# Panacur - treatment for hydra, Planaria and parasites



## arc

*Panacur - Fenbendazole *
_As with any chemical medication, please read all instructions and follow the dosing instructions given. This is just a report on what I've done and its results._

Recently saw one of my juvenile shrimp get attacked/eaten by a hydra and a worm (Scutariella japonica) infection on my Fire reds was not going away I decided to try this.

Getting this over the counter in Canada is amazingly hard since I don't have a pet to bring to the vet so I ordered it online.

*http://aquarliam.com*

He ships to Canada and it's only 3.00(shipping included) for 1g bag to treat 100gallon. It takes about a week to get here. If you can get it locally, try to get the liquid version and adjust the dosing as the liquid type may have a different concentration. The one here is 22.2% concentration.

There are instructions included on dosing when you receive the Panacur. I would suggest using a small bottle, 50ml of tank water, mixing all the granules in and dosing from that(1ml for 2gallon) or use his suggestion about purchasing a 60ml syringe and mixing it in there. Please note the extra shipping cost of buying the syringe from him.

The granule is difficult and messy to measure .1gm even when you have a digital scale. The powder is also hydrophobic and will not mix well with in the tank. If you have low water flow, the meds may just sink to the bottem and reduce the effectiveness of it. Shake the bottle really well for a few minutes until the water is milky white and use a syringe to ensure accuracy. Dosing the mixture in the outflow of the filter will also help to evenly distribute it. Run carbon if you want to remove the meds later on.










*Results*

*Fire red tank - planted with tap water (7.6 ph, 8+ gh/kh)*
I'm happy to say that the panacur has killed all the worms and planaria in 24 hours. Didn't have hydra in this tank so nothing to report there. The adults seem unaffected and no deaths. I haven't noticed any shrimplet or apple snail baby deaths and its been 4 days. I removed the adult apple snails as a precaution but they are back in there and look unaffected.

*Crystal Red Tank - planted with RO/tap (6.6 ph, 6gh, 2 kh)*
Dosed only .02g per 10gal or about 1ml of mixture per 10g. The hydra's were unaffected initially but all balled up within 24 hours and unresponsive when I poked them. Dosed another .02g/1ml on second day and all hydra seem to have disappeared 72 hours since first treatment. I dosed only 40% of the recommended amount over two days because I've got a large population in there. Its been reported that the full .1g per 10g does not affect shrimps but I have not tried that amount.

Hope this helps. I'll be dosing the rest of my tanks in a few weeks as a precaution since I seen hydra once in a while in them. It will be good to have some extra on hand in cause any future shrimp/plants/snail have hitchhikers.

*Courtesy of Splur*



splur said:


> This is what they look like, one side is thicker and is typically stationary while the other side is tapered and searches around. Mine seem to be less than 1cm long when they're unstretched, but can go to around 2-3 cm when they're full stretched. It looks a tiny bit like planaria, but acts completely differently, not to mention the thicker side is its tail end.
> 
> They usually hang out in the gravel peaking their head up from time to time, but sometimes are free swimming.
> 
> I'm not sure if the leeches I have are harmful yet, although an abundance of sources online say leeches will basically go after anything include fish.
> 
> The fenbendazole didn't seem to do anything to them although I only used 50% of the recommended dosage and it's only been 24 hours, most people say it doesn't work.
> 
> Best way is to prevent them from entering your tank by treating all newly bought plants with 5mg/l potassium permanganate solution for an hour. Once they're in your tank, I have no idea. I'm considering using a raw meat bait trap, but I need to figure out a way to make it so the baby shrimp can't get in.


----------



## splur

How did they affect the worms/snails if you have any? I noticed worms in the substrate a while ago, both little white stringy ones which usually come from excess food or decomposing stuff in the tank and bigger black ones which I have no idea.


----------



## arc

The assassins(adults/babies) were unaffected or at least no dead shells I could find. He does warn that Nerite snails should be removed so you could remove all snails to be on the safe side.

The stringy was I haven't had for a long time so I can't comment on them. No idea what the bigger black ones are, maybe this?. If so then they seem to have been killed off by the treatment as I haven't seen any for days.


----------



## sujeev87

Do you know if this stuff can be used to get rid of freshwater limpets?


----------



## arc

> Do you know if this stuff can be used to get rid of freshwater limpets?


I can't say as I haven't notice any limpets in my tanks. The seller did say it's "limpets" safe though.


----------



## sujeev87

Do you know anything that kills limpets? I heard u can kill them by pumping your tank full of co2.


----------



## arc

Since the limpets are a type of snails, copper based chemicals will work but will also kill any other type of snail, shrimp, hydra..etc. I've heard of the gassing method, using "no planaria" as well as using assassins but they seem like suggestions rather than viable options. 

In the pass I've had them in some tanks but once they peak in numbers and the food runs out, they die out or are present in really small numbers. This takes a few months depending on how much you feed the tank. Manually removing them helps them here as it removes the adults so the babies have more food to survive. 

Wish I had a better solution but I haven't had to deal with them much.


----------



## splur

What did you do with the dead worms/hydras? Did you just let them decay or did you suck them up with something? Last thing I'd need is a large ammonia spike to disturb the tank.

(I ordered some recently to treat worms)


----------



## arc

I left them in there, the hydras just balled up and disappeared. I'm guessing the Planaria bodies are in the substrate. The hydra deaths will not cause a spike as they have very small body masses even if you have hundreds of them. 

If you are worried about a ammonia spike, test every 12 hours after treatment and do a water change if needed. I don't think you will need to do anything as it would take hundreds of fat Planaria to start any noticeable spike.


----------



## splur

Also, did you use this while you had baby shrimp around? I just got it in and want to use it but I'm scared the baby CRS shrimp will react badly. I'm thinking of halving the dosage.


----------



## arc

I did have a lot of shrimplets as well and hence only dosed 40% of the recommended dose over 2 days. See the end of the first post on what I did.


----------



## splur

I'm dosing 50% of the recommended dosage, here's hoping nothing bad happens.

Dosing a bit more because I'm trying to kill off the worms, seems the No Planaria took care of the hydra no problem, but did nothing to the worms. I think they're leeches or something, maybe black worms, but they're not planaria.


----------



## KaylaBot

I've heard that Panacur will kill most inverts and snails  And I believe the liquid dosing is 0.1 to 0.2 ml per gallon. You can usually buy it at livestock feed stores as it's a cattle/horse dewormer.


----------



## splur

Hasn't killed any of mine yet, but my dosage has failed to turn up any worms and has done nothing against the baby snails in the tank.

I don't really care about the snails, don't need to kill them, but I'd assume that would be an indicator that it's working. I might have to go for the full dosage adding the other 50% today.


----------



## arc

I'm sure at high enough levels it could kill but the Panacur here is meant for domestic pets and with dosing at 1g per 10lbs of animal weight. The livestock ones should be a lot higher in concentrations because of the animal sizes.

Splur, you may want to give it at least 24-36 hours per dosing to see if the worms are dying or not as I find there's a slight delay in its effect.


----------



## KaylaBot

arc said:


> I'm sure at high enough levels it could kill but the Panacur here is meant for domestic pets and with dosing at 1g per 10lbs of animal weight. The livestock ones should be a lot higher in concentrations because of the animal sizes.
> 
> Splur, you may want to give it at least 24-36 hours per dosing to see if the worms are dying or not as I find there's a slight delay in its effect.


Usually are higher concentrations. I'm basing it on the liquid version since I've never used the granuled so it's easier to dilute down.


----------



## splur

arc said:


> Splur, you may want to give it at least 24-36 hours per dosing to see if the worms are dying or not as I find there's a slight delay in its effect.


Unfortunately I'm out of luck. I caught one of the worms and it was confirmed on another board to be leeches which supposedly fenbendazole is useless against.

I'll have to set up a bait trap or something to get the leeches out, seems the chemical treatment for leeches is a lot worse than fenbendazole.


----------



## arc

> Unfortunately I'm out of luck. I caught one of the worms and it was confirmed on another board to be leeches which supposedly fenbendazole is useless against.


That's too bad. Can you give me more info on the leeches? I can add the info to the opening post for future references.


----------



## splur

arc said:


> That's too bad. Can you give me more info on the leeches? I can add the info to the opening post for future references.




















This is what they look like, one side is thicker and is typically stationary while the other side is tapered and searches around. Mine seem to be less than 1cm long when they're unstretched, but can go to around 2-3 cm when they're full stretched. It looks a tiny bit like planaria, but acts completely differently, not to mention the thicker side is its tail end.

They usually hang out in the gravel peaking their head up from time to time, but sometimes are free swimming.

I'm not sure if the leeches I have are harmful yet, although an abundance of sources online say leeches will basically go after anything include fish.

The fenbendazole didn't seem to do anything to them although I only used 50% of the recommended dosage and it's only been 24 hours, most people say it doesn't work.

Best way is to prevent them from entering your tank by treating all newly bought plants with 5mg/l potassium permanganate solution for an hour. Once they're in your tank, I have no idea. I'm considering using a raw meat bait trap, but I need to figure out a way to make it so the baby shrimp can't get in.


----------



## CrystalMethShrimp

Can you put new plants in a cup of water then into the freezer for 15 minutes?
Would that do a good enough job of disinfecting any hitchhikers? Ofoucrse I'm talking about less sensitive plants like java moss or anubis.


----------



## arc

A bleach/water or Potassium Permanganate/water mixture are the most effective ways of removing hitchhikers from plants before they enter you tanks. The freezing method may work on some hitchhikers but for snails/algae/bacteria its has little effect in the short freezing times. Freezing them over hours or overnight will help but kill the plants in the process.


----------



## ThaChingster

Sorry for reviving this old thread, but it's sold out on the aqualiam website. 
Is there any other way I can find this? 
At least 10 planaria worms appeared today in my shrimp tank, i'm scared of putting my hands in the water now .. I hate worms


----------



## splur

Email him for it, he'll have some.

When I bought it, it still said sold out.


----------

