Going on holiday soon, fish pooping white.

[FishFriend0]

Hello, a few days ago i noticed a few fish (platys and guppies) pooping white stringy poop. I have added one dose of flubendazole 3 days ago, it has not had any effect. One of the fish in particular is getting thinner, doesn’t want to eat and is often hiding. I am struggling to identify what is the problem as some sources on the internet say it is intestinal mucus caused by high temperature in the tank (mine is 25.8 degrees celsius)or not feeding enough (I feed them the same amount each day, twice a day). But apparently if it is some sort of parasite, the poop would be moving, which it is not. Although, at one point, I removed what I thought was a poop with a pipette and put it into some water. It did not move but when I moved it around with my pipette it did not break apart like a poop would. Also, I was hoping to do a water change today before I go but is that ok to do without adding any more Flubendazole? I am leaving to go on holiday soon so I am in quite a rush to get this sorted. I would have said this sooner but I was waiting for the flubendazole to work.

 

[FishFriend0]

These are a few

 

[Ichthys]

This is probably intestinal roundworms. Flubendazole will kill tapeworms, but not roundworms. Since you're in the UK, the best course of action would be a full course of Sterazin. It's a 10 day course.

 

[Colin_T]

Flubendazole kills flat and round worms

If the fish isn't eating, it either has an internal bacterial or protozoan infection. See link below

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Sleeveless]

I went through this not too long ago. Treated with Flubendazole as well. Haven't had an issue since. I did multiple rounds of it and very detail weekly cleaning of the tank.

 

[FishFriend0]

Ok I will try some API general cure next, thanks

 

[Ichthys]

Flubendazole kills flat and round worms

If the fish isn't eating, it either has an internal bacterial or protozoan infection. See link below

So it does, my mistake.

But I'm sure with your knowledge and experience that you must be aware of many more reasons why a fish would not eat, other than internal bacterial or protozoan infections. For one thing it's a very common symptom of a heavy worm infestation.

 

[gwand]

It took me two consecutive treatments with flubendazole to cure my worm problem after API General Cure failed to work. So I assume I had a roundworm problem since API general cure does not work on roundworms.

 

[Ichthys]

I would never use a product called "general cure". It may be a good product, but the name suggests it's anything but.

 

[gwand]

API General Cure Contains Praziquantel & metronidazole. It states it treats a wide variety of parasitic diseases including velvet, hole-in-the-head disease (Hexamita spp. & Spironucleus), gill & skin flukes (Dactylogyrus ). Flat worm cure too. Won’t work for round worms.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Ok I will try some API general cure next, thanks

Since you're in the UK, I recommend the eSHa products for worms, both NDX and GDEX, to treat both round and flatworms. Super, super likely to have both when you're dealing with livebearers in particular.

But given that you're going away (how long for?) I'd order both now, then begin treatment once you return, since you'll need to time out and space out the doses according to instructions. Can't do both at once, and involves a gap of time before a repeat treatment for one of them.

But they contain the active ingredients that actually work to kill those types of worms, while a lot of general worming products are little more than snake oil.

Once you've wormed your current tanks (and you want to treat all of your tanks at the same time, trust me, or you'll just pass eggs back and forth between tanks, and not truly eradicate the worms) then you need to quarantine all new fish before adding them to your main tank(s). If getting more livebearers especially, I now automatically worm them while in QT, since the chances they've picked up worms are high, I don't want them to spread through my current fish stock, and it's much cheaper and easier to medicate and observe a ten gallon tank and the new fish, than it is to have to keep repeating courses of worming meds on the main tanks.

 

[Sleeveless]

I used Absolute Wormer Plus by Cloverleaf when treating. It worked very well.

 

[gwand]

I used Absolute Wormer Plus by Cloverleaf when treating. It worked very well.

That’s flubendazole.

 

[Sleeveless]

That’s flubendazole.

Correct. Just posting the specific one I grabbed.

 

[FishFriend0]

I am going for 2 weeks but I have somebody going in to feed. I ordered some eSHa ndx which will arrive for them to add.