Southern platy fish with white stringy poop, not eating and staying in the surface

[Billokas]

Hi Everyone,

I am worried about my platies. I have 4 in total, 2 mickey mouse (which are fine) and 2 Southern. Last week one of the southern stop eating, hence the white poop, lost weight and was kinda isolating herself since yesterday the other platy started to have the same behavior.

Last week we noticed that one of our guppies scissor tale had something weird coming out of his anus and we find out it was a Callamanus worm and after an extensive research on the forums to find the treatment (to save the remaining )we administrated eSHA-ndx. Boiled all the decorations made a 50% cleaning as instructed etc. One day after the infected Guppy died and a week after one shrimp died too. its the 3rd shrimp dyeing since we got the tank 3 months ago.

General context - few weeks before i added to the tank 2 shells i found at a beach (washed and boiled) and a real plant... that also added snails to our tank. We have a platy fry of around 31 that are in a breeding net.
At the shop where we bought the plant unfortunately the guy didn't advise to quarantine the plant and after the treatment we removed the plant that is now quarantining. One of the platys exhibiting the behavior is pregnant so weight loss is not too visible but I can assure she's not eating.

I hope I'm still on time to help these little girls.

Current tank:
40L - 27 degrees
5 Guppies scissor tale ( out of 6)
6 Neon Tetra
3 Shrimps (out of 6)
4 Platies (2 mickey mouse and 2 southern (sick))
3 snails - so far
fry of around 31 platies in a breeding net ( might have missed 1 or 2 as i took a picture to count them)

You can tell i am very new to this world, but doing the very best to give them a healthy habitat.

Thanking you,
Andreia

 

[Fishies4Ever]

I’m so sorry. Pretty difficult problem to deal with when your first start out. I personally don’t know how to treat this but I bet Colin_T would know. He’s really good at helping people with sick fish so I would find his account at the bottom and “start a conversation” with him or email him.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Hello there and welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear you've been having troubles, you've come to the right place! Hopefully we can help you out but we may need some more details to see the bigger picture...talking of pictures, photos are really helpful. Take some of the whole tank and the fish, the more the merrier and try to get some close ups if you can.

Testing the water is really important for beginners and especially when something is off in the tank, posting the results here would be helpful too

Thread 'What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.' https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-has-stringy-white-poop.466276/

 

[Colin_T]

Section 3 of the following link has info on deworming fish. If your fish have worms, they got it from the breeder in Asia and it's now in your tank. Just deworm the tank following the directions in the link below and see how they do.

Boiling decorations doesn't do anything except waste power. If your fish are sick, treat the tank with all of them in it so the entire tank is free of the disease or parasite (worms).

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

 

[10 Tanks]

Hello. I believe your tank problems are simple. The tank is too small and the water has too much dissolved waste in it. You really have too many fish. I would have your number of fish in 55 gallons of water. The problem with small tanks is there's not enough water to allow for mistakes in tank management. Sorry for your problems, but you wouldn't have them if you had a much larger tank.

10 Tanks (Now 11)

 

[Billokas]

Hello there and welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear you've been having troubles, you've come to the right place! Hopefully we can help you out but we may need some more details to see the bigger picture...talking of pictures, photos are really helpful. Take some of the whole tank and the fish, the more the merrier and try to get some close ups if you can.

Testing the water is really important for beginners and especially when something is off in the tank, posting the results here would be helpful too

Thread 'What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.' https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-has-stringy-white-poop.466276/

Thank you for your help! Please see attached all the pictures! More focused on the 2 platies that are unwell.
Thank you

 

[Billokas]

I’m so sorry. Pretty difficult problem to deal with when your first start out. I personally don’t know how to treat this but I bet Colin_T would know. He’s really good at helping people with sick fish so I would find his account at the bottom and “start a conversation” with him or email him.

Thank you your help is very much appreciated

 

[Billokas]

Section 3 of the following link has info on deworming fish. If your fish have worms, they got it from the breeder in Asia and it's now in your tank. Just deworm the tank following the directions in the link below and see how they do.

Boiling decorations doesn't do anything except waste power. If your fish are sick, treat the tank with all of them in it so the entire tank is free of the disease or parasite (worms).

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

Thank you Colin, It was actually after reading the post you just sent me that I bought the eSHA-nds and run a treatment. According to the instructions i have to do another one in one week. I will read your article with more attention as i might have missed something.

Thank you so much

 

[Billokas]

Hello there and welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear you've been having troubles, you've come to the right place! Hopefully we can help you out but we may need some more details to see the bigger picture...talking of pictures, photos are really helpful. Take some of the whole tank and the fish, the more the merrier and try to get some close ups if you can.

Testing the water is really important for beginners and especially when something is off in the tank, posting the results here would be helpful too

Thread 'What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.' https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-has-stringy-white-poop.466276/

Hello and thank you for your help i have read the article and it did helped a lot!

 

[Billokas]

Hello. I believe your tank problems are simple. The tank is too small and the water has too much dissolved waste in it. You really have too many fish. I would have your number of fish in 55 gallons of water. The problem with small tanks is there's not enough water to allow for mistakes in tank management. Sorry for your problems, but you wouldn't have them if you had a much larger tank.

10 Tanks (Now 11)

Hi thank you so much for your help! in this case i think the problem are worms!
The fact that i have too many at the moment, because of the babies ( they are still too small) might not help in keeping the water the best for them, but being conscious of that i do 20% water change often. Soon i will give back the babies to the shop.
Apparently the platies got worms and after reading some articles provided here i understand it can be from the plant (that also brought snails) i bought in my usual fish shop.
The guys at the shop seem good professionals, but i am realizing that might be just my impression, because when i got the real plant i asked many questions and they said i could put the plant straight away in the tank.. and i now understand that its better not...
I ran the treatment and one of the platies that was ill is now eating again and pooping normal the other one is still alive but still not fully recovered.

So far i lost a Guppy because of the worms and 2 shrimps because of the treatment... hopefully all my platies survive.

i dont have funds or space at the moment to buy a bugger tank, but i am looking forward to buy a smaller one to put the babies in until they go to their new home and for eventual quarantines that need doing. Do you recommend a online shop that sells second hand ones?
once again thank you so much.

 

[Billokas]

Section 3 of the following link has info on deworming fish. If your fish have worms, they got it from the breeder in Asia and it's now in your tank. Just deworm the tank following the directions in the link below and see how they do.

Boiling decorations doesn't do anything except waste power. If your fish are sick, treat the tank with all of them in it so the entire tank is free of the disease or parasite (worms).

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

Hey , thank you for your help. it does seems worms... i ran the treatment 2 days ago, and the platies look better... one of them still not sure if will survive .

thank you so much

 

[Billokas]

Hello all,

First i would like all the help here in the forum. I think we managed to save the platies. It's still early days... but one of them looks significantly better, the other one still not quite right but it looks better as well.
It looks like it was worms, that came with a real plant that brought snails.... I was able to spot that something was not right because one of the guppies had something weird coming out of his anal fin. That one unfortunately died. But we all seemed to have saved the platies.

I'm learning that unfortunately i can't trust the fish shop staff as they might just be interested in selling.
thank you all!

 

[Colin_T]

Intestinal worms in fish don't come from plants. They come from Asian fish farms that regularly grow ornamental aquarium fishes in sewerage ponds, or they grow daphnia (small crustacean) in sewerage ponds and feed the daphnia to fish. The fish get worms from eating the infected daphnia and pass it on to each other. The ponds containing fish have the fish removed and sold before more fish are added. So worms and worm eggs are left in the pond to infect new fishes being put in the pond to grow. Most aquarium fishes coming from Asian fish farms are regularly exposed to, and or infected with intestinal worms.

 

[10 Tanks]

Hi thank you so much for your help! in this case i think the problem are worms!
The fact that i have too many at the moment, because of the babies ( they are still too small) might not help in keeping the water the best for them, but being conscious of that i do 20% water change often. Soon i will give back the babies to the shop.
Apparently the platies got worms and after reading some articles provided here i understand it can be from the plant (that also brought snails) i bought in my usual fish shop.
The guys at the shop seem good professionals, but i am realizing that might be just my impression, because when i got the real plant i asked many questions and they said i could put the plant straight away in the tank.. and i now understand that its better not...
I ran the treatment and one of the platies that was ill is now eating again and pooping normal the other one is still alive but still not fully recovered.

So far i lost a Guppy because of the worms and 2 shrimps because of the treatment... hopefully all my platies survive.

i dont have funds or space at the moment to buy a bugger tank, but i am looking forward to buy a smaller one to put the babies in until they go to their new home and for eventual quarantines that need doing. Do you recommend a online shop that sells second hand ones?
once again thank you so much.

Hello again. A 20 percent water change leaves 80 percent of the toxic water in the tank. It would be good to remove and replace more water. Here's the rule I follow when it comes to water changes: Tanks less than 30 gallons need half the water changed twice a week. Tanks 30 gallons and larger need half the water changed weekly.

10 (Now 11)

 

[Billokas]

Hello again. A 20 percent water change leaves 80 percent of the toxic water in the tank. It would be good to remove and replace more water. Here's the rule I follow when it comes to water changes: Tanks less than 30 gallons need half the water changed twice a week. Tanks 30 gallons and larger need half the water changed weekly.

10 (Now 11)

thank you, i will certainly do that. i see that with smaller thanks water needs changing more often. thank you so much.