Potential Parasite?

[HoldenOn]

Hello all,

I am out of town for about 4 days and entrusted my tank to my father. He always does well and I never have any problems upon my return. Today he sent me a video saying he noticed something odd hanging off of my Bolivian Ram. It looks like it could be a parasite, but the only thing I've added in the last 3 months are PetSmart Tissue Culture plants. I'd appreciate any input, cheers.

 

[itiwhetu]

Looks like a poo to me

 

[itiwhetu]

That is a nice-looking Ram

 

[GaryE]

It's stringy poop. I would watch that fish closely, as it is very thin and it could have worms. Maybe. It could also be age, or a range of mild things. Personally, while I am not a big fishmed user, I would see how the fish was doing and maybe give it a precautionary dose of praziquantel.

 

[HoldenOn]

Thank you both! I figured it was a poop as well. I've had that male for a while, and he's always been gorgeous. I'll keep an eye on him and respond back on this thread of anything goes wrong.

 

[Colin_T]

The following link has information about stringy white poop in fish. It might interest you.

If the fish is eating well then treat it for intestinal worms.

If the fish isn't eating well, then it probably has an internal protozoan infection and Metronidazole it the medication of choice.

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

 

[HoldenOn]

I have a feeling it's due to the fish not having enough food reach it. My black widow tetras do snap up most of the flake food before it sinks, and I don't have my dad put sinking pellets in as I want to avoid over feeding. White poop can be caused by under eating right? Either way, I get home today and I'll do some observation and make an informed decision based off what I see. Thank you all for your input.

 

[HoldenOn]

I just got home, things seem off. The ram did have intention to eat, but ate very little, I'm not sure if not enough reached him and he's lethargic from lack of food or what. I also noticed one of my female corydoras acting highly irregular. She is zig zagging and curling into a U, as well as has a swollen stomach.

 

[Colin_T]

The Corydoras in the video is breathing heavily/ rapidly.
What is the water quality like (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH)?

White poop is not caused by under eating or lack of food. It is caused by an internal bacterial infection, or an internal protozoan infection, or intestinal worms.

How often are you doing water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate new water before adding it to the aquarium?

What sort of filter is on the tank?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

What do you feed the fish?
How often do you feed the fish?

--------------------
Basic First Aid For Fish
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[HoldenOn]

Thank you for your response Colin. I recently reinvested myself in fish keeping, my tank had major old tank syndrome and I was not maintaining it. I have done 2 waterchanges in the last 2 weeks, both around 40%. I vacuumed both times, as well as dechlorinated and added Flourish and Aquarium Salt. Before these I had not done a water change in a long time. I added several tissue culture plants from PetSmart, but nothing else in many months. I feed my fish once daily with a single sinking fresh pellet and a pinch of Tropical Bug Bite Flakes. I cleaned the filter two weeks ago, and it is a Fluval Aquaclear 30. I also have an airstone running that I setup around the time of my first waterchange two weeks ago.

 

[Colin_T]

Because it's got old tank syndrome, just do a 40% water change every couple of days for 2-3 weeks. This should help get conditions back up to good. Make sure you gravel clean each time you do a water change.

Feed the fish more variety and more often. Offer flake food first and then add some frozen or live foods. See how they go and if they haven't improved after a week, post more pictures and videos. And monitor their poop.

 

[HoldenOn]

Perfect thank you so much Colin! I'll update this with any developments, and if there aren't any, I'll come back in a week or two to give a check-in.

 

[HoldenOn]

Hello all! Just a quick update! All the fish are doing well, no more gasping or erratic movement. The Ram is eating alot more and putting on some weight. Water parameters are all good. Gonna give the tank another few weeks and then work on restocking with more corydoras and potentially tying to get my rams to spawn. Thank you all so much for your help!

 

[HoldenOn]

And by spawn I mean pair off, which requires me getting more rams. Not sure how to do it 100% properly, but I'll start a separate thread for that.

 

[Colin_T]

The easiest way to get a pair of rams (either normal blue rams or the Bolivian rams) or most cichlids is to buy a group of 8-10 young fish and put them together. Let them pair off naturally, then move the prs to their own tanks.

If you only want one pr, let a few of them pr off and once they spawn and rear up the young, get rid of any fish you don't want to keep and just have the 1 pr.