Camallanus Worms - Fenbendazole vs Levamisole

Conclusion - 41:14:14
Camallanus worms are no joke in the freshwater aquarium hobby. Once you have this little nasty parasite in your aquarium, you are gonna wish you quarantined your fish longer, especially if your tank is 75 gallons or larger. The cost of medication to eliminate these little buggers can get quite expensive in large tanks.
We here at NoobAquatics have been the victim of these little nasties. And so that you would not have to, we tested two of the best medicines on the market for treating these parasites. We tested both Fenbendazole and Levamisole. Both of these meds are de-wormers that are effective in killing these little worms in their own way.
Leva works by permanently paralyzing the worm so that it releases its grip on the insides of the fish so that they can expel it. Fenben works by directly killing these guys. Both seem like good choices, but one is more effective than the other. Follow along on the video to see how many tanks we tested, what to look for, and our conclusion on which should be your first choice if available.
Thanks for checking out our channel, remember to Subscribe, Like, and tell all your friends through social media to come over and take a listen. Below are links to the products we used. DiscusUSA also sells pure Levamisole and Fenbendazole powder, so if you are brave enough to try and measure out the correct dose, then those are options as well.
Fritz Aquatics Expel-P: bit.ly/3Qzkj6s
DiscusUSA: Fenbendazole Flake - bit.ly/3XhWJwZ
DiscusUSA: Fenbendazole Pellets - bit.ly/3Iw5Beq
Help support our channel, we have exclusively started to sell our fish on Vivvy, and you can find our fish at www.vivvy.com/profile/VXNlcjo...

[@oS3R0o777]

Thanks for posting this!

[@NoobAquatics]

You're welcome, I hope it helped.

[@marwanmakki9121]

This was so helpful thank you very much

[@NoobAquatics]

Excellent, I am glad I was able to help. Thank you for watching our video.

[@paulhutchinson3404]

Great video thorough very informative

[@NoobAquatics]

Excellent, glad you liked the video. We will try to keep them coming, we try not to leave anything out in our videos so that others can see the true process and / or get a good idea as to what we actually did. Too many videos I watch, hobbyists are only giving talking points and not showing the steps to get to that point. This is the reason we decided to start making videos. Thank you again.

[@brendaalent6464]

It may not be a true comparison because Levy tank is bare bottom which you can get every worm, whereas the Fenben tank had gravel and eggs can always hide in it. Neverless i will still go with the levy . Thank you for the info

[@NoobAquatics]

Maybe, but we were not as worried about the eggs. Yes, the eggs can cause a re-infection. But our main concern with this test is how well it worked in killing and/or expelling the worms in the fish. We found that Levamisole seems to remove the worms from the fish better, and the FenBen didn't do much to expell the worms already in the fish. One other issue is how both meds are delivered. We could only find FenBen on medicated fish food at the time of this video, and this required the fish to actually consume the correct amount of medicine. This made it really hard to get the fish properly medicated. The Levamisole was delivered in the water column as a powder and absorbed into the body. One thing we can say is that we are extremely pleased with how well Levamisole works, and after three full treatments, we have never seen any of the worms come back, even on the three tanks we did not gravel vac. DiscusUSA does sell the powder form of FenBen if you ever find that Levamisole isn't working.

[@annac1678]

This was so helpful! I'm new to the hobby and my guppies are currently dealing with these disgusting parasites. Do you feed your fish while treating with expel-p? I wonder if I should feed medicated food and treat with expel-p at the same time

[@NoobAquatics]

I am extremely happy that this was helpful. Yes, this is one of those hobby issues we all feel are disgusting. I do feed them, I feed the fish either live Baby Brine Shrimp or frozen Daphnia. Both of these work really well when medicating them with Expel-P. The Daphnia really helps them to poop out those nasty little worms. Just don't feed them the normal full amount all at once. Whatever you do feed them, split it up over 3 to 4 tiny meals throughout the day.

[@kimberlybean1101]

Hi, and thank you for the insightful information. I medicated our three tanks with leva. All tanks are now covered. We can only have time to feed them early morning and early evenings. I have frozen brine shrimp but found the angels weren't eating them, so I had to be on top to remove the leftover. To make life easier I feed them fish flakes. How do you feel about fish flakes for angels@@NoobAquatics Thank you

[@zaeway651]

What if your tank is heavily planted I’m worried I won’t be able to siphon up all the worms while using Fritz expel-p

[@NoobAquatics]

We have several tanks that are heavily planted. It's OK to not siphon all if you do a total of three treatments. We tested this on two of the heavily planted tanks that had these worms and didn't siphon at all due to how many plants were in the tank and to this day the worms have not come back. Expel-P ends up killing the worms through permanent paralysis, the third treatment is to kill the newly hatched worms from the released eggs.

[@dh4923]

This was posted a year ago, are you worm free now, or are you still battling these things?

[@NoobAquatics]

Yes, we are 100% worm free using Levamisole (Expel-P) only. We still use this as a preventative on any new fish we acquire to avoid an outbreak of cross contamination. Amazing medicine and does the job very well.

[@tmill016]

How soon can you remove the towel or allow light?

[@NoobAquatics]

24 hours after you add the medicine, but it can be left on for up to 72 hours for max effectiveness.

[@JustJulie-cz8fs]

Did you wind up getting rid of them with Fritz & or the flakes?

[@NoobAquatics]

Fritz Expel-P (a.k.a. Levamisole) was the winner, and has gotten rid of all worms to this day. The Fenbendazole didn't work.

[@JustJulie-cz8fs]

@@NoobAquatics Thanks! I'm gonna try to get my hands on some. Would you say the food helped?

[@NoobAquatics]

I would say the FenBen food didn't really help, we had much better success with the Expel-P (levamisole). I would say the food should only be used as a preventative medicine/food to give your fish when introducing new fish if you don't quarantine them first.

[@JustJulie-cz8fs]

@@NoobAquatics Thanks a lot. I ended up getting Expel-P and I believe that knocked them right out, fortunately.

[@NoobAquatics]

Excellent, glad it worked for you as well. We have recently went exclusively to Expel-P for our fish room.

[@mr.z2618]

I think the dosage of the Fenben wasn't strong enough? In the tank with Fenben you have snails. Fenben kills snails, so this telling me you didn't use proper dosage or Fenben was out of date.

[@NoobAquatics]

The Fenben was dependent on the fish eating the food. So the FenBen was food based and the Levamisole was powder based in the water column. This method is less dangerous for the inverts in the tank. This was prepared by DiscusUSA and was not expired. Finding Fenben in powder form was not as easy at the time of this video. But, DiscusUSA does now sell FenBen in its powder form if you are wanting to chance the dosing. Even with the powder form, as we have tried that recently, it still seems to be less effective, so our main choice currently is Levamisole.

[@LushSaltyAquariums]

I kept waiting for you to say anus not booty (after all, it's in the worm's name) but you never did - lol :)

[@NoobAquatics]

Lol, yeah no, kids laughed to much at that during the videos. They didn't laugh as much with booty.