[Sounguru]

Well I just read Neonshrimps dewormer article and I have a few questions.

#1 What kind of snails were in the tank when you dosed?
#2 Did it effect the smaller (babes) snails?
#3 Have you noticed that the snails are breeding again or did it seem to inhibit that in anyway?
#4 Have you tried to add nerites back in if so how long after dosing do you find safe?

I'm looking at dosing a few tank I have but I have a large selection of tanks that have a large cross section of snails I do not want to loose. I can remove the assassins and the nerites but would like to add them back in at some point and want to know if this is gonna be possible.

Thanks for the great article and I can't wait to see more posted.

[Neonshrimp]

Hi Sounguru, The answers to you Q's are:

#1 What kind of snails were in the tank when you dosed?
Before I dosed I removed all of my adult Nerite and Tylomelania snails and left the baby Tylomelania
in the tanks with all of the Ramshorn and MTS.

#2 Did it effect the smaller (babes) snails?
From what I observed (several times a day) and recall the baby MTS like the adults were behaving normally throughout the dosing period and after.

#3 Have you noticed that the snails are breeding again or did it seem to inhibit that in anyway?
I see baby MTS floating in the current on top of the water everytime I feed so I will say they are breeding as usual. After returning to the tank, the Tylomelania snails have also been breeding at a quick rate because I see little babies all over the tank.

#4 Have you tried to add nerites back in if so how long after dosing do you find safe?
I tried to return the Nerites to the treated tanks about a month after I treated it. I held off returning them sooner because I had no reference for them like I did with the other types of snails. As posted elsewhere, the Nerites behaved normally for 2-3 days and then just closed up and remained inactive. I removed them about a day of this behavior, 3 died and 1 recovered in an untreated tank.



Please be advised that I used a lower dose than thosed posted on this site. I also change my later dosing to once instead of twice.

[Jeff]

I had a slightly different situation with my MTS. The babies all disappeared/died when I dosed but the adults seemed completely fine. I also noticed some smaller MTS reappearing as the dose of fenbendazole was reduced by water changes. But a couple of months after the dosing all of my MTS were dead but I don't know if that was because of the fenbendazole or the depth of my substrate. after reducing the depth of the substrate, I introduced a bunch of new MTS and they are now breeding like crazy and all seems fine with them now.

[Neonshrimp]

Hi Jeff, that is interesting. I think the lower dosage I used may have something to do with the different results.

Good to hear that the MTS are back in bloom in your tank. How deep is the substrate now?

[Jeff]

Neonshrimp, on Mar 18 2009, 03:32 PM, said:

Hi Jeff, that is interesting. I think the lower dosage I used may have something to do with the different results.

Good to hear that the MTS are back in bloom in your tank. How deep is the substrate now?

it's about 3/4".

[Neonshrimp]

So would you say less than 1" is the safe depth? I followed your earlier thread and it was much deeper, was this for the plants sake?

[Jeff]

Neonshrimp, on Mar 19 2009, 01:24 AM, said:

So would you say less than 1" is the safe depth? I followed your earlier thread and it was much deeper, was this for the plants sake?

Actually, I've been keeping fish since I was a kid (see my intro for more details). when I set up my most recent fish tank about four years ago after having been away from it for about 10 - I just filled the tank with some natural looking substrate I already had without really thinking about depth because I've never really thought about depth and the new fishkeeping books I bought didn't really say anything about substrate being too deep. (I bought new books because I had been away for a while and hadn't even checked the latest keeping information for some time before that.)

So, when I decided to keep shrimp, I did a bunch of research but never saw anything about substrate depth. I decided to go with the 3M black colorquartz as a substrate and that only comes in huge bags. I cleaned some up in the basement stationary tub and carried it up to the second floor where the tank is. There didn't seem to be enough so I did another bunch and another bunch... At some point, it looked like I clearly had enough substrate but when the tank was filled and planted, it now looked like there was too much. But because I hadn't read anything about depth, I figured "what the heck" I'll just leave it that way. (really, I didn't feel like carrying the extra back down. :happy0045: )

With less substrate, I like the look better and my MTS are breeding like crazy, my shrimp are much more saddled, and I think there are at least 3 berried RCS and 2-3 berried DGS. I don't, however, have any proof that the two are connected - there are just too many variables in normal life outside of laboratories.

[Neonshrimp]

My MTS just kept up their normal behavior in my treated tank. I don't think there was an effect on reproduction because I have a ton of baby MTS in the treated tank :rolleyes:

Jeff, on Mar 19 2009, 09:20 AM, said:

With less substrate, I like the look better and my MTS are breeding like crazy, my shrimp are much more saddled, and I think there are at least 3 berried RCS and 2-3 berried DGS. I don't, however, have any proof that the two are connected - there are just too many variables in normal life outside of laboratories.

We are all still learning and discovering new information as we go in this hobby. I think that is why it we need to have a site like this where we can all share and learn from one another :)

[Sounguru]

Okay here is where I stand on planaria elimanation...

10 Gallon .1 of a gram 48 hours still a few moving around but some have stopped and are just stuck to the glass.

10 Gallon .2 of a gram 60 hours and still see them stuck to the glass but not moving

15 gallon .1 of a gram some balled up but still sticking to glass big ones act unaffected

All of thse tanks are running sponge filters and so far I'm not really impressed with the results. i have 2 canister filters coming but I have to do water changes in the morning I have already held off too long. :blink:

Now the cray tank with worms on the cray..

55 Gallon plus 4 gallons in the filter

1 gram added 60 hours ago no effect on the worms on the cray planaria balled up but still on glass
1 more gram added today.

[Neonshrimp]

The planaria usually disappear after they stop moving/stick to the walls, even if some of them act unaffected. You can also up the dosage at any time, you just run the risk of side effects as with any medication. In your case with the change of filtration and thus deadline with treatment results you can decide to either up the dose or let the current dose run its course. At least the signs are pointing to the medication working in most of the tanks.

The worms on the cray may be resisting the treatment because they are acting in a parasitic manner and are receiving nutrients directly from the cray (host). Do you think they might require higher dose treatment or direct application to be removed/eliminated?

[Sounguru]

I don't know I will see if the higher dose works if not I will have to salt bath the guy.

[Sounguru]

Okay an update the dog dewormer whacked the snot out of the planaria and the plant worms but had a less of an effect on the worms on the cray. It did cut the number in half but did not elimanate them all. I'm at about 3 grams on a 55 gallon tank and do not want to go higher so I will try the salt bath method next.

No snail loss or dwarf shrimp loss either in any of the tanks treated. I was at .3 of a gram on the shrimp tanks to make an effective kill off.

[Neonshrimp]

Quote

No snail loss or dwarf shrimp loss either in any of the tanks treated. I was at .3 of a gram on the shrimp tanks to make an effective kill off.

Good to hear the snails and shrimp are safe. I just dosed another one of my tank, one of my Yellow Rabbit snails was infested with planaria. Please let us know how the salt bath works.

[Katalyst]

I inherited some plants that I kept in a qt for a week and dropped parasite clear in a bucket for good measures. Never did I think to check for hydra/planaria and ended up with an insane amount of hydra as well as planaria almost overnight it would seem. I did .4 grams of Panacure to a 40 gallon. It houses cherries & assassins, king tigers & queen arabesque pleco's no losses to report after a week. The hyrdra bought the farm completely within a few hours. 90% of the planaria died but the remaining finally bothered me enough to rip the tank apart and remove all the gravel ornaments, plants, driftwood (and the fish and shrimp of course). Fingers crossed the little buggers are all gone/dead. If I see anymore I will be adding levimasole. I hateeeeee planaria. Ugh.

I kept the panacure in a week and I have new assassin snail eggs, fingers crossed they hatch!

This post has been edited by Katalyst: 14 April 2009 - 10:11 PM

[Sounguru]

Okay an update:

All Planaria Dead.....
Ramshorns uneffected
MTS uneffected
Bladders uneffected
Scuds Uneffected
Crays uneffected
Worms on Crays killed
Nerites Highly senstive I did not leave mine in long enough to see if he would die but he was in obvious distress

[Neonshrimp]

Quote

Nerites Highly senstive I did not leave mine in long enough to see if he would die but he was in obvious distress

I don't know why they are profoundly effected but all Nerite snails should be removed before dosing with Fenbendazole!

Thanks for sharing your results Bill.

[Sounguru]

No problem only thing I found was I need higher doses

[purgatori27]

I must admit...all this excellent info and first hand experiences have really got me thinking hard about trying this myself. I am just so afraid I will wipe out a community. What? You don't think I can do it?. I have really dumb luck sometimes...good and bad luck. Not good enough to ever win the lottery, but good enough to win a mountain bike at a company picnic (which was later stolen out of my fenced in back yard). I'm sure as long as I follow the examples here, all will be fine, but I'm still scared. I know I said I would never do this, but I think I'll eventually give it a try.

I don't mind Planaria or Hydra, because I don't have a lot of either. I simply...have them in a few tanks. Occasionally, I ship out plants and inverts and I don't want to create a problem for someone else. I don't mind them, but someone like Katalyst may get upset if I send plants with planaria. I remember how mad I was when I ended up with Bladder snails, after being so proud for so long that I didn't have the pests. Of course, I never quarantine or dip my plants when I get them because I'm lazy and I don't always follow the rules. So, whatever you introduce into your tanks is your own fault. Turns out, I hunt down Bladder snails every day now (and hope I can find them easily in my tanks) to feed to our Puffers.

[Neonshrimp]

Hi purgatori, I guess your good and bad experiences even eachother out.

I ultimately decided to use the dewormer as a last resort. They took over one of my shrimp tanks and cut the shrimp colony down. If you do decide to use it and don't follow the rules, please share the results. Good or bad, "Well behaved women seldom make history" ;)

[Sounguru]

I any tank I dosed I have had no luck reintroducing Nerites. All other snails seem to do fine but the neites die of slowly.