Re: [Killietalk] Flubendazole in a saltwater quarantine tank

[Rjga at aol_com]

I didn't get onto this thread early enough to see the original post, but I 
have some experience with flubendazole in salt water. When I working with clown 
fish (and feeding lots of baby brine shrimp), I had multiple outbreaks of 
hydroids on the bottom and glass. These are much larger than hydra, but I reasoned 
that flubendazole might work on these pests the same way it works on 
freshwater hydra. I attempted several times to destroy the hydroids with this 
veterinary drug, at pretty large concentrations (not measured, but much larger than I 
use in freshwater), and it had no effect. Either these marine hydroids have a 
different biochemical pathway that is refractory to the drug's effects, or 
something in marine water (most likely ions of salts) inactivates the drug, ties 
up its reactive portion, or doesn't let it be taken up into marine hydroids. 
Those are just guesses. A good starting point (for a grad student) is to 
determine how it works in mammalian nematodes, see if it works on free-living 
nematodes (like microworms), and investigate the physiology of hydra to see if it 
has the same target pathway(s). - Bob Goldstein  

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