Parasitic Or Bacterial?

[myrtle]

Hi all, over the last couple of months my 120l tank has had bouts of flashing and white, string poo. At first it was the white poo only so I treated with a course of Octozin which seemed to clear it up. About a month later the white poo reappeared with the Threadfins and then the pygmy corys were flashing occasionally, then the pencils started. I began to suspect that the problem was parasitic as opposed to bacterial so started a course of Sterazin which cleared it for several weeks. Yesterday I spotted that one of the Celebes and one of the Threadfins had white poo and has started flashing (just one bout of flashing then stopped).
Nothing has been added to the tank since October so I don't know where this has come from. I feed frozen food "Dutch Select Food" bloodworm and daphnia plus newly hatched brine shrimp, flake (ordinary and veggie) plus the occasional vinegar eels when I'm feeding the fry. I have also spotted one of the Celebes spitting food out.
Tank stats: Ammonia: 0, NitrIte: hard to read but appears to have a very faint pink tint to it. No idea why there should be any nitrite reading, the tank is well filtered with an Eheim Pro 3 which was last cleaned several weeks ago and it is vwery heavily planted. Maybe the test tube wasn't totally clean

, NitrAte: between 5-10 (usually higer due to dosing fertiliser but have held off whilst having problems)
I'm at my wits end with this, I know stocking is quite high but well over filtered and tbh I didn't expect the pencilfish to still be here as they are well over 4 years old and their life span is meant to be 2-3 years! Could the problems come from the frozen food? I thought freezing killed parasites or does it have to be irradiated to kill them? The brine shrimp I feed is hatched by myself so I know it's in clean water.

Can anyone help whith what's causing this, bacteria or parasite , and what else I can do to sort it out? I don't want to move my fry to the tank until I know it's safe and they won't be ready for another month or so anyway but I'd really like to sort this out and I don't want to start just throwing meds at it. I thought about medicated food but if one fish is spitting it out then they wont be ingesting the meds anyway...

 

[loraxchick]

flashing, white poo and spitting food are signs of internal parasites. Are any of the fish bloated or skinny? You mentioned you treated for parasites before. was it a tank treatment or medicated food. For internal parasites need to treat the tank and treat internally with medicated food. Look for a med that has praziquentil metronidizol and flubendazole (combo med containing all or even just two) would be best.
all the best
cheers

 

[myrtle]

Thanks for replying Loraxchick. I have treated with both Serazin and Octozin as I believed it to be parasitic but I don't know if they contain the above ingredients. When they didn't have any affect I tried the bacterial meds. I'll have to get the medicated food online as there's nowhere round here that sells it. Can you recommend a medication that contains the ingredients you mention as I'm not sure which would be best and I don't think the ingredients are shared with the public in the UK!
As of this morning another is looking decidedly ropey, keeping separate, quite lethargic and breathing fast. Her poo is black, she is paler than normal but she doesn't look skinny or bloated. She is the one who was spitting food out the other day