.  Levamisole is a great wormer and Expel P does get to a good dose at 3 PPM.  I usually treat at 2.5 PPM for levamisole.

Edited April 7 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

It might be cheaper to buy pure levamisole to treat your 125.  You need about one gram per dose in your 125.  You can buy DiscusX's WormerX, which is pure levamisole and get 20 grams for ~$25.  Multiple options to buy including Ebay, Myrtle Beach Discus, others.  I have tons of it, if you live near Eastern Iowa let me know and I'll give you however much you need.  Plan for four doses.  I treat on days 1, 5, and 13, and then another one at 21 or 28 if it seems like it was heavy.  24 hour bath for each soak and as huge of a water change, wipe down, and massive gravel vac as you can manage after each 24 hour dose.  Vacuuming the bottom is crucial as levamisole paralyzes worms, it doesn't kill them directly.  For each dose I also put in 1 tablespoon of epsom salt per 10 gallons for the 24 hour soak.

I haven't experienced terribly often, but levamisole can knock fish off of food so feed lightly just in case.  It is also an immunostimulant, so you might notice fish that were acting sick kind of start feeling a little better. 

 

Here's a good dosage calculator for pure levamisole: https://www.geocities.ws/chefkeithallen/Levamisole.html?fbclid=IwAR0aHbTpJsQWrw2LXIYySeh4yVUG3lDHJdXwLT02CVqmHDH7AlTCAdTdDMY

Edited April 7 by jwcarlson

[Gannon]

On 4/6/2024 at 10:16 PM, jwcarlson said:

It might be cheaper to buy pure levamisole to treat your 125.  You need about one gram per dose in your 125.  You can buy DiscusX's WormerX, which is pure levamisole and get 20 grams for ~$25.  Multiple options to buy including Ebay, Myrtle Beach Discus, others.  I have tons of it, if you live near Eastern Iowa let me know and I'll give you however much you need.  Plan for four doses.  I treat on days 1, 5, and 13, and then another one at 21 or 28 if it seems like it was heavy.  24 hour bath for each soak and as huge of a water change, wipe down, and massive gravel vac as you can manage after each 24 hour dose.  Vacuuming the bottom is crucial as levamisole paralyzes worms, it doesn't kill them directly.  For each dose I also put in 1 tablespoon of epsom salt per 10 gallons for the 24 hour soak.

I haven't experienced terribly often, but levamisole can knock fish off of food so feed lightly just in case.  It is also an immunostimulant, so you might notice fish that were acting sick kind of start feeling a little better. 

 

Here's a good dosage calculator for pure levamisole: https://www.geocities.ws/chefkeithallen/Levamisole.html?fbclid=IwAR0aHbTpJsQWrw2LXIYySeh4yVUG3lDHJdXwLT02CVqmHDH7AlTCAdTdDMY

I'm in story county iowa! I appreciate the offer but I unfortunately don't have the time to drive over there right now. Didn't know that it only paralyzes. I'm not sure I''l be able to vacuum so much ground on a tank like this, additionally it's sand which is hard to vacuum too well. I suppose ill have to do my best. I have some expel p that is a little "expired" but as I understand there is a certain amount of margin for error on that expiration I'm well within so ill use that and then maybe get that pure stuff. 

And by soak do you mean dose the tank and then 24 hours after do a big water change?

[jwcarlson]

Regarding soak, yes.  Let them "soak" for 24 hours then a big water change. 

[Gannon]

On 4/7/2024 at 12:22 PM, jwcarlson said:

Regarding soak, yes.  Let them "soak" for 24 hours then a big water change. 

Oddly the archer is acting a bit more normally now swimming close to the surface and moving a bit more. Haven’t treated yet. If he eats today I might hold off.

[Gannon]

On 4/7/2024 at 12:22 PM, jwcarlson said:

Regarding soak, yes.  Let them "soak" for 24 hours then a big water change. 

One more detail I’ve wanted to offer is I’ve yet to see this archer poop, likely due to not eating much for weeks, but all the other fish poop on the substrate looks great. Are internal worms still possible with this? I’ve been told yes, but figured I’d get your opinion.

[jwcarlson]

Yeah certainly possible.  Sometimes the parasite poops are quite small.  And they're usually white and fairly whispy.  Easiest way to see them is to isolate the fish in something with a bare bottom.

[Gannon]

On 4/7/2024 at 4:36 PM, jwcarlson said:

Yeah certainly possible.  Sometimes the parasite poops are quite small.  And they're usually white and fairly whispy.  Easiest way to see them is to isolate the fish in something with a bare bottom.

My only quarantine tank is 10 gallons regrettably. Don’t think it would be wise to put a 5 inch + archerfish in there. But maybe.

[jwcarlson]

On 4/7/2024 at 4:50 PM, Gannon said:

My only quarantine tank is 10 gallons regrettably. Don’t think it would be wise to put a 5 inch + archerfish in there. But maybe.

I will move an adult discus into a 10 gallon temporarily.  I've never kept archerfish, though.

[Gannon]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:25 PM, jwcarlson said:

I will move an adult discus into a 10 gallon temporarily.  I've never kept archerfish, though.

Similar size probably, but archerfish more flighty, active

Also I imagine the parasites aren’t only afflicting one fish, assuming this is a parasite issue at all

So if I treat successfully and add back I would kinda not have accomplished much besides defining the problem which I guess isn’t so bad. But then I’d have to treat again and for the whole big tank

[jwcarlson]

Agreed.  If one has it, they all have it.  When I've isolated before and confirmed the discus had worms with microscope by looking at poop sample, I move them back to the main tank and treat the whole works.  Discus can get pretty spooked... really spooked, actually.  QT is down in my basement, so there's not much traffic.  You can also toss a towel over it to keep them a little more isolated.

 

 

[Gannon]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:33 PM, jwcarlson said:

Agreed.  If one has it, they all have it.  When I've isolated before and confirmed the discus had worms with microscope by looking at poop sample, I move them back to the main tank and treat the whole works.  Discus can get pretty spooked... really spooked, actually.  QT is down in my basement, so there's not much traffic.  You can also toss a towel over it to keep them a little more isolated.

 

 

Archerfish tend to be so net adverse i think I’d do more harm than good doing QT. I’ll see if I get some results in the 125 and continue treating if I do, probably at least do 2 rounds as instructed on the box

But assuming this works I’ll stick to your schedule. Seems like it’s well thought out. I’ll start tomorrow.

[jwcarlson]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:36 PM, Gannon said:

Archerfish tend to be so net adverse i think I’d do more harm than good doing QT. I’ll see if I get some results in the 125 and continue treating if I do, probably at least do 2 rounds as instructed on the box

But assuming this works I’ll stick to your schedule. Seems like it’s well thought out. I’ll start tomorrow.

Good luck, @Gannon, I hope you can get it fixed!  Every fish I ever try to net is terrified of it.  Except for the ones I'm trying not to catch, they're always more than willing to swim right in. 😄

[Gannon]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:39 PM, jwcarlson said:

Good luck, @Gannon, I hope you can get it fixed!  Every fish I ever try to net is terrified of it.  Except for the ones I'm trying not to catch, they're always more than willing to swim right in. 😄

You’ll never know the nightmare that was getting SMALL archerfish out of a QT. I genuinely can’t imagine getting the giant powerful ones out of a huge tank. They’ll cause seriously harm to themselves before they get caught in a net it’s unbelievably tricky. Only one that could rival them is Denison barbs.

[Gannon]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:39 PM, jwcarlson said:

Good luck, @Gannon, I hope you can get it fixed!  Every fish I ever try to net is terrified of it.  Except for the ones I'm trying not to catch, they're always more than willing to swim right in. 😄

Well I treated yesterday and today I couldn’t find any parasites on the substrate. Couldn’t even find a picture of what I’m looking for. Tried my best to vacuum the whole substrate but just how much I got and just how well I got those areas are questionable values. I did try to focus on areas where they hover over constantly. 
 

I did find a couple somewhat suspicious looking grayish solid poops. But nothing else. Feel like I’m screwing up and wasting time/money/fish stress. Ugh

 

Edited April 10 by Gannon

[Gannon]

Also other details. When I treated, my archers spit up their food they recently ate, probably should’ve waited a few hours, my mistake. And I’ve seen that not eating archer do a few yawns today, which I can’t remember seeing more than once before in the last 3 years.

[jwcarlson]

Interesting on the yawning.  Levamisole can knock them off food for days, I usually skip feeding for a couple days.  

It's unlikely that you'll notice anything on the bottom of the aquarium.  Most of these things require a microscope and a clean sample to be able to look at.

[Gannon]

On 4/9/2024 at 8:41 PM, jwcarlson said:

Interesting on the yawning.  Levamisole can knock them off food for days, I usually skip feeding for a couple days.  

It's unlikely that you'll notice anything on the bottom of the aquarium.  Most of these things require a microscope and a clean sample to be able to look at.

Ah. Then how can you be confident you get them all if it can’t kill them? Would something like paracleanse at the same time kill them more easily when they’re paralyzed outside of the fish?