1% Ivermectin (in-tank) Treatment for Coral Boring Spionid Worms

[Reefahholic]

“Although it is established that ivermectin is highly toxic towards invertebrates, it has been believed that ivermectin does not present notable risks to aquatic systems due to the rapid dissipation of the compound and binding to the sediment. Hence, fate and exchange of ivermectin between water and sediment were evaluated in this study. The ivermectin DT(50aqueous) in water was found to be 3-5 days, but concentrations increased and appeared to be stabile in the sediment at 20-30 ng kg(-1) with no assessable DT(50sed). Acute effects (first week) following ivermectin exposure were identified and cladocerans were particularly sensitive (nom. 100 ppt). Chronic responses (<day 97) were observed for the ecosystem structure and function (nom. 30 ppt). Long-term effects (>229 days) were identified for more sediment-active organisms (e.g. Chydoriae and Ephemeroptera) (nom. 1000 ppt). This is the first study to demonstrate the potential environmental risk of ivermectin at or below the predicted environmental concentration using a standardized test methodology (mesocosm) with minimal extrapolation uncertainty.”

I think you can consider your rock and anything else thats porous as soil? Im sure you’re reading the same articles… Doesn’t sound good. I think the uv will clear the water of the drug but it could continue leaching out of the rock and into the water for a very long time? Is the graph you posted how long invermectin lasts in *only* water?

Yeah, I’ve read a lot of them. Not too many out there honestly.

Here’s the best one I believe, but yeah it doesn’t look good. I’ll link below. It will dissipate from the water, but remain bound to the rock, sand, media, etc…only to keep continuously leaching out for days which is why water changes aren’t working, and also why things don’t get better. They are getting worse. It does somewhat depend on the coral species as some really don’t appear as affected as others and still have PE and decent color. It’s very strange to say the least.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6790101/

 

[Vested]

Yeah, I’ve read a lot of them. Not too many out there honestly.

Here’s the best one I believe, but yeah it doesn’t look good. I’ll link below. It will dissipate from the water, but remain bound to the rock, sand, media, etc…only to keep continuously leaching out for days which is why water changes aren’t working, and also why things don’t get better. They are getting worse. It does somewhat depend on the coral species as some really don’t appear as affected as others and still have PE and decent color. It’s very strange to say the least.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6790101/

Id vote for the fresh start then, especially because there are still worms that survived... cant go through all that just to have them go crazy again.

 

[Doctor Derp]

I hate to see that the treatment failed, especially after all the effort and issues you've had trying to beat them.

Surely there's something out there that will eat them...

 

[Reefahholic]

Id vote for the fresh start then, especially because there are still worms that survived... cant go through all that just to have them go crazy again.

At least if I start fresh with everything pegged I can dip them when they enter the skeleton and cause issues.

Really kinda sucks because I worked hard to keep pests out of here. I literally don’t have even 1 Aiptasia, Bubble Algae, or Vermetid snail in this system. Like Zero. Just the Limpets and Spionid's were the only two pests.

I guess I’ll have to get back in the Vermetid snail and bubble algae camp with everybody else again. Haha.

 

[Reefahholic]

I hate to see that the treatment failed, especially after all the effort and issues you've had trying to beat them.

Surely there's something out there that will eat them...

Yeah, it’s unfortunate. Sometimes you have to know when to hold em and when to fold em. This is probably gonna be a fold. The worms are tough. They multiply to plague proportions in the right chemistry. Honestly, I was just about at colonies, and did have few colonies, and could have let it ride, but I just wasn’t happy. When your joy is taken away it’s hard to keep going on. When I could see the growth being impacted with some corals, that was really starting to irritate me. I’ve been wanting to peg my whole system for a long time, I just never did it. Now I might have that opportunity. I really don’t know what I’m gonna do, but we will see.

 

[buruskeee]

So the ivermectin eradicated the boring worms but it’s leached into the system and you’re having difficulties removing the medication?

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

How is it that you are determining that the medication is still present to the degree you suggest?

I would think all inverts that were affected would be dead if this is the case.

I certainly see why it would still be there, and why the water changes aren't that effective since it binds to substrate and releases, but what method of action would possibly be taking place for it to so quickly bind, and leach at enough of a rate to have a visible affect, and bind again to release again.

I'm gonna take a look at these studies because this doesn't make sense to me.

Edit: this study tracks a lot of perameters during

Assessment of the environmental fate and effects of ivermectin in aquatic mesocosms

The ivermectin concentration chart looks like what I would expect, by day 20 it's all in substrate not in water, it goes on further to show that the copepods and other zoo life populations dipping and returning during the first 20 days.


I would think, the issue might be the coral skeletons having ivermectin bound in them, but not that it keeps returning to the water.

Just my thought, I've been following this and have been confused over the suspected ivermectin returning to the water column. Not that it isn't, it's just not what I would assume to be happening.

 

[Minifoot77]

How is it that you are determining that the medication is still present to the degree you suggest?

I would think all inverts that were affected would be dead if this is the case.

I certainly see why it would still be there, and why the water changes aren't that effective since it binds to substrate and releases, but what method of action would possibly be taking place for it to so quickly bind, and leach at enough of a rate to have a visible affect, and bind again to release again.

I'm gonna take a look at these studies because this doesn't make sense to me.

Edit: this study tracks a lot of perameters during

Assessment of the environmental fate and effects of ivermectin in aquatic mesocosms

The ivermectin concentration chart looks like what I would expect, by day 20 it's all in substrate not in water, it goes on further to show that the copepods and other zoo life populations dipping and returning during the first 20 days.


I would think, the issue might be the coral skeletons having ivermectin bound in them, but not that it keeps returning to the water.

Just my thought, I've been following this and have been confused over the suspected ivermectin returning to the water column. Not that it isn't, it's just not what I would assume to be happening.

Most dips seam to be ok wouldn't that bind to the coral skeleton?

 

[Dburr1014]

Scanning the study again, it moves between substrate and water constantly.
I also see ph moving up and down that could be day/night shifts. Maybe other environmental factors?
Maybe worth noting also, maybe not, I have, er, had two shrimp. A blood and a cbs. The cbs was 7 years in my tank the blood 3. The cbs died last month, the blood is fine. Could have been old age but man he looked like crap at the end. Brown and fuzzy and was getting blown around the tank. I'm leaning to old age and not the ivermectin. IDK.

 

[Reefahholic]

So the ivermectin eradicated the boring worms but it’s leached into the system and you’re having difficulties removing the medication?

The ivermectin eradicated about 98% of the population. For fourteen days I didn’t see one. All of their tubes were distorted and dead looking. They were not the typical creamy tan color, and had cyano growing on them. They were uninhabited. Then at day fourteen I noticed a few that looked clean almost new when I was looking around with a LED flashlight at night at the base of a acro. Sure enough, I saw one of the new tubes with two tentacles sticking out. It looked like a younger worm. So it either hatched from eggs maybe (not sure how they reproduce), or that particular worm crawled up into the skeleton so deep that he was protected from the medication. They do not have a good “trap door” like a Vermetid snail does. I’ve seen Spionid’s coming in and out of their tube when ivermectin is present in the water. I have video of it too.

Yes, to answer your second question Ivermectin is “extremely difficult” to remove from the system. There are probably ways that you can do it, but in a reef tank full of acro’s the reaction may be too much, and probably kill all the corals. I didn't know it was this difficult to remove or that it could bind to rocks or substrate. Nobody reported that it had a lingering effect in their system. All the other treatments I read about seemed to go fairly well. We knew it killed everything including a lot of fish, but that wasn’t a concern going in. I thought worst case scenario would be I’d water change my way out of it. That isn’t happening.

Carbon doesn’t seem to be very effective either. UV has also been running for almost 17 hrs now. It does seem to be helping a little, but nothing major yet. At the 15mL to 100/G volume dose, it could leach from the rocks and my CaRx media for over 70 days causing constant fluctuations and moderate to severe stress to the corals. Obviously it will hinder them, kill some slowly, and basically stop any decent growth during this time. Waiting it out is probably pointless.

 

[Reefahholic]

How is it that you are determining that the medication is still present to the degree you suggest?

Some corals just look horrible. They continue to get more pale each day and some have completely browned out. Things really escalated around that 6-7 day mark. They continue to look very dry, and lost all PE. I mean, you can tell if something’s not irritating a coral. They start to put polyps out. They’ll start to color up a little bit. You can just tell that they’re progressing. These corals look constantly irritated like something keeps leaching and ticking them off. It’s definitely not going away. That’s just my assessment. I’ve never seen anything like it. Every day I was waking up thinking that the tank was going to progress or get a little better, but it’s like the opposite is happening. It seems like the tank gets a little worse every day and the corals aren’t progressing at all. I’ve overdosed some systems, so I know what a coral looks like whenever you pull whatever is being overdosed out. You start to see positive changes in the corals as far as color, tissue, polyps, etc. When a coral browns out it can take months for the color to return, but this is different. The tissue is so dry and know how to recover dry tissue and severely starving corals. They aren’t recovering. I’ve been pumping very bioavailable nutrition and nutrients in and it’s not having the normal effects. All the water changes I’ve done (over 100%) have zero effect and it only seems to make matters worse.

Scanning the study again, it moves between substrate and water constantly.
I also see ph moving up and down that could be day/night shifts. Maybe other environmental factors?

Exactly what seems to be happening. Although I’m seeing a very steady pH and my chemistry values have been pretty stable other than the big dip in nutrients early on. I’m not having a hard time with chemistry now. Obviously the Alk started to rise, but I have that under control. Still have some consumption (mostly dosing Kalk at this point), and the tank is still sucking up nutrients so the corals are consuming.

I’ve needed to reduce my trace doses due to the drop in Alk consumption. Was going to send ICP today, but I’m not sure what I wanna do.

I don’t know if I’m going to transfer the corals to a 40 breeder and start testing that tank or keep this one going for a bit longer. Still trying to figure out which direction I wanna go in. My gut wants to get all the corals in a new tank with fresh NSW and LR, and start the recovery process. Then I want to clean the old system out with acid, vinegar, bleach, etc..and restart it.

 

[Reefahholic]

This is under Haldies right now, but do you see this coral is putting out white minstrel filaments even w/o feeding or any food in the water. This is more of the base obviously, but you can see it. They did this with the initial Ivermectin dosing also. The coral is being irrigated by the leaching IMO. This is not normal for my corals unless I’m feeding. They don’t put out menstrual filaments in the middle of the photo period.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

This is under Haldies right now, but do you see this coral is putting out white minstrel filaments even w/o feeding or any food in the water. This is more of the base obviously, but you can see it. They did this with the initial Ivermectin dosing also. The coral is being irrigated by the leaching IMO. This is not normal for my corals unless I’m feeding. They don’t put out menstrual filaments in the middle of the photo period.

And it's not possible a response to dinos or cyano?

I only ask because it seems like some of my corals have a feeding response to ostreopsis in my tank.

What you describe def sounds like you have the right idea, just throwing out other angles.


I have really appreciated this thread and the work you have done while going through this, your logging is very valuable. Thank you.

 

[buruskeee]

What’s the max potency do you think Euphyllia can take as a dip you think?

 

[Reefahholic]

And it's not possible a response to dinos or cyano?

I only ask because it seems like some of my corals have a feeding response to ostreopsis in my tank.

What you describe def sounds like you have the right idea, just throwing out other angles.


I have really appreciated this thread and the work you have done while going through this, your logging is very valuable. Thank you.

I mean it’s possible, but unlikely since I saw the same early on during the initial dosing. I described it as white dots and then noticed it was more of a menstral filament stress response. Thank you for following along. Just trying to document for future reference. Hopefully will keep others from my mistakes, but also allow those brave souls to zero in on a micro dose, and maybe understand how to remove it quickly after this thread dies.

Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) is worth looking into.

Also… Fenton (Fe2+/H2O2) and photo- Fenton (Fe2+/H2O2/UV).

Fe2+ and Hydrogen Peroxide

 

[Reefahholic]

What’s the max potency do you think Euphyllia can take as a dip you think?

Probably a lot as long as you pull them out of it within 45 min to 1 hr. One guy used my dip potency with good results. I think he posted about it here or on Facebook.

 

[Reefahholic]

That would be interesting. But after a month it would be full dose anyway. This stuff has a 200+ life cycle.

1-3mL for the whole month. I’d never go over that, but I’d also never do it again unless I knew how to remove it. Water changes won’t get you out of this one.

Something light enough to not affect the fish, etc., but just enough to stress out the snails until they die?

I saw on a Koi or freshwater forum somewhere where they were recommending a Ivermectin dose for the fish in a pond which was around 5mL per 100/G.

 

[Reefahholic]

Something light enough to not affect the fish, etc., but just enough to stress out the snails until they die?

Here’s another freshwater link that recommends 5mL per 100/G to treat fish. Or 2.5mL per 50/G.

They also talk about ivermectin being “slightly photosensitive.” Hmm…

Fish Ivermectin

How to use Fish Ivermectin safely with ornamental aquarium species. We have included known warnings, observed issues in addition on usage details.

fishcures.com

 

[Reefahholic]

Interesting new Taiwanese bacteria species that can significantly degrade Ivermectin.

Efficient degradation of ivermectin by newly isolated Aeromonas taiwanensis ZJB-18,044

Ivermectin (IVM) is a widely used antiparasitic agent and acaricide. Despite its high efficiency against nematodes and arthropods, IVM may pose a threat to the environment due to its ecotoxcity. In this study, degradation of IVM by a newly isolated ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Ivermectin Degradation:
The bacterium Aeromonas taiwanensis ZJB-18,044 can completely degrade 50 mg/L of IVM in five days.

 

[Minifoot77]

Interesting new Taiwanese bacteria species that can significantly degrade Ivermectin.

Efficient degradation of ivermectin by newly isolated Aeromonas taiwanensis ZJB-18,044

Ivermectin (IVM) is a widely used antiparasitic agent and acaricide. Despite its high efficiency against nematodes and arthropods, IVM may pose a threat to the environment due to its ecotoxcity. In this study, degradation of IVM by a newly isolated ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Ivermectin Degradation:
The bacterium Aeromonas taiwanensis ZJB-18,044 can completely degrade 50 mg/L of IVM in five days.

Where you gonna find that in a bottle tho?