Loaches Online Forum

A coupple of my clown loaches have stopped eating for a few weeks and has lost weight considerably to the point where the belly is almost concave.
Now, I know that this topic has been discussed extensively because i did a search and came up with quite a bit of information. The problem is that there are so many drugs and I have no idea how to get a hold of any of them here in the USA. There is even a locked topic on Levamisole and I have searched everywhere only to hear that it is discontinued or backordered.
Please Help! Where can I purchace a dewormer (in the USA) that is available and effective meds that I can mix in the water since the fish has stopped eating.
Thank you for any replies.

If the fish stop eating, you'll also have any treat any possible bacterial infections. So you'd need to treat the water with a wide spectrum of antibiotics.

Levamisole for birds is sold here- http://www.foyspigeonsupplies.com/catalog/586.html
Dosage on this thread- http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... anus-cotti

Here's an alternative-
Piperazine Dewormer- http://rockymountaindiscus.com/Food_and_medications.htm

Well I went ahead and ordered this, Aquarium Solutions PraziPro. http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/P ... -OC-_-PRDT
Hopefully it helps. Only 2 of 15 seems to be affected. If the Liquid praziquantel treatment dont work I will get the bird levamisone.


As always, thanks for the reply. I have never had to deal with this.

BTW, where is everybody on this forum?

Prazi is a good choice to try 1st. It's definitely the easiest treatment to follow and the safest. I hope it works.

Where is everyone? I think Facebook and Twitter stole most of the social chatter away from this site. Mad Duff also started his own loach site awhile ago, but that's been very slow from what I've seen. Personally, I don't like the new format of this forum since they updated it back in December. It's just too difficult to find new posts with all the stickies and announcements.

Update: Well its going on two weeks and in the middle of second treatment. My largest loach was the most affected but now she seems more active and tries to eat. She is still skinny but its a start. Thanks for the help Chefkeith.

I just ordered some of that Prazipro after seeing that you had ordered it.
Glad to hear that it seems to be helping. Really hope I get my order soon so I can start treatment!

Did you notice if the treatment is like other parasite meds and requires more water aeration?

LisaL79 wrote:I just ordered some of that Prazipro after seeing that you had ordered it.
Glad to hear that it seems to be helping. Really hope I get my order soon so I can start treatment!

Did you notice if the treatment is like other parasite meds and requires more water aeration?

Lisa, I don't think you will need more aeration unless tank is crowded. My tank is heavily aerated already and I did notice lots of foaming (says that on bottle too). With treatment, my airstone now produces a fine mist vs the bubbles(3-5mm) that was made prior.

Good luck with treatmant. I hope my loaches make a full recovery too.

Praziquantel isn't very soluble in water, it's a real pain to get into solution. This probably explains some of the foam.

UVvis wrote:Praziquantel isn't very soluble in water, it's a real pain to get into solution. This probably explains some of the foam.

Yea, I had to do three treatments. It does not make sense they sell it in this form for aquariums. Maybe the foam is caused by an ingredient in the solution to improve solubility of the Prazi. If it is not an effective med i will have to ust the bird levamisole but so far it seems to be working.

As of today, three weeks of prazi my most affected loach has been eating ironically earth worms only. Its two days in a row that she has eaten and the food is actually sticking to her. I will know for full recovery in a week. The striada, other affected fish is still real skinny. I have about 13 loaches and only two loaches and a straida were affected. The others are fat or even fatter as can be.

Whats interesting is my oldest loach over 15yrs has grown in the past couple months more than she has ever grown in one period. The leader loach, a female that was real sick and too weak to lead the pecking order was just showwed away by the others. Guess maybe ther other females saw that as an opportunity to fight and grow to be the dominant one. There are definitely lots more fights and there seems to be a race to see who can eat the most thus grow fastest.