# How to Sterilizing a large aquarium infected with disease.....??? Help needed.



## John_C (Dec 17, 2007)

I'm about to lose it here with this aquarium! :O 

My 100 gallon had a bout of camallus worms in it so I cleaned the tank with bleach and left it dry for couple months to start anew... Put in a 3d background, new filter, gravel etc and upon adding fish I noticed the worm infecting the fish again along with ich, dropsy, and bloat, which probably came from the new fish... 

I consulted a vet and treated the tank for the worm, which has seemed to clear as no signs of the worm are apparent but the fish are still dying from unknown causes... They'll be totally fine, feeding and acting normal, then grow listless one day, hover in a corner then die soon afterwards... All this even after good sized water changes as i assumed maybe the harsh meds were affecting the fish...

SO i've pretty much given up now on this re vamp.... I wish to just start it all over again and give it another go... I'd hate to have to throw out this tank after all the work i've done with the 3d background, and it has a $350 filter running it so there's now way I'm going to throw that out..

ANy ideas on how i can salvage this system??? I was thikning of running the tank with the filter in either water with a 10% bleach ratio, or a salt content double that of the dead sea...

Any input and advice would be greatly appreciated


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

John_C said:


> I'm about to lose it here with this aquarium! :O
> 
> My 100 gallon had a bout of camallus worms in it so I cleaned the tank with bleach and left it dry for couple months to start anew... Put in a 3d background, new filter, gravel etc and upon adding fish I noticed the worm infecting the fish again along with ich, dropsy, and bloat, which probably came from the new fish...
> 
> ...


.....I'd sterilize the whole thing including filter, under the top rim, around the rim, outside - probably I'd take the rim off and sterilize.

I'm of the opinion that new fish should be quarantined and treated with antiparasitic meds as a matter of course.

What med did you treat with?


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

Put everything you use for the tank into the sterilizing solution (in the tank) too. I'd run it for a while with strong bleach or potassium peroxide solution (makes some brownish residue stains but it would be my choice of sterilizer solution. I can sell you it $8 a cup of dry crystal - enough for "forever". It can also be counteracted and made clear after by adding hydrogen peroxide).
You definitely do not have to throw away anything.

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/potassium-permanganate


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## John_C (Dec 17, 2007)

I used panacur and Levimasole which are cattle and dog de-wormers as the Camalus worms seem to be immune to all the general meds in the aquarium industry... Heads up to everyone on this parasite!!! The worm may not show itself for 6 wks, and the fish may act symptom free and feed normally till the worm grows to it's adult size... Apparently its become more common and wholesalers and fish farms aren't taking it very seriously.. It is tough as nails and nearly impossible to iradicate without killing off the whole system...


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## tranceaddict (Apr 3, 2011)

Sorry to hear that. Sounds nasty. 

Take that rim off and clean, and if that doesn't help it is possible that there is a crack in the silicon and maybe these worms survived in it. Possible re-seal the whole interior aquarium. 

I'd just sell it and move on to a new tank.


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

No, the problem as I think I understand it, is that Levamisole only immobilizes the worms and knocks them out of the body, but they aren't dead. 
They need to be vacuumed out very well and probably need several treatments.

Panacur is fenbendazole which kills the worms, but it's best to get the fish to eat the medicine. Some people report their fish had bad reactions to it in the water - it may be due to solvents used.
Again, several treatments.

It's best to use both meds to treat, alternating them in the medicated food.

So it's a problem for sure.

The equipment should be fine once sterilized properly...everything - tubes, nets, filters etc.


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

Meanwhile it's probably good to treat the remaining fish and see if you can get them to survive free of the problems.
New fish can bring the same problems, so it's good to find out how best to treat it with the fish you have, and do it whenever you get fish. Quarantine them and treat them in rounds of meds and rest for a month.

How did you use the medicines last time?
If the fish are still eating, you can use some tricks to get the medicine into them. 
What foods do they really go for, what kind of fish etc?


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## John_C (Dec 17, 2007)

*camalus*

I treated them as directed by the vet, fed them the medicated food for 3 days then again 2 wks later... The other problem is that the worms die inside the fish, and then the fish have difficulty passing them out, and then die of secondary bacterial infection... That's why the Levimasole is a better treatment option I've noticed as it stuns the worms, but it doesn't do anything about the larvae or eggs.

How much bleach do you think I should use.. I've been told anywhere from a cup for the whole 100 gallon tank, to one gallon bleach to 10 gallons of water, which seems a little much.


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

People feed cooked peas to the fish that are having trouble passing the worms.

Personally, being paranoid, and since you are too ( thinking of possibly throwing everything away) I'd use a couple of bottles of bleach. I'd empty the tank of gravel and background, then clean everything so there's no grit left, then use straight out of the bottle bleach on everything.
For other items like gravel I'd clean them several times then straight bleach. I'd clean inside tubing with brush or cloth.

I'd pour a nice amount of bleach in the tank and swab it all around every ten minutes or so. I'd run filter with straight bleach into a bucket. I'd put all utensils into straight bleach.

Then rinse, using a cloth or something to help remove bleach, use a brush or cloth inside the tubings, rinse again with good amount of dechlor. Then fill tank, heavy dechlor, 
circulate, empty, then fill again with fresh water, and regular amount of dechlor.

Then I'd be satisfied with it.

Because I'm not sure about the 3D background, I'd test the background first to see how it handles the bleach.

Of course, this would be if none of the sick fish will be put back in.
I routinely sterilize any equipment or gravel going from one tank to another tank with this type of procedure with either straight bleach or potassium peroxide, unless the fish have all been thoroughly deparasitized and are healthy. If the fish have previously been together, or get swapped about, then I don't bother.

There's no way a new fish (or a plant, for that matter) gets into a tank with my fish before a long quarantine.


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## John_C (Dec 17, 2007)

*bah...!*

Well having a tank where fish have been constantly getting sick over a couple yrs, you'd have no choice but to be paranoid...

Well with these new super bugs and parasites showing up in our hobby nowadays I guess you can never be too careful... Since when did fish keeping become so difficult, you'd be hard pressed to have a fish die from old age nowadays... The ironic thing in all this is I have a 15 gallon with high grade Crystal shrimp which are thriving, I thought shrimps were supposed to be the big challenge of the freshwater hobby... lol


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## John_C (Dec 17, 2007)

*Salt dip*

Concerned about the background.. Do you think parasite can be killing by a huge concentration of salt? Bleaching another aquarium to test out the background, I put a piece of drift wood in the aquarium and it drastically lightened the colour.. Can this nematode live in saltwater and affect marine fish too?


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

http://www.3reef.com/threads/camallanus-in-marine-fish.149358/


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

After considering it more, I think it's likely that other or all your tanks are infested and that's how you got the replay in that tank.

If this is so, then multiple rounds of dewormer is what is required, not just sterilization of the one tank.


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## KeyLime (May 4, 2014)

From what I see discussed, levamisole doesn't kill the worms, and they get eaten after they fall out, causing reinfection. You have to vacuum them up pretty quickly as they start falling out, and even so multiple rounds of medication should be done. In a planted tank with gravel, it seems like it would be difficult to eradicate them without a lot of timely vacuuming and many rounds of levamisole.


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## John_C (Dec 17, 2007)

*Bleach*

Yes i bleached my other tanks.. they didn't have much in them anyways.. Except the shrimp tanks, but I don't use the same equipment with my shrimp tanks that i do with the fish systems... I did a bigger round of Panacur in my 100 gal, and the one fish that was left with the worm doesn't have it anymore, and is back to it's usual active self again.. SO for anyone that experiences this problem get yourself some Panacur from your vet... !

I;m thikning now that not all is lost, as long as i stick to the medication regime followed by big water changes... I'm wondering though if this stuff kills the eggs as well...


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

You can restore the colour of your bleached wood if you want to, though it might take awhile if it's a big piece. 

That light colour is only a very thin surface layer, and the rest of the wood under it is still dark. Waterproof sandpaper, a scraper, file or rasp will remove the light layer. I've bleached quite a few pieces of wood, as it speeds up the leaching of the colour into the water. I find after awhile they don't look all that different under water from their unbleached companions.


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## darkangel66n (May 15, 2013)

If you have been having trouble for years with sick fish, maybe it is your source that is the problem.


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## John_C (Dec 17, 2007)

It was this one tank only that kept getting sick no matter what the source of the livestock came from.. But now whenever I buy fish this first thing I'll be looking for is red spiky worms hanging from the vent..


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