callamanus worms

[Pistol_pete]

I tested the PH daily and I had one of those plastic ammonia detector things you leave in your tank. Didn't test for nitrate or nitrite.

[KLKelly]

I've just gotten a chance to look up levamisole and impacts on the biofilter.  I've found many people that say it affected their biofilter.  And I used a low dose!

I found a discus forum (simply discus or something like that) and the person noted:

One bit of warning. Levamisole will affect your biofilter. I saw increases in ammonia and nitrite (went from zero to 0.5) a day or two after the Leva treatment, so you may need to increase your water changes for 4 or 5 days after treatment. It took 4 days to recover back to normal.
I didn't know about this effect, but I looked it up after the fact and found that it had been scientifically validated.

This could be worse for a bare bottom tank than for my fully planted tank, or might be better depending on what effect it had on my plants (it appeared to be very little, but I'm not sure).

My tanks have zero plants and are bare bottomed. Maybe this was a big factor?

The common theme in most of the people that have the biofilter affected is that its most often just ammonia spiking.

[dan2x38]

This is good to know. But hard to accommodate. You can't use filter media from any of your own filters because likely all tanks are infected. Without plants to absorb the NH3 is bad than add on that the lack of gravel which is a big part of the bio-filter wow the impact could be big. Like I said got some media, can give you hornwort which floats and is a great nitrogen compound/s sponge. Not sure if GF will eat it and it grows fast. Can give you a handful of duckweed to throw in. The plants are save they are in my breeder tanks with fry that would die in no time if any infestations or diseases.

[pcole6765]

Can anyone tell me what to look out for. My fish seem healthy but I would like to know what symptoms to look for when bringing new fish home.

[KLKelly]

i doubt you will see it at first.  From what I've read if a fish is really infested you will see paintbrush like threads hanging out its butt and it the fish may be a little swollen.  In larger fish it can take up to six months to see this.

In existing fish I was reading this weekend that signs are going off food (decreased appetite), lethargy and possible abdominal swelling and also unexplained deaths (if you weren't looking for worms).  Putting a dead fish in a baggy with a few drops of water like Pistol Pete did the worms might start coming out if the fish was affected.

Update: Thanks to the cycled filter media all of my tanks are at ammonia of 1.0 or below.  I think we are making headway.

[Pistol_pete]

Can anyone tell me what to look out for. My fish seem healthy but I would like to know what symptoms to look for when bringing new fish home.

You can't tell unless the infection is advanced. At that point, the fish may look a little bloated around its abdomen and you may see a single worm or something that looks like the end of a fine paint brush sticking about 1mm out of its anus. The only way to tell for sure is to dissect the fish you assume may have died from this or do it the lazy man way and put it in a bag and see what comes out like I did. Unfortunately, at that point it's too late for that fish but you can save the rest of the tank.

[pcole6765]

I just noticed on my rainbow a redish thread like thing hanging out of it's bum. The fish is very active and eating really well. It's much smaller then fish poop. I hope it's not worms.

[KLKelly]

Where did you get your rainbowfish?

[pcole6765]

Big Als about three weeks to a month ago

[KLKelly]

Ahhh.  Not the same place I don't think.  Smaller fish show it quicker also.  So if you do have it, the rainbow fish might not have been the source.  Lets hope you don't have them 

Keep an eye on it.  The worms come out the fishies vent to lay eggs.  I don't know if its this thread or pistol petes but there is a picture of a fish with the paint bristle look.  I think they stay out for a bit too, it wont drop off like poop.

I'll try and find the article from this morning that I read.  I think what I saw was not these evil worms because these things aren't freeswimming in the tank.  They go from larval stage to inside the fish only.  So I might be very lucky.

[pcole6765]

What ever was hanging out of it's but is going now. Maybe I just never noticed that fish poop before..I don't know. It was like a fishie hemorrhoid or something

[dan2x38]

Sometimes it is just them taking a crap. The colour of their crap can be related to the food they are eating. A lot of cheap foods have added colours to entice fish among other stuff. I always buy quaility fish food and a varity for them. If it is long stringy poo they may be a bit constipated a sign of over eating. Feeding some shelled peas is always good no matter what for the fish's health and helps clean them out.

[pcole6765]

good to know
They're on bloodworms and wardley (i think that's the name) flakes. I'll have to try some peas..do I leave them whole?

[dan2x38]

Are the bloodworms freeze dried or frozen? Wardly is pretty good food I think? Remember not to much bloodworm all at once it is really high in protein and can cause some digestive issues. Maybe watch the amount you feed. I feed twice a day except on Fridays no one eats. Some days I might feed just once if I am lazy. Every other night I feed some algae wafers for my bottom feeders. Some ppl do different things but it is never a bad thing to let them do without for awhile. More fish die from overfeeding then under feeding. They suffer kidney and even liver damage. The liver might regenerate but the kidneys never can. Plus over feeding can affect the swim bladder of the fish temporary and even permanently.

Feeding fish is a whole other topic and thread in it's self... there are more feeding regimes by people than you can count... LOL

[KLKelly]

Well this dosing of the Levamisole has been almost a disaster and I only dosed 2mg/litre - instead of using 100mls of water I used 500mls of water to mix the medication in.  Dan thank you so much for the potscrubbers and Zima for the sponges.

I did an 80% water change tonight with reconstituted RO water on the tank with the biggest ammonia blip.  Nitrite bugs weren't affected at all for some reason.  Same as another poster that I found on the simply discus forum.

After an 80% change I redid the ammonia test and its reading .75  .  I could cry even thinking what ammonia was prior to testing. I guess once it hits 2.0 I can't tell what it is. One tank is back down to zero ammonia but three are showing it still (.25, 1.0 and 0).

Thankfully the amquel plus has dropped ph from 8.3 to 7.6 and a kh of 4-5 drops.  I matched the RO water to match this for the water change tonight.

[KLKelly]

After a whole month three of the five tanks finally seem to be showing zero ammonia.  I've used a whole new test kit up almost and my brain is so sick of reading ammonia tests.  I used my RO unit to get the PH down from 8.3 down to 7.2-7.6 in the tanks which helped a lot.

Two tanks still have ammonia above .50 and one tank was put into a full cycle with nitrites showing and still showing.  I've bought seachem stability to help with this.

[Laura]

phew!
I'm glad you got there (mostly nearly there), you've had a rough ride with it.
Hopefully you'll have clear sailing from here on in.

[KLKelly]

Me too Laura.  I can't thank you and the others enough for helping.