What kills nematodes?

[afremont]

Ammonia 0 nitrItes 0 nitrAtes <20

On my ongoing sage with my dwarf gourami rescue fish, I've run into a problem I can't seem to shake. I've got three fish in a cycled 20g isolation tank. All three eat ok and generally act ok just less active than they should be. They seem to breath hard, but don't flash or act like they have any external parasites. They look good, color is good, maybe just a wee bit puffy in the gut, hard to tell for sure. Saw some white poop, so I treated with two rounds of Tetra Parasite Guard along with some tripple sulfa in case it was an infection.

Fish seemed to get a little better, then went back to breathing hard. Caught a fresh poop sample and put it under the microscope. There seems to be dead adult nematodes sort of curled up in there, maybe 2cm long. I saw a larval nematode that was very much alive flipping back and forth, also saw some dead larval sized worms in there. I'm sure it's not a tapeworm, it's most definitely nematode roundworms of some type. I started feeding them Jungle Parasite food pellets that have praziquantel, levamasole, metronodazole, and something else I can't remember. I've given them this before off and on. Since I saw one alive, I'm reasonable sure that there are more that haven't been killed. What will kill these things????

[DTony]

If you are absolutely certain its nematodes, then PraziPro is your best bet. However, white stringy poop is usually a sign of hexamita.. While many will tell you metrodinazole is the most effective against hexamita, I don't see it as very effective unless your fish stop eating. Excessive use of metrodinazole in fish will damage their kidneys and other organs. Try soaking the food that you're feeding your fish with in an Epsom Salt solution.


For a 3% solution of Magnesium sulphate, add 1 level tablespoon (15 grams) magnesium sulphate to 500 milliliters of distilled water. Stir, and it's good to go.

Use an eye dropper or pipette to add to pellet food (or any other food that will readily absorb it), and stop dripping water once the pellets become saturated. Use only enough water to saturate the food, with no excess water, so that the water soluble vitamins in the food remain intact. Feed twice a day, for 3-5 days. (I went with 5 days)

In extreme cases, the oral solution could be administered to a fish via a pipette.Just make sure to use a flexible tip so as not to damage the fishes esophagus when squirting the solution down the fishes throat. Only a small amount is required, but repeat daily until the fish is accepting pre-soaked pellets, and continue treatment for 5 days.

Good luck.

[Complexity]

Excessive use of metrodinazole in fish will damage their kidneys and other organs.

This concerns me. After losing all my fish in my 90g to something unknown (I suspected a parasite due to stringy poop), I ended up treating the lone survivors using metronidazole. The only fish to survive were 3 adult BN plecos.

What I've been treating them with is a mixture of frozen food soaked with:

Seachem Metronidazole
Seachem Focus
Seachem GarlicGuard

I mixed the frozen food with the meds, then refroze the food and have been feeding the food slowly, small bits at a time. The plecos appear to be doing fine now as I haven't seen any stringy poop for at least 2 weeks, maybe longer.

I've been treating them for more than 5 days because I don't feed them every day, and I kept the feedings very small when I did feed them. Plus, I pretty much freaked out after losing an entire tank full of fish so I've probably gone overboard with making sure that the plecos aren't a carrier of such a deadly pathogen. But I never considered that the meds could be damaging to the plecos.

Are there any signs I should look for to see if there's any damage to their kidneys or other organs from the metronidazole? If the plecos appear to be doing okay, is that an indicator that they are okay?

[DTony]

This concerns me. After losing all my fish in my 90g to something unknown (I suspected a parasite due to stringy poop), I ended up treating the lone survivors using metronidazole. The only fish to survive were 3 adult BN plecos.

What I've been treating them with is a mixture of frozen food soaked with:

Seachem Metronidazole
Seachem Focus
Seachem GarlicGuard

I mixed the frozen food with the meds, then refroze the food and have been feeding the food slowly, small bits at a time. The plecos appear to be doing fine now as I haven't seen any stringy poop for at least 2 weeks, maybe longer.

I've been treating them for more than 5 days because I don't feed them every day, and I kept the feedings very small when I did feed them. Plus, I pretty much freaked out after losing an entire tank full of fish so I've probably gone overboard with making sure that the plecos aren't a carrier of such a deadly pathogen. But I never considered that the meds could be damaging to the plecos.

Are there any signs I should look for to see if there's any damage to their kidneys or other organs from the metronidazole? If the plecos appear to be doing okay, is that an indicator that they are okay?

With any medication, there is always stress placed on the fish. Overdosing can and usually proves to be detrimental/fatal to fish. With 5 days or so of metrodinazole, you shouldn't run into any problems. If treatment has to go for over a lets say, a month, thats when you should stop treatment. With Magnesium sulfate, it is 100% safe for fish. Excess Epsom Salt is easily flushed out of the fishes system if need be. Also, with Magnesium Sulfate, you don't have to worry about the parasites growing a resistance to it like you would with medications such as metrodinazole. However, Epsom Salt solution treatments shouldn't last longer than 2 weeks because Epsom Salt is a purgative and would cause the fish to not be able to absorb necessary nutrients from its food.

The only way to tell if their organs is damaged is to open them up, which isn't a good idea. And just because a fish looks fine doesn't necessarily mean that it is. If you're worried, just stop using metrodinazole for now and switch to the instructions I posted. If indeed your pleco's are expelling white stringy poop, it is most likely hexamita. I've tried that method for plenty of cichlids and they've pulled through everytime. Hope this answers some of your questions.

[Complexity]

Thanks, yes, you answered my questions. Since the pleco's poop is looking healthy, I'm going to stop all medications and see if it remains healthy. It sounds like they should be fine by now (if the meds didn't hurt them).

[afremont]

If you are absolutely certain its nematodes, then PraziPro is your best bet. However, white stringy poop is usually a sign of hexamita.. While many will tell you metrodinazole is the most effective against hexamita, I don't see it as very effective unless your fish stop eating. Excessive use of metrodinazole in fish will damage their kidneys and other organs. Try soaking the food that you're feeding your fish with in an Epsom Salt solution.


For a 3% solution of Magnesium sulphate, add 1 level tablespoon (15 grams) magnesium sulphate to 500 milliliters of distilled water. Stir, and it's good to go.

Use an eye dropper or pipette to add to pellet food (or any other food that will readily absorb it), and stop dripping water once the pellets become saturated. Use only enough water to saturate the food, with no excess water, so that the water soluble vitamins in the food remain intact. Feed twice a day, for 3-5 days. (I went with 5 days)

In extreme cases, the oral solution could be administered to a fish via a pipette.Just make sure to use a flexible tip so as not to damage the fishes esophagus when squirting the solution down the fishes throat. Only a small amount is required, but repeat daily until the fish is accepting pre-soaked pellets, and continue treatment for 5 days.

Good luck.

Thanks for the info on the epsom salt and food, that's interesting. Yes, I'm quite sure it's nematodes as I saw them with a microscope. I had been feeding the Jungle anti-parasite medicated food for several weeks, following the instructions on the food. I happened to grab a "sample" from a fish when it was pooping and saw that there were live nematode larvae along with some dead roundworms of some type. That's when I decided to step up the firepower and hit them with fenbendazole.

I used DMSO to dissolve some and treated the water to 2ppm as instructed by a fish disease book and nearly killed all the fish. I took them out at 16 hours and they were hurting badly, a few had large bumps from presumably intestinal impactions from dead worms. They all sure pooped allot of white stuff even though it had been looking absolutely normal after the Jungle treatments. Excepting one fish, most of the bumps have now subsided after 24 hours out of the medicated water. He had the largest, really looked like dropsy. I saw him slowly pooping white stuff earlier and the bumps seem to be subsiding slowly. He's fairly mobile today, he didn't want to move much yesterday though. I really thought him and another fish were certain goners, but so far they all are hanging in there. A couple of them actually act almost normal, but the others still look pretty traumatized.

[Warlock]

vermisol

aquabid or igo-pro

[afremont]

vermisol

aquabid or igo-pro

Thanks for that, I think I'll order some stuff. Couldn't find anything on aquabid using their search, but the igo-pro site seems to have it. They don't list the concentration and the label appears to be in Polish, but it's a large amount for something like $16. It does claim to be usable with ornamental fish. Funny, they make you sign a form saying you won't use it on food fish or sell it for such use.