# Cleanup after Camallanus



## Supernova (Feb 17, 2009)

My fish have just been treated with Levamisole... all six tanks. Boy am I going to have a lot of water to clean tomorrow! My question is, what can I use to disinfect nets, decorations, gravel etc afterwards. Do I make up a dip with the leftover levamisole? Would bleach work? Also, should I replace my carbon filters with new ones or can I use the old ones? I have to do almost a 100% water change on the tanks tomorrow and I'm worried about also replacing the filter media at the same time.

Thanks!
Robyn


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## bluekrissyspikes (Apr 16, 2009)

i would disinfect your syphon, nets and everything with bleach. the gravel and decorations should be fine as long as they were left in the tank during treatment. i'd replace the carbon filters or just remove them all together and add extra biofilter material


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Yep, %25 bleach, 75% water dip for 10 minutes should kill off anything in there. Make sure you wash them very well afterwards.
Carbon must go after any kind of medication.

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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I'd recommend not doing the water change afterwards. I don't think the established "protocols" for using Levamisole involve removal of as much of the drug as possible after dosing.

Each time I've used it, I left all the water in and not used chemical filtration until the next scheduled water change.

Also, I hope you had the carbon out whist treating.


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## Supernova (Feb 17, 2009)

Thanks for the advice.

ameekplec: the carbon has been removed, just wasn't sure if it would be contaminated to put back in the water. do you do any type of a gravel cleaning at all? anywhere I read about them suggests doing so after treatment.

thanks!!


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

When I treated, I never did gravel vacs, as it was all in planted tanks. I just left the levamisole in for a prolonged period, and didn't do a WC typically till 5 to 6 days later (regular weekly changes). 

Also, just get new carbon. 

Remember to retreat in about a week or so. I find the third (1 month) treatment is usually unnecessary.


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## Supernova (Feb 17, 2009)

Okay, all fish are showing some change in worms.. they are sitting further out of their vent however none of the fish that showed the worms are totally worm free. They all still have 2-3 sticking out. One of my female betta's died just now, I pulled the worms out after her death and found them all still to be alive. Is this normal? Should I re-treat right away or am I just being impatient?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

What dosage did you use? Did you prepare (measured out to treat at >2.36mg/gallom) it properly? Also, how old is the medication you used, and has it been stored properly?

If the worms aren't gone yet, I'd retreat - you can at least treat at ~5mg/gallon and you shouldn't lose anything.

Also, I found that with fish that are too far gone, the levamisole treatment won't do them any good and they'll die after anyways.


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## Supernova (Feb 17, 2009)

There were two fish that were in pretty rough shape to begin with and I figured they would die, oddly enough they are still hanging in there and the betta that died looked relatively healthy.

I ordered the meds on here from charles, I take it from the refrences on here that he is a pretty reputable dealer for levamisole. I followed his directions for dosage which was to mix 88mL of water with 5g of levamisole HCI. I dosed the tanks with 1mL per gallon. Thus, it would treat 88 gallons. I was very precise with the measurments and removed all the carbon before hand.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Hmm, that sounds like the right dosage - in the past I've mixed it up at 2.36 mg/L (8.93 mg/gallon) dosage. Yours is much higher (~48 mg/gallon).



When I've treated, I've always used the following protocol:

1. as large a water change as possible.
2. lights out (prevent further stress)
3. turn off/remove chemical filtration
4. dose.
5. 24 hrs later, turn lights back on. I'm not sure if Levamisole is light sensitive, but it's possible that light can degrade meds too, so leave them off for the full treatment period.
6. WC a week later, then retreat in 2 weeks.

Is that different from what you did??


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## Supernova (Feb 17, 2009)

Not exactly.. All tanks were due for a water change at the time and I left the tank lights on during the day (they are turned off at night). So I didn't really follow that at all, could that have affected the effectiveness?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I don't entirely remember the storage instructions but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be shielded from UV/sunlight so tank light could increase the rate of it's degradation.

Also, how was the med stored? It says to never refridgerate it, so that might also affect the life of it.

One other thing is that the bottles of med all give ashelf life of 2 years. I suspect it's actually longer, but if the med is old, there is a good chance it's also no longer effective, especially if it was not stored in optimal conditions.


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## Supernova (Feb 17, 2009)

ameekplec. said:


> I don't entirely remember the storage instructions but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be shielded from UV/sunlight so tank light could increase the rate of it's degradation.
> 
> Also, how was the med stored? It says to never refridgerate it, so that might also affect the life of it.
> 
> One other thing is that the bottles of med all give ashelf life of 2 years. I suspect it's actually longer, but if the med is old, there is a good chance it's also no longer effective, especially if it was not stored in optimal conditions.


Well I'm unsure of the storage of it before I got it. I am going to re-dose the tanks today, I'm losing fish at a quick rate now from these damn worms so I don't have much to lose.


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## Plaid (Nov 10, 2008)

Huge props to Eric's dosing methods.

They have saved me a great deal of grief, and I can vouch to anyone that following his instructions, no worms are left. Long term results: with no fish added since the treatment. In April.

Tl;dr, ameekplec's instructions are golden.

Wes


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

IME the water change post treatment (I do it 3 days later) is a good thing when the fish have become skittish as a result of treatment. I found that with the meds out the fish returned to normal. I also had some julies almost die from the levamisole and had to do a water change 24 hrs later to save the remaining ones. I do think removing the meds is probably a good idea. It'd be kinda like taking anti-biotics after you've finished your dosage. It'd make you tired or whatever the side effects are but for no real reason. Some fish don't freak with the levamisole and those ones you can probably do without the h20 change.


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