# Oh really, camallanus?!



## panther2009 (Jun 23, 2010)

Hi Everyone,

I am pretty new to this forum. But already I found it like home. There is a lot information and very helpful people. 

First of all, I'd like to thank Cory. He made time and got me some Levamisole, so i can treat my fish in time, at least I hope I treated them in time.

While, i have seen quite a few postings about this parasite. I do want to put up some information to share, so maybe we can exchange information and find the solution.

I found my fish got this parasite, about 10 days ago. I got fish exclusively from BA. So much for LFS, eh? 
I did some research and contacted Cory for help on some Levamisole (thanks again, Cory!) I followed the dosage and procedures as posted by Charles and the same by Cory. However, when I siphoned the gravel, I didn't find any dead/paralyzed adults worms at all. Instead, all i got are wiggling 1-2 mm long small ones(larva maybe?) And yes, they were moving not paralyzed at all. About 3 days after the first treatment, I lost one roseline shark. He got a bump under his chin. NOw i know it was the worm. But it grown pretty fast after the treatment. Finally, it burst this morning. The worm showed itself up. Big, full grown, nasty camallanus 

When I treated my second tank, i purposely increased the dosage. It is 15 gallon, i put in enough for 20. I waited for 3days and 3 nights. Still I got the same thing, wiggling small worms, about 20 or so, as far as i can tell.

Could someone help me out here. If the worms are still moving, does it mean they are immune to the medication? or something else. I feel very frustrated, because it is not making sense. In a retrospective point of view, I should have taken the fish out after treatment and boil the gravel....maybe i am a bit paranoid, but see a full grown adult worm killing my fish after the full treatment just doesn't lend any confidence to me that this will treat it. 

sorry for the long posting, any input would be appreciated !!


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

Hey there!
No problems in setting you up with the levamisole, I'm glad to do it in hopes that it will make it less of a problem in our area. The small red wiggling worms you're seeing probably aren't camallanus but actually detritus worms or midge fly larvae. Camallanus don't live in worm form outside of fish that I know of, certainly not for a long period. If it is thicker than a thread it is almost definitely other worms in there, they might look quite a bit like the worms coming out the vents of the fish but if you don't see any worms coming out of the fish's anus anymore then treatment was successful. I'd lean towards them being fly larvae of some sort especially if there are plants in there as that's how they commonly get transferred. If you were seeing 20 + worms in there you can pretty much rule out camallanus as the culprit since one of the big problems with the parasite is that it is never that obvious when it is in your tank. 

I've had a fish develop a pimple that exploded when I treated a tank with flubendazole a few months ago. It was odd and I never knew if it was a skin reaction or some parasite dying and trying to get out of the fish but either way it freaked me out. The fish recovered fine though and never seemed bothered by it even while it was there. 

If you can get some of the worms in white dish and take some clear pictures we might be able to ID them definitively.


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## stevenpie (Nov 4, 2009)

*can shrimp be infected?*

Hey, Cory:
I just have a quick question. can shrimp be infected? what the symptom? cause they don't have an obvious vent on the butt.
are Camallanus laying eggs into tank or laying lava into tank?

if you just , by accident, put an infected fish (bought from a member of this forum) into a tank and found out it has Camallanus and net it out after 8 hours, what is the chance the infecion of other fish? should i take all fish out and boil the graval with 100 degree water?
looking forward to your reply. Thank!

Here, i also want to yell out : people !!! if you know your fish have Camallanus, please do not shift your loss by selling your fish to other people.
please keep community Cammallanus-free, because Camallanus is a nightmare for hobbists.


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

Hey Stevenpie, 

I'm not 100% sure on the shrimp thing. I would say they can almost certainly be infected by the parasite at some stage of the parasite's life cycle but whether or not they can develop into full fledged worms in a shrimp I don't know. Camallanus has various life stages like most parasites and the first is the egg stage. Eggs are released by mature worms protruding from the vents of fish (so there is a good chance the fish in the tank for 8 hours had enough time to infect the rest). The eggs find their way into an intermediate host which is usually a small invertebrate like daphnia or planaria or anything else of the nature that may be in the tank. Im not sure if shrimp fit in as potential intermediate hosts or if they'd play host to a full grown worm or if they're susceptible to the disease at all. My guess is that if they are susceptible it is as intermediate hosts since they still have a fairly simple physiology. 

Fortunately, camallanus is a slow killer so you wont be having any sudden wipeouts from it or anything. Keep an eye out on your fish and if they develop the worms treat right away. Quarantine is not an effective way to treat for this disease once you see the worm. There is no conclusive evidence one way or the other as to whether levamisole kills the worms in any stage other than their mature worm stage (It is true that levamisole causes paralysis only but that leads to death in the worm 100% of the time it would be like paralyzing a human to the point where he/she couldn't breathe). 

Hope this info has been helpful.


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## stevenpie (Nov 4, 2009)

*Thank, Cory. I have more questions*

I am just wondering how long it is gonna take for fish to show symptom?
1 month or 2 month, see this may be the reason to trate this nasty creature. when you realize it, it has already been all over the place!
if I leave tank dry empty, how long should I wait before i can re-start the tank?
thanks,

steven


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## stevenpie (Nov 4, 2009)

*spelling mistak*

I meant " see, this may be the reason why it is so hard to treat this nasty creature"


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

Well, the problem is that if you put the infected fish in for just a bit let's say a few days ago the worms would not be in a stage of their life cycle in which you could kill them. They need to be pretty far along in the intermediate stage before levamisole will have an effect on them as far as I know. The life cycle takes about 2 weeks to complete so a preventative treatment would be done at least 2 weeks prior to noticing the 1st worm. 

As far as drying tanks out goes, I don't know on that one but I do know that if you leave it dry long enough to be sure no moisture is remaining even in the tiniest of cracks you can be sure the tank is safe when you restart.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

The problem with this nasty parasite is that the worms don't protrude from the anus until there are so many of them that the gut is full. This can take several months after the initial infection, and the unseen worms are producing eggs all along. If the fish in your tank that were only briefly exposed to an infected fish start to decline, it might be worth treating with levamisole before the worms become visible.

I've read a scientific paper that demonstrated that although the worms normally require a crustacean (copepod IIRC) intermediate host, the strain in the aquarium trade has evolved to skip that stage and go directly from fish to fish. They demonstrated this by maintaining it for six generations in the absence of any crustaceans.

I don't know how long the eggs can survive in the gravel without a fish to infect. (The fish eat the eggs when they forage.) If you want to start the tank over again, just wash everything thoroughly, then treat with bleach. Be sure to wash all the bleach out, and treat with an extra heavy dose of dechlorinator when you set up the tank again.

Btw, it's important when treating to vacuum the gravel thoroughly, and treat a second time, because it's also been demonstrated that eggs will continue to develop inside a dead worm outside the fish.


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## stevenpie (Nov 4, 2009)

*i will treat tank with H2O2*

I probably will treat the tank with powerful hytrogen peroxide. regarding bae saying, I am more certain that there is only one solution: dumping fish and clean tank and re-start -- that is it! haha... getting peace in my mind.


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

bae said:


> I've read a scientific paper that demonstrated that although the worms normally require a crustacean (copepod IIRC) intermediate host, the strain in the aquarium trade has evolved to skip that stage and go directly from fish to fish. They demonstrated this by maintaining it for six generations in the absence of any crustaceans.
> 
> I don't know how long the eggs can survive in the gravel without a fish to infect. (The fish eat the eggs when they forage.) If you want to start the tank over again, just wash everything thoroughly, then treat with bleach. Be sure to wash all the bleach out, and treat with an extra heavy dose of dechlorinator when you set up the tank again.
> 
> Btw, it's important when treating to vacuum the gravel thoroughly, and treat a second time, because it's also been demonstrated that eggs will continue to develop inside a dead worm outside the fish.


Do you have the paper that deals with the worm surviving without the intermediate host? I haven't heard about that yet and I have trouble believing there has been a wide enough study conducted to establish what the aquarium variety would be anyways. Also, as far as I know the eggs surviving and developing inside the dead worm is still just speculation and while it is the reason we always treat twice I wasn't aware anything had been proven conclusively.

The problem with both of those things being true is that it would make treatment for the parasite almost impossible. If the worm can be passed from fish to fish, meaning that the larva can develop inside a fish AND the eggs survive the death of the parent it would have serious implications. It would be very easy for an infected fish to expel an egg bearing worm, that worm is then consumed by a fish or the eggs are released and eaten during forage. The eggs thus, would be immune to treatment and even if you treat a second time there is nothing to stop the process from repeating infinitely. In my own experience, both of those things being true would contradict what I have actually seen in practice.

The reliance on a intermediary makes reinfection very difficult and unlikely, if the worm had become that infectious Id never have been able to get it out of my tanks. My guess is that the worm still relies on an intermediate host and that if the eggs do survive the death of the parent it is only for a short period and the eggs must somehow be released during that period. It would be a HUGE evolution for a parasite with a ~ 2 week life cycle to suddenly go down to a ~ 1 - 3 day life cycle. The eggs would have to change to avoid being digested by the fish and on top of that be able to metamorphose into a parasite capable of latching itself into the fish before the fish expelled it with its waste. It doesn't make sense to me but I guess anything is possible.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

Cory said:


> Do you have the paper that deals with the worm surviving without the intermediate host? I haven't heard about that yet and I have trouble believing there has been a wide enough study conducted to establish what the aquarium variety would be anyways. Also, as far as I know the eggs surviving and developing inside the dead worm is still just speculation and while it is the reason we always treat twice I wasn't aware anything had been proven conclusively.


I made a mistake in my description of the lifecycle of this nematode. The eggs normally hatch inside the (live) female and larvae are released with the fish's feces into the water.

I can't find the reference for dead, excreted worms releasing live larvae. I'll have another look if I get time.

Here are links to two articles that describe a direct lifecycle for aquarium strains of C.cotti:

Link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/xm311460pu620403/

Aquarium Sciences and Conservation
Volume 3, Number 4, 301-311

Transmission Ecology and Larval Behaviour of Camallanus cotti (Nematoda, Camallanidae) Under Aquarium Conditions

Arne Levsen

Abstract
The parasitic fish nematode Camallanus cotti has been reported from a number of freshwater fish species around the world. Its wide geographical distribution seems mainly to be the result of anthropogenic dissemination due to extensive ornamental fish trade. In most reports it is assumed that C. cotti's life cycle involves cyclopoid copepods as intermediate host and various freshwater fishes as final host. However, the species' relatively frequent and persistent occurrence in aquaria worldwide strongly indicates flexibility in its life cycle, i.e. the ability to infect the final host directly. The present study has shown that under aquaria conditions, without any presence of copepods, C. cotti is able to infect various phylogenetically distant fish species directly for at least three generations. It was further shown that the infective free-living first-stage larvae may survive for more than three weeks in the host-external environment and that their host-attracting behaviour is not precluding direct transmission to the final fish host. Any treatment for C. cotti under aquaculture or aquarium conditions should be directed towards both individual infected fish hosts as well as the free-living larvae on the substrate.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=111287

Parasitology (2002), 124 : 625-629

Selection pressure towards monoxeny in Camallanus cotti (Nematoda, Camallanidae) facing an intermediate host bottleneck situation

A. LEVSEN and P. J. JAKOBSEN

This paper describes the ability of the Asian fish nematode Camallanus cotti to carry out both heteroxeny, i.e. an indirect life-cycle using copepods as intermediate host, and monoxeny, i.e. direct infection and development in the definitive fish host. C. cotti occurs naturally in various freshwater teleosts in Asia. During the past decades it has been disseminated into closed or semi-closed aquaculture systems and aquaria around the world, mainly due to the ornamental fish trade. Under such conditions the species may frequently face a bottleneck situation with regard to the availability of copepods. It is known that C. cotti may reproduce and persist in copepod-free aquaria for several months. In order to investigate whether C. cotti has selected towards monoxeny in water systems lacking copepods, in contrast to the opposite selection pressure when copepods are present, 2 separate infection trials were run. It was shown that the parasite can infect the fish host both indirectly via copepods, and directly. However, C. cotti has significantly higher fitness, expressed as survival to maturity, when transmitted indirectly compared to the direct transmission mode. We suggest that the ability of aquarium populations of C. cotti to carry out a direct life-cycle is favoured by selection in order to avoid extinction whenever copepods are absent. It still remains unknown, however, whether the parasite shows the same characteristics in the wild.


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

I'll see if I can use the university to find those articles. Abstracts, as I learned the hard way, are often a bit deceiving in terms of describing what is actually said in the article. Also, since those are two of the main and only things that come up when you search camallanus cotti on google I'm going to take it with a grain of salt. Either way, if it is correct and the worm is bearing live young then it would at least make more sense since the live young would still be killed by treatment. The abstract also said that even though transmission may have been possible without an intermediate host (again without reading the full journal and seeing their methods it's hard to say what they did or didn't do) it was much more likely to be successful with the use of an intermediary. 

Almost gave me a heart attack there bae. I had visions of camallanus reappearing in my tank .


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## stevenpie (Nov 4, 2009)

*I like this article*

please check this out : 
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/fa/fa09100.pdf

very clear and systematic. check the Camallanus spp. part
good article as a guideline to understand this parasite

steven


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