# Fish De-Worming



## GeriJo (May 13, 2010)

I recently took in a small yellow lab that had a severely sunken belly, it was obvious to me that the little guy, who I now call Bert, had a parasite infection. I took him home and isolated him in a 10 gallon tank with no substrate. I put a bag of ceramic bio rings, that had been soaked in Nutrafin Cycle, into the tank with an airstone inside the bag to move water through the bag. I used this method of filtration as I did not want to risk contaminating a filter. Jungle Anti-Parasite did not work for him, so I searched for additional options. (It turns out he had round worms, which Jungle wouldn't kill) I decided to treat him with fenbendazole and PraziPro. He is healthy now and is working on gaining some weight back, so I wanted to let you all know how I achieved this in case you are facing similar issues.

I purchased a package of SafeGaurd 4. This is a dog dewormer containing 22.2% fenbendazole. I took one of the 4 gram packages and dissolved it in about a half cup of warm destilled water. Fenbendazole does not readily dissolve, so I allowed it to sit for about an hour, occasionally shaking the 1 cup glad ware container that I had placed the mixture in. In the meantime I crushed various foods, including a great deal of flake food that was left over from a previous guppy tank, some hikari and spectrum pellets, as well as some tetra crisps. I found the best method for powderizing these foods was placing them in a zip lock bag and using my rolling pin. I pushed out all the air I could before sealing it and then went over it several times with the rolling pin. Once the fenbendazole was dissolved and the foods were crushed into a fine powder I went about mixing. I added a quarter teaspoon of clam juice to the watery mixture and about 5 drops of PraziPro. Once mixed I started adding the crushed foods. It took about a cup of crushed foods to reach a thick paste like consistency. The medicated food was complete. (Cover and refridgerate food once it has been mixed)

I fed Bert a small amount of this food 2-3 times daily, 2-3 days a week for 4 consecutive weeks. These amounts were slightly larger than a pea. When we first started he had no appetite at all. The food cloudied the water and made frequent water changes necessary, which seemed to make Bert feel better anyway. It wasn't long after I started the feedings that I could actually see the worms coming out and could even see them in the water changes. Bert seems to be doing extremely well now and his appetite is definitely back. As a precaution I will keep him isolated in his own private tank for a few more weeks on this feeding regimen, just to be sure all worms and eggs are dead. Then I will remove him from this food for a few more weeks to see how he does and to let him recover before introducing him to the community.


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