Help with Guppy please!

[Nick8888]

Hi all, I’m hoping someone can help me identify what’s going on with my female guppy. This is the second time we’ve seen this sort of poop with her, I’ve read online that it could be a parasite and we have soaked some fish food and garlic today to try to help her. She’s the only one in the tank exhibiting this style poop so I’m not sure what’s going on. Thank you.

https://imgur.com/gallery/6XWoIFl

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The fish looks like it has pushed part of its intestine out of its butt. This happens sometimes and the intestine normally goes back inside the fish after a few hours. If it doesn't go back in after 24 hours you can carefully and gently catch the fish in a net and gently rub your finger along the belly a couple of times. Do this very gently otherwise you can harm the fish. Keep the fish under water when you do this.

Feeding the fish too much dry food can encourage this, especially when fish are inbred like guppies. Feed the fish a varied diet consisting of dry, fresh, frozen (but defrosted) and live foods to help avoid these problems. Make sure there is some plant matter in the diet or grow algae on the glass or ornaments so the fish can graze on that.

The fish looks pretty skinny too, especially around the face. It probably has gill flukes and intestinal worms. You can try treating the tank with Praziquantel (available from pet shops) to kill any gill flukes and tapeworms in the fish. And look for some Levamisole to treat thread/ round worms in fish.
*NB* Do not use the medications at the same time.

Treat all the fish in all tanks at the same time. You treat them once a week for 3 weeks so you kill the adults and any baby worms that hatch from eggs in the fish. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate 24-48 hours after treatment. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

 

[Nick8888]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The fish looks like it has pushed part of its intestine out of its butt. This happens sometimes and the intestine normally goes back inside the fish after a few hours. If it doesn't go back in after 24 hours you can carefully and gently catch the fish in a net and gently rub your finger along the belly a couple of times. Do this very gently otherwise you can harm the fish. Keep the fish under water when you do this.

Feeding the fish too much dry food can encourage this, especially when fish are inbred like guppies. Feed the fish a varied diet consisting of dry, fresh, frozen (but defrosted) and live foods to help avoid these problems. Make sure there is some plant matter in the diet or grow algae on the glass or ornaments so the fish can graze on that.

The fish looks pretty skinny too, especially around the face. It probably has gill flukes and intestinal worms. You can try treating the tank with Praziquantel (available from pet shops) to kill any gill flukes and tapeworms in the fish. And look for some Levamisole to treat thread/ round worms in fish.
*NB* Do not use the medications at the same time.

Treat all the fish in all tanks at the same time. You treat them once a week for 3 weeks so you kill the adults and any baby worms that hatch from eggs in the fish. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate 24-48 hours after treatment. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Thanks for the reply. I haven’t seen flukes at all on her or any other fish, and she’s the only one who is this skinny. Aren’t parasites infectious? I had assumed other fish would exhibit similar symptoms if we had parasites.

She does have a varied diet, we feed a mix of shrimp pellets, flake food, dried brine, and occasionally some Betta and Cichlid pellets since we also have those in other tanks. The tank is also decently planted which does have algae growth as well.

I think you’re right about the intestines though. This happened before and the problem seemed to have resolved itself, then it was back yesterday before my post.

 

[Colin_T]

You can't see gill flukes unless you cut a piece of gill off the fish and stick it under a microscope. All fish can catch parasites but it depends on the overall health of the fish. If a fish has a weaker immune system or has more parasites, it will lose condition faster than fish with only a few parasites.

Even tho you feed the fish a varied diet, all the foods are dry. I would add some frozen (but defrosted) food to their diet. Daphnia, brineshrimp and marine mix are pretty good foods to try.

 

[fish48]

Feeding the fish too much dry food can encourage this, especially when fish are inbred like guppies.
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guppies should have live food added to the diet as in living and not as in frozen. I regularly feed my guppies on live foods and very rarely do I have any problems with guppies suffering with prolapse my be it's too much dry food and the lack of Life foods it has nothing to do with the fish being inbred