Pete_the_Puma
New member
******** DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any loss of corals/fish/inverts caused by anyone trying this method, try at your won risk *****************
******** Also: be careful with the levamisole hydrochloride: It's use as an adulterant for cocaine has resulted in some cases of "Levamisole induced necrosis syndrome", might be wise to wear a mask ************
Hi all,
I have decided to devise a little experiment to attempt a different way for permanent in-tank AEFW treatment.
I have been battling AEFW for the last 2 weeks or so, they have probably been in there longer but I only finally diagnosed the tank about 2 weeks ago.
A little background: I have a 7 month old 65G SPS reef. Had a number of frags and things were going great, amazing colors and slow but steady growth. I run zeovit and was a little on the OCD side with testing: daily ALK, every other day phos and nitrate and weekly calcium and mag, monthly potassium.
About 1 month ago I started noticing some corals had worsened polyp extension and my ALK started to be used up much much slower, growth also seemed to slow but that is a little harder to determine. What really bugged me is my creeping ALK depsite cutting back on the two part I was using, telling me alk was not being used up as fast and basically meaning growing had slowed.
Long story short I finally pulled out some of the frags that were not encrusted and dipped them: AEFW :mad2:
So after reading a ton of threads here, including:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2027706
which I highly recommend, I decided to try something a little different.
With a background in biochemistry and now work in the medical field I though there must be a way to outsmart those little f**kers. I think the problem is we had been using one of our tools wrong: Levasmisole
It turns out Levamisole is a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist, which basically means it binds to the interface between nerves and muscles, permanently turning muscles "on" causing paralysis. Kind of like Sarin gas for humans.
Now I am not a pharmacist and cannot tell you why (or even if) this agent seems to be more specific towards the little worms, and why it does not cause paralysis in fish at commonly used doses (see that thread) like 5g levamisole/300g saltwater but that definitely seems to be the case based on empirical data.
It also seems from reading though previous threads that the worms are paralyzed at that dose, but not killed and usually get eliminated by "turkey basting" and predators. Worms dipped in this solution have been observed to "come back to life" up to 48hrs later, showing they were moslty just paralyzed not actually dying. Unlike humans and the sarin gas where even relative brief paralysis causes death from asphyxiation.
The problem in my opinion is that previous treatments had been sporadic, basically lowering the population but not frequent enough to kill all adults worms and not treating the eggs.
Not much is actually known about the AEFW life cycle and anyone giving you any kind of "eggs hatch in 7 days" data is simply talking out of their a**.
There is actually some real research going on into these buggers but as far as I know we have zero results yet.
see:
http://166.78.194.232/forums/showthread.php?t=2346292
So here is my hypothesis:
"Maintaining a low but steady concentration of levamisole in the aquarium over long periods of time will cause permanent paralysis of adult AEFWs and eventually death through starvation or predatory attack."
Obviously there are many unknowns here:
1. What is the optimal "low concentration" that paralyzes the AEFWs but does not cause harm to any other inhabittants?
2. How long to cause complete elimination of all AEFWs and hatching of the eggs and paralysis and finally death of offspring?
3. What are the kinetics of levamisole in an aquarium, how is it degraded/eliminated from the system?
What we do know is that concentrations around 5g/300gal and even sometimes much higher have been observed with no significant harm to most inhabitants.
So here is my experiment. I had previously dosed the tank with 1.4 grams and 2.5 grams of levamisole with no ill effects on other tankmates, plenty of paralyzed worms coming off the corals at that second dose.
I will now try a "steady" infusion of levamisole into my system.
I have dissolved roughly 48g of Prohibit (which would equal to 43.2g of Levamisole Hydrocholride) that I had left from the previous treatments into 480 mL of saltwater creating a solution of 0.1g/mL of Levamisole (well technically 0.1g/mL of prohibit and 0.9 of levamisole but close enough).
I will dose the current solution with an automatic pump at the rate of 1mL per hour, for a total of 2.4g per day. This solution should last me for 20 days.
I will keep observing the tank and lower the dose and do a water change at any sign of trouble. I am leaving everything on except the carbon.
Lets kills some flatworms!
Pete
******** Also: be careful with the levamisole hydrochloride: It's use as an adulterant for cocaine has resulted in some cases of "Levamisole induced necrosis syndrome", might be wise to wear a mask ************
Hi all,
I have decided to devise a little experiment to attempt a different way for permanent in-tank AEFW treatment.
I have been battling AEFW for the last 2 weeks or so, they have probably been in there longer but I only finally diagnosed the tank about 2 weeks ago.
A little background: I have a 7 month old 65G SPS reef. Had a number of frags and things were going great, amazing colors and slow but steady growth. I run zeovit and was a little on the OCD side with testing: daily ALK, every other day phos and nitrate and weekly calcium and mag, monthly potassium.
About 1 month ago I started noticing some corals had worsened polyp extension and my ALK started to be used up much much slower, growth also seemed to slow but that is a little harder to determine. What really bugged me is my creeping ALK depsite cutting back on the two part I was using, telling me alk was not being used up as fast and basically meaning growing had slowed.
Long story short I finally pulled out some of the frags that were not encrusted and dipped them: AEFW :mad2:
So after reading a ton of threads here, including:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2027706
which I highly recommend, I decided to try something a little different.
With a background in biochemistry and now work in the medical field I though there must be a way to outsmart those little f**kers. I think the problem is we had been using one of our tools wrong: Levasmisole
It turns out Levamisole is a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist, which basically means it binds to the interface between nerves and muscles, permanently turning muscles "on" causing paralysis. Kind of like Sarin gas for humans.
Now I am not a pharmacist and cannot tell you why (or even if) this agent seems to be more specific towards the little worms, and why it does not cause paralysis in fish at commonly used doses (see that thread) like 5g levamisole/300g saltwater but that definitely seems to be the case based on empirical data.
It also seems from reading though previous threads that the worms are paralyzed at that dose, but not killed and usually get eliminated by "turkey basting" and predators. Worms dipped in this solution have been observed to "come back to life" up to 48hrs later, showing they were moslty just paralyzed not actually dying. Unlike humans and the sarin gas where even relative brief paralysis causes death from asphyxiation.
The problem in my opinion is that previous treatments had been sporadic, basically lowering the population but not frequent enough to kill all adults worms and not treating the eggs.
Not much is actually known about the AEFW life cycle and anyone giving you any kind of "eggs hatch in 7 days" data is simply talking out of their a**.
There is actually some real research going on into these buggers but as far as I know we have zero results yet.
see:
http://166.78.194.232/forums/showthread.php?t=2346292
So here is my hypothesis:
"Maintaining a low but steady concentration of levamisole in the aquarium over long periods of time will cause permanent paralysis of adult AEFWs and eventually death through starvation or predatory attack."
Obviously there are many unknowns here:
1. What is the optimal "low concentration" that paralyzes the AEFWs but does not cause harm to any other inhabittants?
2. How long to cause complete elimination of all AEFWs and hatching of the eggs and paralysis and finally death of offspring?
3. What are the kinetics of levamisole in an aquarium, how is it degraded/eliminated from the system?
What we do know is that concentrations around 5g/300gal and even sometimes much higher have been observed with no significant harm to most inhabitants.
So here is my experiment. I had previously dosed the tank with 1.4 grams and 2.5 grams of levamisole with no ill effects on other tankmates, plenty of paralyzed worms coming off the corals at that second dose.
I will now try a "steady" infusion of levamisole into my system.
I have dissolved roughly 48g of Prohibit (which would equal to 43.2g of Levamisole Hydrocholride) that I had left from the previous treatments into 480 mL of saltwater creating a solution of 0.1g/mL of Levamisole (well technically 0.1g/mL of prohibit and 0.9 of levamisole but close enough).
I will dose the current solution with an automatic pump at the rate of 1mL per hour, for a total of 2.4g per day. This solution should last me for 20 days.
I will keep observing the tank and lower the dose and do a water change at any sign of trouble. I am leaving everything on except the carbon.
Lets kills some flatworms!
Pete
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