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

[Reefahholic]

Happy to help you replace some of those that I have when you get everything in order again, I would be doing the same thing I think the new setup with fresh live rock is the way to go now.

I’m doing KP Aquatics LR. Just 10lbs to kick off the 40B because there’s not much room. Then 40-60lbs later in my 105/G.

I’ll also be building a new scape from either AF dry rock, because it’s lab tested and very light and porous. Or Caribsea Liferock because it’s too easy to work with. Some of their shapes are good for building and give you a good base. Maybe I’ll use some of both. Will do some DIY shelf mounts off the sides of the rocks for pegging. So it should be a full scape with plenty of room for mounting corals. Both AF and Caribsea are easier to build with, but it’s a tough choice.



Photo credit: ReefBum. Caribsea Dry Rock.

Caribsea shapes:



Aquaforest dry rock:

 

[Pntbll687]

At this point I've accepted defeat.

It’s time to move on and try to save as much as I can. Some will most likely die during that transfer process or before, but I’ll just have to add to my collection.

I hope the majority can hang on for another few weeks. I believe most can. I think I’ll loose the Raja’s, Strawberry shortcake looks like death, ARC Master Yoda and JF Fox flame are bad. Can’t believe they haven’t RTN yet.

I would run carbon to try and remove as much as you can, but I’m unsure if the ivermectin will bind to the carbon. In the animal health world, if an animal has signs of ivermectin poisoning we use activated charcoal to induce vommitting in order to clear out as much as possible. There are farmers that will also feed a diuretic as well to “flush out both ends”.

The dose of 15ml seemed very high to me. I would have recommended a dose in the 3-5ml, and have it diluted by 5:1 ratio of water to dosage, maybe even 10:1 and dose slowly.

Now, as for the medication itself causing rtn and tissue loss or other issues with coral. I just don’t know. It could be the medicine, but with how it works I don’t know if coral possess the receptors needed to for the medication to have any effect on them. That said, it could be the other ingredients in the solution that are causing the issues. I would guess that the propylene glycol or other solvent that could be causing the issues. In human products it’s used allot in soaps and cosmetics to help pull moisture into the skin. Could the coral be pulling in the glycol into its cells causing issues? Sure, but again no one can say for sure. I would lean towards this, only do to the sheer volume of solvent in the solution when compared to the volume of medication.

If anyone were to attempt to dose ivermectin for a dip I would try to get tablets of some kind or capsules if available.

I know that carbon can strip some elements and leach others, but if adding carbon has seemed to help, I would run it and change frequently. You’re trying to solve a problem, and worrying about trace elements from carbon use shouldn’t be a factor. Stop the death and issues, then take care of imbalances caused by carbon.

If you’re dead set against the carbon, I would be doing water changes every day to get as much out of the water as possible.

Take everything I said with a grain of salt, as I’m speculating based on experience with ivermectin with cattle and pigs.

 

[Dburr1014]

I would guess that the propylene glycol or other solvent that could be causing the issues. In human products it’s used allot in soaps and cosmetics to help pull moisture into the skin. Could the coral be pulling in the glycol into its cells causing issues? Sure, but again no one can say for sure. I would lean towards this, only do to the sheer volume of solvent in the solution when compared to the volume of medication.

If anyone were to attempt to dose ivermectin for a dip I would try to get tablets of some kind or capsules if available.

That's interesting! Never even occurred to me about glycol in the stuff.

I used the same bottle as the OP as a dip. I dipped my whole aquascape. The differance being it went from the dip to a rinse vessel with GAC and then to a larger tank with clean water(and more GAC). 75G to 150G.
I did not experience any of the OP problems. In fact, I added snails within a week to test and other inverts within two weeks of the dip. Everything has survived(but one old shrimp that died after 2 months) and still fine today(been 3 months since).
Urchins, snails, hermits, clam, serpant stars, shrimp, ect.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I would run carbon to try and remove as much as you can, but I’m unsure if the ivermectin will bind to the carbon. In the animal health world, if an animal has signs of ivermectin poisoning we use activated charcoal to induce vommitting in order to clear out as much as possible. There are farmers that will also feed a diuretic as well to “flush out both ends”.

The dose of 15ml seemed very high to me. I would have recommended a dose in the 3-5ml, and have it diluted by 5:1 ratio of water to dosage, maybe even 10:1 and dose slowly.

Now, as for the medication itself causing rtn and tissue loss or other issues with coral. I just don’t know. It could be the medicine, but with how it works I don’t know if coral possess the receptors needed to for the medication to have any effect on them. That said, it could be the other ingredients in the solution that are causing the issues. I would guess that the propylene glycol or other solvent that could be causing the issues. In human products it’s used allot in soaps and cosmetics to help pull moisture into the skin. Could the coral be pulling in the glycol into its cells causing issues? Sure, but again no one can say for sure. I would lean towards this, only do to the sheer volume of solvent in the solution when compared to the volume of medication.

If anyone were to attempt to dose ivermectin for a dip I would try to get tablets of some kind or capsules if available.

I know that carbon can strip some elements and leach others, but if adding carbon has seemed to help, I would run it and change frequently. You’re trying to solve a problem, and worrying about trace elements from carbon use shouldn’t be a factor. Stop the death and issues, then take care of imbalances caused by carbon.

If you’re dead set against the carbon, I would be doing water changes every day to get as much out of the water as possible.

Take everything I said with a grain of salt, as I’m speculating based on experience with ivermectin with cattle and pigs.

My original thought on this was, whatever is happening to the corals cannot be the same method of action from ivermectin as is intended.

But I didn't question it much as I assume it's not at all a surprise that it would have affects on other receptors. I couldn't imagine corals were studied during ivermectin development

 

[Reefahholic]

Here’s some interesting data I collected back when I experimented with Peroxide dosing for Ostreopsis Dino’s. This write up came from an Adminstrstor on HumbleFish’s Forum. Her name is Jessican. This was geared towards fish parasites, but her data gives us a glimpse of how it might effect a reef tank with different coral species, but also how UV and GAC play a role with oxidation and toxic byproducts.

I will copy and paste the highlights from my notes, but will also link to the thread at very bottom of the post reply for future reference.

The first thing I want to point out is that this was a in-tank treatment with fish and corals. This was not performed in a quarantine tank.

So let’s take a look below at what Jessican’s experience was like and the doses used. Her data along with others will give us a good starting dose, and baseline for testing the efficacy of H2O2 dosing combined with UV & GAC that could help potentially expedite the removal of Ivermectin.

This is the brand of H2O2 I used before with good results. It’s more pure than what you will buy at the grocery store.

—————————————————

Jessican:

“I personally don’t think treatment in a hospital tank is always practical, especially when you have a large tank with large and/or numerous fish.”

Important! Continue to run carbon while dosing peroxide. It may break the peroxide down faster, but it is necessary to prevent the buildup of toxic byproducts of oxidation.

August 2020 update: Combining UV with peroxide is an advanced oxidation process used in drinking water treatment - the UV makes the peroxide more effective by raising its oxidation potential (in one link that I unfortunately can no longer find on the EPA's website, they stated that UV + peroxide is actually a better oxidizer than ozone or bleach). A number of us here have seen better success after adding UV to the equation. If you have it, use it.

August 2020 update: I have not seen any negative effects on the tanks or its inhabitants from dosing 1mL/5gal of 3% H2O2 for an extended period of time (>6 months).

Treating an active outbreak with H2O2 dosing:

At the beginning of this year, I was faced with a disease outbreak in my Reefer 525 (~139g system). I believe it was velvet.

• Starting dose: 1mL per 8 gallons (15mL) every 12 hours
• Week 2: increased to 1mL per 8 gallons (15mL) every 8 hours
• Week 4: increased to 1mL per 5 gallons (24mL) every 8 hours, and added overnight dosing (1mL every 15 minutes for 6 hours)

If you need help calculating your dosages, @smsreef put together a fantastic spreadsheet that you can download here: Peroxide (H2O2) dosing for parasites in reef tank

I did wind up increasing the dosing frequency after this to every 3 hours, then every 1.5 hours during the day to try to keep the peroxide concentration up. Unfortunately, this is when I started to see algae issues, and wound up with spreading hair algae, as well as diatom and dino outbreaks, despite my nutrients staying relatively high, so I won’t get into that dosing schedule. I backed it off, and ultimately settled on this dosage:

• 1mL per 5 gallons (24mL) every 8 hours, just before lights on, midday, and just after lights off.
• 2mL every 15 minutes for 6 hours overnight (for a total of 48mL, or 2x a normal daytime dose)

Note: I do think it’s important to start at the 1mL/8-10 gallon every 8-12 hours to give the tank time to adjust, and work up to the higher and more frequent dosing.

For reference, using 3% peroxide:

1mL/10gal (40L) = 0.75ppm

1mL/8gal (30L) = 0.9ppm

1mL/5gal (19L) = 1.59ppm

1mL/3gal (11L) = 2.73ppm

1mL/1gal (4L) = 7.5ppm


Other thoughts/concerns:

- Is it 100% reef safe? I'd say no, but what is? There's always a trade-off somewhere. Although I only lost 3 out of 14 fish (21%) with this method, I did lose several inverts and a few corals, although most did survive unscathed (whether the losses were directly due to the peroxide or due to the toxic byproducts that built up when I wasn’t running carbon, I can’t say). August 2020 update: Since re-adding carbon, I haven't had any more mysterious invert or coral losses, despite continuing to dose peroxide. In fact, things are thriving - see the FTS at the bottom of the page. I'm chalking these losses up to not using carbon early in the dosing. September 2020 update: I've since determined that the coral losses occurred not because of the lack of carbon, but because I dosed fenbendazole that was mislabeled as praziquantel. This might also explain some of the invert losses (especially snails) as well.

Invert losses: All trochus, margarita, and turbo snails, 1 tropical abalone, 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 pincushion urchin, and 1 maxima clam (not dead yet, but not looking great, so I expect I'll likely lose it)

Coral losses: Only softies/polyps (pipe organ coral, toadstool leather, finger leather, purple gorgonian, several kenya trees)

Invert survivors: All nerite, cerith, and bumblebee snails, all money cowries, 1 tropical abalone, fighting conch, electric flame scallop, various hermit/pitho/strawberry/pom pom crabs, rock flower/BTA/mini carpet anemones, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 sexy shrimp 3 urchins (tuxedo, short spine, and Halloween), and 1 maxima clam. The BTAs actually continued to split like crazy while I was doing this – there were probably 12 in the tank when I started, and that number at least doubled.

Coral survivors: SPS frags (pocillapora, millepora, digitata, bonsai acro, various montis, psammacora, potato chip, elephant skin), large monti cap, variety of LPS (frogspawns, hammers, torches, cristata, acans, favias, pearl bubble, leptastrea, gonis/alveoporas, moseleya, fungia plate, turbinara, duncans, lobos, galaxea, blastos, candy cane, pectinia), one zoa colony (it actually went from 2 polyps to 5), and several mushrooms.

Link to full write-up and thread below:

How To - Peroxide (H2O2) dosing for parasites in reef tank

***Current dosing recommendation for active outbreaks, using 3% hydrogen peroxide*** (a TLDR for people who just need to know how to get started) Week 1: 1mL/8g, 3x per day Week 2: 1mL/5g, 3x per day Week 3: 1mL/5g, 3x per day, plus overnight dosing. Continue the week 3 dosing regimen for a...

humble.fish

Other interesting information with Biome testing:

 

[Reefahholic]

Might score about 100lbs of Marshall Islands rock for the new scape to add in with the LR. Very light and porus. Those two larger pieces only weigh 8 lbs, but looks like the scale says 84lbs.

“Real reef rock Totoka, Marshall(yes it is). I collected genuine live rock for 10 years, piece by piece. $300 (absurdly firm) around 100lbs.”

*See the picture with two football sized rocks at 8lbs, ridiculously porous.

(The purple one is from a star polyp mat)

 

[Vested]

Might score about 100lbs of Marshall Islands rock for the new scape to add in with the LR. Very light and porus. Those two larger pieces only weigh 8 lbs, but looks like the scale says 84lbs.

“Real reef rock Totoka, Marshall(yes it is). I collected genuine live rock for 10 years, piece by piece. $300 (absurdly firm) around 100lbs.”

*See the picture with two football sized rocks at 8lbs, ridiculously porous.

(The purple one is from a star polyp mat)

GRAB IT, especially the branching pieces... ******. Little bleach, acid bath and they will be good as new

 

[FraghouseCorals]

@Reefahholic man I’m really sorry to hear it’s not working out! I had high hopes! One thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that you found new worms…. If the ivermectin is still leaching wouldn’t it kill the worms that are now surfacing in the corals post treatment? Super bummed to hear some worms made it through this ordeal! I appreciate the effort and documentation you’ve put out there for us to read! These worms are a problem in our hobby and I see them in almost every tank! Even had a good buddy well known vendor loose it all to these suckers!

 

[Reefahholic]

GRAB IT, especially the branching pieces... ******. Little bleach, acid bath and they will be good as new

Man, the guy is MIA now. Heh! I asked if he would do 1/2 or 50lbs for $150 because his original asking price was $300 for 100lbs. That is not low-balling him, but I only need only 50lbs, because I’m doing LR as well. Not sure if that ticked him off or what. Maybe he’s just at work. I really want that rock. Nothing better than the real deal calcium carbonate rock especially from the Marshall Islands. I PM him back and said I’d take it all so we will see if he will do it now. Fingers crossed, otherwise I’m going to mix Caribsea with KP Aquatics LR. Caribsea would be easier on the eyes at least for the first year being coralline colored already, but that is the only perk. This Marshall island rock is similar to Pukani. Great stuff. I’ll just have to bleach it, and then hit it with a mild acid bath to make sure it’s clean.

 

[Reefahholic]

@Reefahholic man I’m really sorry to hear it’s not working out! I had high hopes! One thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that you found new worms…. If the ivermectin is still leaching wouldn’t it kill the worms that are now surfacing in the corals post treatment? Super bummed to hear some worms made it through this ordeal! I appreciate the effort and documentation you’ve put out there for us to read! These worms are a problem in our hobby and I see them in almost every tank! Even had a good buddy well known vendor loose it all to these suckers!

Not gonna lie, I had high hopes too. It caught me off-guard.

Yeah, definitely found new worms. It’s weird because there’s also baby bristle worms that made it. Not sure how they survived because at only 3mL’s those things were blowing by first with Pods in the flow by the hundreds. I think some got under my starboard as that’s where I saw the first couple worms emerging from. Maybe some detritus pockets under there that blocked the medication. I’m seeing them actively crawling around now, but very few. It begs the question though. If the rocks are leaching, then it must be a very low potency, but still enough to really irritate the corals. I guess maybe because the initial dose was so high, and they’re already damaged.

The corals keep changing all kinds of colors and the bases become a really light cream-pale colored on a lot of pieces almost white. Still seeing some species put out this strange menstrual filament stress response. It’s really odd. Still very few Spionid. All the little ones on the rocks are dead. Some of the ones in the base of the corals somehow made it. I think they crawled up inside the corals skeleton.

Tank is an absolute mess, but I haven’t touched it. It seems to be hitting a little bit of an equilibrium after 22 days, but the corals still look pretty bad. Surprisingly I’ve only lost one Acropora.

This chart below is almost identical to what I’ve seen in the system. It’s goes from high to low.

It’s like the medication just kinda keeps going up and down in potency. I guess this will happen until it finally completely dissipates or complete degradation occurs which I won’t be waiting around for. Temp tank is up. It’s wet. Just installed American DJ Power Strip today. LR will be here Wednesday, and I’ll throw a medium Regal tang in there with it. Have a Aquaclear 70 HOB that will circulate the water with some Nero 5’s. That should get the job done for a few months while I clean the other system. Still need to mount my Radions and move the Kalk over when I transfer. Will get a heater in there tonight. The messed up thing is all the corals have cyano and dino’s on the plugs which will definitely add it to this new temporary system. So that will probably be a battle for a little bit.

 

[Reefahholic]

Score!!! There’s some Pukani in here too I believe.

Fit about 90% in this 32/G brute. Will bleach and then mild acid bath later.

 

[Reefahholic]

Just got an Ozone Generator for free. Not sure if this will work well or not. Never ran one and not familiar at all with it.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Just got an Ozone Generator for free. Not sure if this will work well or not. Never ran one and not familiar at all with it.

I've heard it's best to try and run it on its own skimmer and to run carbon on the skimmers air output to prevent the O3 from being an issue I'm your air, but I don't think it's necessary, just a recommendation from people who have the space to do so.

Also it can have a pretty strong affect on your skimming, idk of that could make it super wet, I kind of assume worrying about overflow from O3 being pumped in isn't the typical worry, but I would watch for it on my first run.

 

[Reefahholic]

I can’t believe my Vietnamese friends are having good success with Ivermectin treatment. One guy has treated his system twice. We warned his friend to hold off, but he wanted to treat anyway. I think he did a lower dose.

The common denominator between the two of them is that they’re both running Ozone, and I believe this may be the key in the future. Ozone with low dose of like 2-3 mL per 100/G. I hope the 2nd guy will do a write up and add here so we can see how his tank responded and the dose used.

Check it out, first guy said he’d use Ivermectin again in the future.

 

[Minifoot77]

Maybe try your new ozone through a skimmer and see how the tank looks in a day... what is their orp or do they measure it?

 

[Reefahholic]

Maybe try your new ozone through a skimmer and see how the tank looks in a day... what is their orp or do they measure it?

He used 45mL to 1500/L volume. So that’s like 396/G.

They don’t let ORP go above 380, but not sure what they’re running at. He said he does about 2 hrs a day, but if problems then longer.

 

[Reefahholic]

Man these guys are lucky so far! Must be a Vietnamese thing! This was the 45mL to 1500/L system. I hope he doesn’t have problems. That system and scape are beautiful.

 

[Pntbll687]

So I’ve been doing some reading on ivermectin beyond use in animals.

Came across this study where they removed ivermectin from water solution using bentonite clay (pourus, but softer material than what we use in reef tanks. It can be fed to animals to absorb material in the gut).

Removal of ivermectin from aqueous media using commercial, bentonite-based organophilic clay as an adsorbent | Clay Minerals | Cambridge Core

Removal of ivermectin from aqueous media using commercial, bentonite-based organophilic clay as an adsorbent - Volume 57 Issue 1

www.cambridge.org

It makes me think that the ivermectin gets “into” the rock and would stay there. Not sure how long it would stay active in a saltwater environment. At this point, I think it should only be used as a dip, and any rock that touches the medicated water would need to be rinsed thoroughly and use something like bentonite to remove as much as possible. Maybe a last resort option for worms that you know are actively boroughing and irritating corals.

If anyone was going to try another “wormer “ I would lean toward fenbendazol usually marketed as “safe guard “. It’s labeled for parasites not specifically worms, but has been used to treat gha and bubble algae in low doses. A higher dose in a dip may be useful for removing worms and other critters.

I think no matter what someone chooses in this category of medication, removing it from the water will always be the hardest part. In animals it gets removed through defecation, and is only active in the animal for around 12 days because it is constantly being removed by natural processes.

Whole tank treatment would be a last resort, with a dip, rinse, and quarantine with some type of media to remove to medication being preferred.

Just some thoughts

 

[Reefahholic]

So I’ve been doing some reading on ivermectin beyond use in animals.

Came across this study where they removed ivermectin from water solution using bentonite clay (pourus, but softer material than what we use in reef tanks. It can be fed to animals to absorb material in the gut).

Removal of ivermectin from aqueous media using commercial, bentonite-based organophilic clay as an adsorbent | Clay Minerals | Cambridge Core

Removal of ivermectin from aqueous media using commercial, bentonite-based organophilic clay as an adsorbent - Volume 57 Issue 1

www.cambridge.org

It makes me think that the ivermectin gets “into” the rock and would stay there. Not sure how long it would stay active in a saltwater environment. At this point, I think it should only be used as a dip, and any rock that touches the medicated water would need to be rinsed thoroughly and use something like bentonite to remove as much as possible. Maybe a last resort option for worms that you know are actively boroughing and irritating corals.

If anyone was going to try another “wormer “ I would lean toward fenbendazol usually marketed as “safe guard “. It’s labeled for parasites not specifically worms, but has been used to treat gha and bubble algae in low doses. A higher dose in a dip may be useful for removing worms and other critters.

I think no matter what someone chooses in this category of medication, removing it from the water will always be the hardest part. In animals it gets removed through defecation, and is only active in the animal for around 12 days because it is constantly being removed by natural processes.

Whole tank treatment would be a last resort, with a dip, rinse, and quarantine with some type of media to remove to medication being preferred.

Just some thoughts

Interesting. I wonder how accessible that clay is, and if it would leach anything into the water. Maybe nothing, but is it reef safe.

Fenbendazole has also been effective at eradicating those stubborn blue clove polyps that completely overrun a tank. Not sure what else it works with.

Eliminating Blue Clove Polyps with Fenbendazole

A few years ago, I purchased a rock that had some beautiful Space Monster zoas on it. It also had some Blue Clove Polyp on it as well. I saw the BCP, I knew it was there, I really didn't worry about it at all because I had no idea what it could become. Fast forward....its now everywhere. Its...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Vested]

Interesting. I wonder how assessable that clay is, and if it would leach anything into the water. Maybe nothing, but is it reef safe.

Fenbendazole has also been effective at eradicating those stubborn blue clove polyps that completely overrun a tank. Not sure what else it works with.

Eliminating Blue Clove Polyps with Fenbendazole

A few years ago, I purchased a rock that had some beautiful Space Monster zoas on it. It also had some Blue Clove Polyp on it as well. I saw the BCP, I knew it was there, I really didn't worry about it at all because I had no idea what it could become. Fast forward....its now everywhere. Its...

www.reef2reef.com

https://reefbuilders.com/2023/11/01/my-experience-with-fenbendazole/ sounds like vermetids where ticked but came back, assuming same thing would happen with spionid worms. However may be able todo a much larger dosage if fenbendazole is able to be removed easier then ivermectin?