[ichthyogeek]

I'm thinking of prophylactically treating my fish for major diseases, such as ich, velvet, and internal parasites. I think I've settled on using a 2 week salt bath at 5 ppt for treating ich and velvet, but am still learning about internal parasite treatment. Because I am 90% certain that the majority of the fish I'm choosing to stock my tank with are wild caught, I'm choosing to prophylactically treat for disease as opposed to waiting to treat for disease at a later date in a more established tank. My question is two-fold, focusing on 1) active prophylaxis of fish, and 2) preventing introduction of disease by vectors.

1) Active prophylaxis of fish: I will be using General Cure as a first round dosage for treating non-Camallanus parasites. I then plan to dose either levamisole or fenbendazole for Camallanus worms. My question, is if there's a significant difference between fenbendazole and levamisole in treating the fish. I would prefer to use fenbendazole, since I can buy that in bulk and use it for other purposes such as treatment of hydroids in saltwater tanks, or for potential treatment of hydra in aquatic plants.

2) Disease prevention by vectors: I have plans to acquire freshwater copepods and daphniids as a food source. I know that at least one species of Camallanus takes a copepod as an intermediary host. My thinking is that if I just culture the copepods for long enough, I can outrun the Camallanus life cycle. How long should I culture the copepods in order to prevent their usage as a vector in disease spreading?

 

[moke]

1. fenbendazole needs to be ingested so you would have to mix it with their food. levamisole can be used in water column (2ppm for 24hours), and you need to treat at least 1 more time a couple weeks later. i can attest that levamisole in the water column will kill (what i believed to be) capillaria.
2. don't know how long you'd need to grow copepods to keep them nematode free. check out the prevention section of this very good paper on nematode infections in fish.

 

[Aaronious]

I only have experience with Camallanus worms and have used Levamisole. I ended up having to use more than the recommended to get any reactions from the worms. The fish never seemed harmed at all and the worms kept showing up all curled up and I would gravel vac them.

Side not to Levamisole, I found lab results for the break down of Levamisole solutions, short version, it took 9 days for it to have gone down significantly, in the first couple days there is no real change. So if you are following instructions then there shouldn't be an issue with the light as generally they say to do daily water changes and to redose and generally no longer than 3 days of dosing.

Your copepod theory of outlasting the camallanus holds water to me. but I would still look some more.