Levamisole In-Tank Treatment for AEFW

[James404]

Got some requests about the in-tank treatment of levamisole for AEFW that I have done so figured I would repost the information here, straight from my original thread on RC.

PLEASE ONLY CONSIDER THIS IF YOU ARE DESPERATE TO RID YOUR TANK OF AEFW AND WILLING TO ACCEPT SOME RISK. I WOULD ALSO CALCULATE YOUR WATER VOLUME ON THE LOWER SIDE TO AVOID OVERDOSE.


So after some initial discussion in a different thread about using Levamisole for an in tank treatment for eradication of AEFW, I decided to make a dedicated thread to document my experiences and maybe some others can chime in with theirs.

First I would like to thank Bax for the help with this. His info was what got me to try this in the first place.

Quick backstory, I have been battling AEFW for about 2 months now and have lost some of my prized SPS pieces. Pretty heartbreaking. I have been doing dips every 4-5 days with Revive but they just keep coming back. Finally I have had enough and decided I'm willing to give levamisole a shot, I don't care if I wipe every SPS I have in my tank trying.

Levamisole, as some may know, is a dewormer. People in the freshwater side have been using it for a long time, especially discus keepers. Lately many of the products such as "Prohibit" that are used for pigs, goats and sheep have been very hard to find, due to some issues with the FDA. I managed to acquire it under the name "Vermisol" designed for birds. It comes in either a pill or powder form. I opted for the pills, which contain 23.6mg of Levamisole each, with a bottle containing 100 pills. The powder contains 7.5 grams of Levamisole but would require a little more work figuring out the dosage, but in the end it is cheaper.

I would like to say that I am merely documenting my experience and should not be held responsible if any negatives occur. Levamisole is much more powerful than something like Interceptor and you can definitely overdose it.

To get started I took some information from Bax's post:

I just started replacing SPS to my display last week after a long battle with AEFWs.

To finally beat them here's what I did:

I fragged all my acro colonies tossing the bases in the trash (14" diameter tables right in the trash) ;

Moved the frags to one tank within my system (I had assumed I needed a systemic treatment at this point, so I gathered them together to remove FOOD for the AEFWs from the rest of the system and make it easier to dip and inspect SPS) ;

Dipped constantly for a few weeks to be sure all AEFW breedrers were gone; and

Treated the system with Levamisole at 5grams/300gal system water, once a week for three weeks to be sure all hatching AEFWs were vanquished. Buy a electronic scale to weigh the Levamisole it is worth every penny to be accurate! STAPLES sells them for like $15. I took one liter of RODI water and dissolved the 5 grams of Levamisole in it, then used this solution proportionately through out my system.

A treatment means this: Apply the dose at 5 grams/ 300 gallons system volume, keep all system water flowing as usual. You should shut down air to your skimmer, pull your GAC & GFO, as well as change any mechanical filters (socks or pads). Circulate for 4-5 hours, then you can fire the skimmer back up (be prepared for lots of foam) and add back GAC. In a day change the pads or socks again (They will be full of dead mini brittles, pods & AEFWs)

I'm still dipping to check as i am PARANOID! But so far, at least three weeks since the last treatment, I'm AEFW free!

DO NOT OVER DOSE THE LEVAMISOL!

I did at first and nearly killed the entire system.

A note on critters: SPS were just fine; The few zoas & LPS I have were fine; Fish were fine; I do not currently have a nem, so IDK; Clams closed up but were OK after a day or two; Fire Shrimp, hermit crabs & snails disapear & hide, but come back out after a day or two; Your mini brittles & pods take a hit, but mine have come back; Be very cautious about stars, I would remove Sea Stars & larger Brittle Stars during the 4-5 hour treatment and for at least a few hours following the restart of the skimmer and adding the GAC.

What would I do differently? If there is ever a next time, and now that I've established much better dipping & QT regimen for all incomming SPS, there should not be a next time, I'd go right to systemic treatment with the Levamisole along with dipping. I would not move right to chopping up my beloved colonies. However, I would treat for 4-5 weeks to be sure to out treat the life cycle of potentially hidden eggs, or the eggs that are layed after the first round of treatment by surviving adults.

Where to get Levamisole:
Levamisole hydrochloride is much easier to aquire than say, Interseptor is as it does not require a script. It is readily available on line through live stock supply web sites. It is the primary constituent of Pig, Goat, and Cattle dewormers. The one issue is, there are tons of products. You want a very pure, soluable Levamisole product. The one I used is called PROHIBIT Soluable Drench Powder. It was sold as a goat dewormer at a site called cattlestore.com, shipped for about $25 and ther's enough to treat your whole club's worth of tanks.

How did I overdose?!?!
A) I am stupid!
B) Levamisol has been used in the fresh water trade for a while to treat worm and fluke parisites and rid tanks of neusance snails. The dosage used in FW is tripple that for marine applications. Remember in FW most inverts are bad! I accidently dosed at FW rates, as I did not scroll down far enough in my reference article. I've posted the correct SW dosage here, follow it exactly.
C) I'm really stupid!

All this said, the best way to control AEFWs in this hobby is for everyone, that's all of us, who want to keep SPS to DIP AND QT ALL INCOMING SPS. Assume everyone you aquire frags from already has AEFWs, Red Bugs, Sea Spiders, cooties, and an STD or two!!!! Everyone! Your bestest fragging buddy, your local coral farmer, your favorite LFS, your Mom! Everyone!

I have discovered pests on frags from all of the highly respected LFS in my area. ALL OF THEM!

 

[James404]

So with the dosing outline of 5 grams of Levamisole per 300g, we did the math of:

1000 mg = 1g

Each pill has .0236g

I figured my water volume at about 75 gallons (I opted to go on the lower side, its probably a little more than that)

At 5 grams per 300 gallons
That's 5/300x75= 1.249 grams

1.249g/.0236g each pill = 52.9 pills it would take to treat my 75 gallon display.

So I crushed up 52 pills in a zip lock bag and dilluted it in about 2 cups of tank water. I shut off my carbon/GFO reactor and skimmer and proceeded to add in the levamisole slowly.

Within about 15 minutes I could see AEFW coming off a few montipora and my fish were gobbling them up.

After about 2 hours, I saw many dead bristleworms and pods, which is to be expected, this treatment may also kill star fish so be warned.

Around the 2 hour mark I also noticed my fish were starting to gasp. I am guessing the oxygen began getting depleted in the water. After about 4 hours I fired up the skimmer again, replaced my carbon with fresh and turned the reactor back on. I opted to do a small 6g water change to possbily alleviate some stress on my fish. By the next morning the fish were all ok and recovered, eating well.


I will be repeating the treatment every Tuesday night for the next 3 weeks.

Some impressions after my first treatment:

1. I will be probably adding a large air stone during the first few hours of treatment and leaving skimmer on with no collection cup to increase oxygen levels.

2. My serpant star managed to live through it.

3. Some of my SPS were definitely ****ed off, polyps closed up, they opened back up by the morning. Some were sliming a bit.

I will update this thread again with the next dose Tuesday.

 

[jerl77]

thanks buddy for the great info
wonder if you can dip them in this stuff too?

 

[James404]

No problem at all, you can definitely dip with it, it is said to kill red bugs as well but I have no experience with that.

 

[prattreef]

IMO, unless you can VERY accurately calculate the true water volume of your system this is an exceedingly risky thing to do.... and I suspect most of us can't.

 

[James404]

I agree it can be very risky, I opted to estimate my volume on the lower side. My display tank alone is 75g and I have a 30g sump. I don't think advancements can be made in anything by just playing it safe. Perhaps as a community we can figure out a safe dosage that hobbyists can apply without much worry.

 

[prattreef]

I wanted to add that my comment above wasn't a criticism as I think it is wonderful that there is an in -tank desperation option if it comes to that. I just get worried that people read something like this and start dumping stuff into their systems without really considering what they are doing because "some guy on MR says it works."

 

[James404]

I appreciate your comments pratt. I have the same concerns, the last thing I want is someone crashing their tank due to this treatment. I opted to try this because I am pretty much fed up with these pests and willing to accept the risk of losing my livestock. My threads were meant to be a record of my experience and if it helps somebody I am happy.

 

[jerl77]

I think james is just trying to help people I have seen his tank and know james I am the one that asked him to post it here I was thinking that it would help people here fighting aefw and after his treatment he has seen the aefw die off his corals

Sent from my DROIDX using Reefs

 

[ed4]

Very informative post. Thank you James

 

[James404]

Did the second treatment last night, everything went well. I left the skimmer running, it seemed to help with oxygen in the tank. Had no overflow issues with it either. Saw a few brittle stars kick the bucket. Most of the corals didn't even close their polyps this time. No water change was done, simply fired back up the carbon/GFO reactor after about 5 hours.

 

[pauliwalnuts]

How about the hermits and shrimp, have they made it ?
Btw, I'm loving this thread dude. And also, thanks for having enough balls and trying the in tank treatment on your own system.

 

[James404]

Thank you for checking it out Pauli. I actually don't have any hermits or shrimp in this tank. Only snails which seem unaffected. From what I have heard they should not be harmed.

 

[pauliwalnuts]

Nice...
I was just reading one of the post from Bax, on reefcentral, in regards to the shrimp and crabs. I'm also going to be giving this a try. Definitly going to be under estimating my total water volume. DP is 150gl and sump 40g, but only dosing for the 150 gallons.

 

[JARRETT SHARK]

Great thread, aefw most be the worst thing in this hobby imo. I never wish this on anyone. I lost half my tank and more people need to learn about them when buying sps. I feel your pain when you work so hard and just like that tables gone....
Going to follow this thread...
James were did you buy this stuff so i can get my hands on it just in case? A link would be great so people dont buy the wrong stuff.
Does it kill red bugs also?
Does this stuff kill the eggs?
I also think once you get aefw and you keep the frags you cut your looking for trouble because i did keep them and i did 8 weeks of dipping and still dip here and there and they still come back even in my seprate frag tank. I seem never to kill them and this worm seems never to die and i hope this levamisole is the way to go because i was so close to throwing 100 frags in the garbage this weekend.

 

[James404]

Thank you Jarrett, dealing with them has almost drove me to the verge of quiting the hobby.

The only place I was able to locate it was under the name "Vermisol" which is for birds. I bought it here:

http://www.foyspigeonsupplies.com/catalog/586.html

I bought the pills but the amount of levamisole in them is small, with a tank your size you might be better buying the powder form. That would require some calculation to get the proper amount since its 7.5grams of levamisole in 100 grams of powder. For me the pills were just easier.

From what I have been told it may kill red bugs but I don't know about that since I eliminated mine with interceptor a few months ago. It does not kill the eggs which is why we opted to do a 4 week treatment, that way if any laid eggs within the first week, with a 21 day hatch time we can hope to eliminate any stragglers.

 

[pauliwalnuts]

I got my meds in yesterday. I'm just now awaiting for any sign of bite marks on the coral, then it's blast off. Lol..
Once again, thanks James.

 

[ecchybridLE]

I thought lavamasole was for red
Bugs? I would like to hear about this killing aefw

 

[ecchybridLE]

Red bugs don't lay eggs. Aefw does

 

[pauliwalnuts]

Red bugs don't lay eggs. Aefw does

:shocked1: They both lay eggs.