Levimasole: Success Story

[LoachOrgy]

To start this off,

Most of the levimasole treatments so far havn't been successful due to it being to late by the time it was found out.

We added cherry barbs to the loach tank over a year ago. But they have been dying one by one slowly. This would be the 3rd cherry barb to have the cws.

The fish in question now, had the symptoms recognized in time to treat correctly. The levimasole was dosed as per Keith Wolcott's formula in a 20oz bottle. The fish was treated for 24 hours and kept in the qt tank for 3 days after that. The tank was vaccumed although it didn't appear there were any worms in the bottom.

After that another barb went down to the cws so this new barb and the one that was just treated were treated once more. The problem with the 2nd guy is that he didn't show signs until the day before the separation, he then died the next day of treatment. The other cherry barb survived and was given another 3 day qt tank. I placed him back in the loach tank for another loach tank treatment of velvet. Well, since then, it has been 10 days and he is more energetic than ever, hes eating, he even vigorously goes after food now and interacts with all fish. He even taughnts his fins for the ladies now. So this is a 180 degree turn from the behavior exhibited for the last few months.

The fish would hardly eat, only when in the qt tank and the food was practically spoon fed to him. He wouldn't eat blood worms, flakes, hardly ate algae wafers, shrimp. You name it, he didn't eat it. After the 2nd treatement, he started eating more food from the bottom of the tank. Still skinny but since his 2nd treatement, he looks normal size, and even goes right next to the clown loaches eating off algae wafers next to them. So this is at the least, a successful cws treatement for the first time.

So don't give up if you have troubles. The treatement is given no more than 24 hours. The the tank water is changed in the qt tank. I read some things on threads that people had killed half their tank from adding too much but don't know how true this is. There have been several casualties to this cws but for the most part, I believe it was because the symptoms were not noticed soon enough.

Most of the time it starts out by the fish isolating itself from all other fish. The fish won't interact and has no interest in food. AFter a few days, The fish will lose half of its body size and weight. If you catch the fish when its just about to be skinny or just losing body size, like when you see the behavior change, this seems to be the best time to treat so far. All other fish that were caught to late died. But this is only a 3-4 fish analysis and I am no scientist. Just observation.