Thursday, 20 December 2007

Treatment

While I was very optimistic about fenbendazole as a treatment option, I'm a little more worried now. After two days of treatment, I don't see fewer Camallanus worms hanging out of the fish. I am very concerned about whether the fish are ingesting enough of the drug, especially the smallest female Macropodus, which also seems to be the worst infected. I have soaked a mixture of foods in a fenbendazole suspension, and I'm hopeful that they are getting enough of it, but the only way I have of monitoring the treatment is by looking at the worms hanging out of the fish. They still appear red and healthy, which isn't a good sign. This is the final day of the treatment course, so I was hoping for some visible results. "TheGreatBlueDiscus" had visible results after 36 hours, but since he was treating his fish twice a day, that amounts to three treatments.

Since I won't be able to continue the treatment over Christmas, I'm seriously considering euthanising the Macropodus. Not something I would want to do, but I can't afford dead fish floating around the tank for several days (there's only so much my plague of snails can handle).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry about your fish. If you still want to try something new, it seems like levamisole is the first choice. I am going to follow the dosage suggested in this article:
http://www.loaches.com/Members/shari2/levamisole-hydrochloride-1


Another option is flubenol, which appears to be available in the UK by prescription only.