Total System Levasole Planaria Kill Recipe

[Bud's Reef]

Ok, my turn in the barrell. I just syphoned out as many flatworms as I could reach, I've got the Lavamisole mixed at 1/2 teaspoon to 240ml RO water. I have a 65G DT with a 29G sump that is probably only 2/3 full. I plan on treating with 100ml just as soon as I get up the nerve to pour it in. I have carbon and plenty of fresh saltwater on hand.

Tank inhabitants include: 1 Fuzzy Dwarf Lionfish, 1 Onespot Foxface, 1 Purple Urchin, 1 6" Black Brittlestar, 5 Astreas, Leathers, Zoas, Mushrooms, GSP and a medium sized rock of Neon Green Encrusting Pavona.

 

[jhildebrand]

Well, I finally got the stones to try this and here's what's happened so far:

I had a lot more of these buggers than I thought and given that my 260 is 34" high it was just way too hard to siphon them off the rocks. Instead, I mixed a half a teaspoon of levasole in a stock tank that I use for water changes with 80 gallons of water from the tank. I took each rock out of the tank and soaked it in a 5 gallon pail with a little treated water for about five minutes. Then I shook each rock in the bucket before putting it in a rubbermaid container with more fresh treated water where it sat for a couple of hours as I did tank cleaning and maintenance. All the corals were also treated in this manner and put in their own separate container with treated water, a heater, and powerhead. The fish and inverts stayed in the tank which was untreated.

The results were pretty amazing. Immediately after hitting the water the flatworms started to convulse and they piled up rather quickly at the bottom of the white pail. I swear some of the large rocks had 1000 flatworms. When the rock was removed and the water settled for a few minutes you could notice a yellow fluid build up around the piles of dead flatworms. It was pretty gross. Some coral frags that appeared to be clean would shed dozens of them when treated. The experience was eye-opening to say the least. I can't stress enough to heed the advice of not underestimating the amount you may have. I believe it would have been a disaster if I had treated the tank directly.

I re-stacked the rockwork and replaced the water with a batch of new that I had mixed the day before. The planaria are still there. I can see a few in my display sand, sump, frag tank, and 'fuge. Now that the population has been decimated I plan to strike tonight with the final blow to get the stragglers. I have another 80 gallons of water to change after the whole system has been treated. The one day process took about 13 hours. One heck of a day off of work - the problem with a huge tank.

I got this mess from an LFS that I bought a bunch of frags from a while back. All the while I've been following this thread to see what kinds of results people were getting. Unfortunately the population exploded as I waited and the weeks went by. If you're gonna do it, don't wait too long.

My only concern, and I'd love to hear from others, is if some can withstand the treatment at the recommended dose. I noticed at the bottom of the treatment bins that a few of them were still moving at the end of the day. There were no losses experienced due to the way I treated, but there were a bunch of sea stars small and large that refused to let go of the rocks. They were paralyzed from the levasole and I figured dead for sure. When put back in the tank it took them hours to come back to life.

I'll post again with a follow on the rest of the treatment. Thanks again to cleveyank for help with the problem...

 

[Bud's Reef]

I too just finished the first treatment and after reading jhildebrand's post mine doesn't seem like it was so bad after all.

I put the 100ml in the display at 4pm and the flatworms immediately started dying. Zoas and palys started closing right away but the fish, urchin and snails seemed to be ok through the whole ordeal. I had turned my Vortech off and just had the return pump running and I couldn't keep up with all the flatworms trying to syphon them out. There was a cloud of them in the water column. I went ahead and threw the bag of carbon in the sump and continued syphoning. After a half hour of syphoning I was finally catching up with them so I turned the Vortech back on. This started a whole new cloud of them pouring out of the rocks and sand. I syphoned for another half hour until I couldn't hold my arm up any longer. At this point I can still see some dead ones floating around but do not see any live ones. Some of the zoas and palys are starting to open back up and everyone else seems to be ok. I can't tell about the black brittle star since it never comes out anyway, but will know when I see a leg waving.

 

[jhildebrand]

Nice work It'll be nice to finally have these gone...

 

[Bud's Reef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13613395#post13613395 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jhildebrand
Nice work It'll be nice to finally have these gone...

How is your tank looking this morning?

 

[Bud's Reef]

This morning with just the actinics on it looks like quite a few continued to die overnight since I can see black specs in the sand. I also have a couple of live ones on the glass so I will be doing a 30% dose today.

The livestock look ok with all the corals opened this morning. I'm still not sure about the large black brittlestar but hopefully its ok as well.

 

[jhildebrand]

Well, dosed the rest of the system last night and it appears that the rest have died. This morning my red brittle star was was upside down and curled up. The diadema urchin appears fine, the tuxedo still very unhappy. I could also see some bristle worms that had come out of the rock that were either dead or barely moving. The only flatworms I could see still moving and attached to rock or sand died overnight. About three hours after dosing I changed 80 gallons.

I was worried when I went to bed because I could still see a few attached to things. When I woke up those same worms were flapping in the current. I don't want to declare victory quite yet as I'll need to take time to inspect my sump, fuge, and DSB, but it looks promising. I recently bought a 4" pinstripe wrasse from LA and he's constantly on the hunt. Hopefully he can help keep watch over things. I'm really happy so far with the treatment. I'm out of town now until Wednesday, so I'm crossing my fingers that I come home and the tank is still clean...

 

[Bud's Reef]

Looks like I was wrong about having live ones on the glass. They appeared to have died but for some reason stayed stuck to the glass. I inspected as much of the rock and sand as possible with a magnifying glass and could not find a single live one anywhere. I added a .3ml per gallon concentration and after ten minutes I still do not see a single new flatworm coming out of the rocks. I will dose the tank again next weekend.

 

[CleveYank]

Found a place that had some Levasole.
It's the boluse or big pill format. So they would need to be crushed and measured appropriately.
It's the same stuff by the same company who makes the swine variety. I bought a bottle, but have not checked the concentration if there is even a difference. Will do when I have time unless someone beats me to it. So here's another source until the powder becomes available.

The Link.

http://www.kvvet.com/KVVet/productr...alse&mscssid=19C72CC88C0244CF8126A0BA3A41A632

 

[Bud's Reef]

CleveYank, thanks for all the good work here. Do you or anyone else here have any thoughts on how long the stuff stays active in the tank? Do you think the flatworms absorb some of it so syphoning them out takes it out as well? Does the carbon and or skimming remove any of it? I'm just thinking out loud and don't really expect for sure answers.

I almost wish I would have kept a few live flatworms so I could put them back in the tank today and see if they would die or is the active ingredient already diluted too much.

 

[Bud's Reef]

After the trials of treating the 65G I decided to move forward and treat my 120G which is also plagued with flatworms yesterday afternoon.

Total water volume is approx 220G. Fish are a pair of black and white ocellaris, 2 yellow coris wrasses, 1 spotted mandarin, 1 bicolor blenny in the 120G; 1 six line wrasse, 1 lawnmower blenny and 1 redheaded goby in an attached 29G. Inverts include astreas, ceriths, 1 large black brittlestar, 1 rose bubble tip anenome and 1 green bubble tip anenome. Corals are mostly softies and lps with 1 monti plate and a large rock of neon green encrustion pavona.

I syphoned out as many flatworms as I could reach before treating which was a very tiny percentage. I kept trying to chase the coris wrasses hoping they'd dive into the sand for the duration of the treatment but they just kept going behind the rocks.

I added 240 ml of levamisole spreading it between the sump, 29G refugium, 29G additional attached tank and the last 100ml went into the display. As with the 65G the flatworms immediately started dying. I threw a large bag of carbon into the sump and then started syphoning dead flatworms from the sand and water column. Unfortunately the wrasses were frantically eating as many flatworms as they could so I continued to swing the syphon at them trying to scare them into the sand and they finally did but probably only after they couldn't eat another flatworm.

As with the 65G, most but not all the corals closed up for a while, the other fish never seemed bothered at all and the anenome stayed inflated but did shorten up the tentacles. I was also concerned that the spotted mandarin might eat too many dead flatworms as well. I continued syphoning for an hour and then gave up since I couldn't hold my arm over the tank any longer and I had at least gotten the majority of the dead ones out of the tank. I checked the sump, refugium and other 29G and did not see any dead ones there so they were mostly all in the display tank.

This mornng there are still quite a few dead specs on the sand, but all the fish and corals seem to be just fine. I can't find any live flatworms anywhere in the tank. I will do another dose of 80ml today.

 

[Bud's Reef]

Well unfortunately I got the answer to one of my questions. Today I found some live flatworms in the 65G that I treated on Friday so I'll be doing another treatment this Friday.

 

[rogergolf66]

Well I did my second dose last Tuesday 7 days from the first dose. I didn't see anything. I increased the dose to 1.3ml per gallon. I plan on doing my 3rd dose on this tuesday at 1.5ml per gallon with the 1/2 teas. mixed with 240ML of DI water.

I haven't seen anything since the second dose. That being said im not 100% sure what it is that I have but I haven't seen one so that is good news. also I could only ever see like 5 I think was the most I have ever found in my tank at one time and that was right before the first dose. I only saw 1 after the first dose and as I said nothing since.

Roger

 

[Mexi-Can't]

Ok everyone is dosing.. where are you getting the stuff? Can anyone confirm the Sheep Oblet are the same stuff?

 

[Bud's Reef]

I was lucky, I got mine at the first and closest Tractor Supply.

 

[Bud's Reef]

Although I'm not so lucky in that I'm now seeing lots of flatworms in the 65G. I don't think I'm going to wait till the end of the week. I'll probably treat again tomorrow or Wednesday.

 

[rogergolf66]

3rd dose done about 10 min ago. One each Tues for the last 3 weeks. I have enought to keep going for about 3 more weeks I may keep doing it as I see no reason not to. the Corals haven't skipped a beat.

First dose 1 ml per gallon
second dose 1.3 ml per gallon
3rd dose 1.55 ml per gallon

 

[CleveYank]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13636707#post13636707 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rogergolf66
3rd dose done about 10 min ago. One each Tues for the last 3 weeks. I have enought to keep going for about 3 more weeks I may keep doing it as I see no reason not to. the Corals haven't skipped a beat.

First dose 1 ml per gallon
second dose 1.3 ml per gallon
3rd dose 1.55 ml per gallon

I will caution you to not go beyond 1.5 ml per gallon. 1st off I believe it's not required and 2nd in another experiment involving a total tank monty nudis kill attempt at 3ml per gallon things were stressing big time and at 5ml per gallon SPS was dying. So watch it.

 

[rogergolf66]

I didn't plan on going above 1.5 I was going to leave the last 5ml in the bottle but by mistake I put it all in that was 1.55ml per gallon

No plan on going higher then 1.5ml per gallon

thanks for caution though.

Roger

 

[Reefer07]

Well I am finally flatworm free now for 3 weeks. I did a series of 3 doses.
I have a 29 gallon mixed reef with 10 gallon sump.
First week I did a little over 1.5 dosage and did immediate WC of 6-7 gallons.
Second week, 1x dose and small 2-3 gallon wc.
Third week, 1/2 dosage and no WC except the next weekend when I got home.
I did run carbon and I liked to blow out the rocks after dosing.
I am still keeping the levasole and I want to see how I am still doing in a couple months but I cannot pick out one anywhere in my tank.

Thanks for all the help everyone and hopefully I never have to deal with these things again.
Good luck to all others.