Bit the bullet - levamisole flatworm treatment

[Alberta-newb]

I've had flatworms since day one with my first purchase of live rock..being a newb I thought "great, life already!" Despite following advice like increasing flow (one vortech and a PH later), decreasing feeding (hungry fish), and reducing nutrients (weekly 15% WCs), to my disgust they didn't go away but rather continued to multiply. Well after finally getting sick and tired of flatworms in my tank and decided to do something about it. I've read mixed reviews on the effectiveness of Flatworm Exit and the expense put me off a little so tonight I crossed my fingers and tried a new treatment: levamisole HCl.

I found the post on RC: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=1

How I did it:

I mixed 1/2 tsp. of levamisole HCl in 250 ml of RO water (easier number than 240 ml described in thread)

I shut off my return pump as I did not want to be treating my sump/fuge at this time.

Cranked my Vortech to full flow to keep everything moving

Dosage was reduced to 0.5 ml per gal from the 1 to 1.5ml/gal recomended...yes I'm chicken! so 60 ml of solution used in my 120.

Immediate results:

PANIC!

Within 5 minutes, there was a virtual snowstorm of flatworms floating around the tank, low flow areas in the corners developed a deep yellow film on the sand. I quickly grabbed my turkey baster and started sucking up this toxic soup off the bottom. I also used it to blast the flatworms that were now crawling all over the rock dieing.

After 10 minutes, I felt quite confident that the majority of the flatworms were either dead or soon would be. At that point, I restarted my return pump, dropped in 1 lb worth of fresh carbon and started the first of three 10% water changes.

Effect on livestock:

Fish: didn't seem to be bothered at all, but I was (am) concerned with my clownfish pair, as soon as the flatworms began losing their gripo and floating in the water column they thought it was feeding time and started chowing down on dead worms. They seem fine now (3 hours later) but I'm hoping they didn't injest too much.

Corals: (softies, shrooms, and zoanthids) all immediately closed up/ retracted. There was also some mucus buildup so they were definitely irritated. They are now starting to reopen.

Inverts: feather dusters closed up right away, but have since reopened and look ok, I did see several isopods floating around, not sure if the treatment killed them or if these were just molts disturbed by all the water movement and me stirring up the sand? Not sure on the effect on my peppermint shrimp as I rarely see them anyway..will keep an eye out.

So so far I am happy with this treatment technique, time will tell and I promise to report any permanent negative effects. I can say that I had grossly underestimated how bad my flatworm problem was and I am glad I had reduced my dosage below the recomended level. I'm also certain that I will need to redo the treatment again in a day or two to eliminate the last remaining flatworms, I think that if I had gone full dose for a 100% kill, the toxicity of the levamisole and dead worms would have been too much for my system to handle. I am amazed at how much cleaner my sand looks now.

[untamed]

Get some soft and rigid airline tubing and make yourself a flatworm siphon tool. Stick about 5" of rigid airline tubing on the end of the flexible tubing so you can work the end like a siphon. (oops..meant to say "like a pencil")

Siphon as many of those bugga's out a there as possible both before and after treatment, but especially before. They are reputed to give off a toxin when they die, so you want to remove every one that you can see before you kill off what you can't see....then siphon off the bodies.

They siphon really easily.

[Alberta-newb]

Originally Posted by untamed

Get some soft and rigid airline tubing and make yourself a flatworm siphon tool. Stick about 5" of rigid airline tubing on the end of the flexible tubing so you can work the end like a siphon.

Siphon as many of those bugga's out a there as possible both before and after treatment, but especially before. They are reputed to give off a toxin when they die, so you want to remove every one that you can see before you kill off what you can't see....then siphon off the bodies.

They siphon really easily.

You bet, still at it....going to be a long night! What surprised me was the sheer numbers of worms that I couldn't see before the treatment, having a lot of rockwork looks nice but sure presents some problems. It's times like this I wish I had gone BB.

[Bryan]

Where did you purchase the Levasole?

[Pan]

Good luck killing them all off...

You needs a coris wrasse

[Borderjumper]

A pair of mandarin's took care of mine.. havent had a one in ages!

[mseepman]

Mandarins eat flatworms? I've never heard this before. Has anyone else had this experience?

[Alberta-newb]

Well it's been over 24 hours and my treatment may end up with one casualty This morning my streamlined rabbit "the brown trout" was looking pale and very listless, I also observed the foxface "Fluffy" capitalizing on the situation and harrasing him endlessly. Following some good advice I put a mirror in the tank to distract the foxface, this worked but by this afternnon the streamlined was looking worse, spending most of his time just laying on his side. I believe I stressed him out to much with all the mucking around last night, the 30% WC, and the toxicity of dead flatworms may have been to much for him. I moved him to a hospital tank after work today and I have seen some improvement but he's far from out of the woods. Fingers crossed I didn't kill him

Other than this problem, everything else is looking good. All corals are opened up, rest of the fish look fine, and even the snails pulled through (often a casualty with levamisole treatment). I can also confirm my pistol shrimp is alive and well and even engaged in a tug of war with me over a piece of krill today.

Bryan: I bought my levamisole from a killifish keeper in the states (used in FW tanks against parasitic worms at much higher dosages?) It now appears that it is getting near imposible to locate as it has been pulled from the shelves as a pig/sheep dewormer. Had my local vet try and get some without luck. It turns out it is going through human trials as some type of immuno modifier. Guess the drug companies figure they can earn a lot more from a few pills, then bottles full to farmers.

Pan & Borderjumper: Indeed I would like to have gone "natural" but I think my flatworm problem was too big and a single fish couldn't have kept up with the population explosion that was going on. I was looking into a coris wrasse at one time but had decided against any wrasses as they would be pod competitors for the mandarin I was hoping to get in the future. I hadn't gotten a mandarin yet as all advice says to wait untill your tank is well established and my reef has only been up 9-10 months...sigh..real bad timing.

On a positive note I was looking in my fuge today and can still see lots of pods so they came through ok as well. I should also note that I cannot see any flatworms anywhere so far.

Will keep you posted on long term results.

[Pan]

Sorry to hear fluffy is being bad, he only ever harassed my Atlantic blue tang defensively, he never initiated anything, but he was the only rabbitfish in my tank. Good to hear the flatworms are going/gone though

[Alberta-newb]

Originally Posted by Pan

Sorry to hear fluffy is being bad, he only ever harassed my Atlantic blue tang defensively, he never initiated anything, but he was the only rabbitfish in my tank. Good to hear the flatworms are going/gone though

Can't blame Fluffy, he's just doing what fish do! I've heard this many times that once a fish comes down ill, tankmates will be quick to finish it off. Natures own defence mechanism, "if it's got a disease..kill it quick before we get it too!" Not looking good now, will be surprised if he makes it through the night..and I though he was the toughest in the tank, certainly was the biggest.

Indeed, at least the flatworm horror is over.....I think