Does this poop indicate parasites?

[cherryshrimp]

I had 2 guppys die after developing very stringy poop, so I treated the tank with Paracleanse. I have done 3 rounds of treatment, each 2 weeks apart, just finished the 3rd round a few days ago. I have not seen any stringy poop since treating, but yesterday I noticed a bunch of stringy poop near the BN pleco. Hard to tell if it came from him, but I believe it did. Below is a pic of the guppy who passed a month ago, and then a pic of the poop I saw yesterday. Any input or advice is appreciated, thank you!

 

[Colin_T]

What are the ingredients in Paracleanse?

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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 cured because massive internal organ failure has already occurred.


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2) Internal Protozoan Infections cause the fish to lose weight rapidly (over a week or two), fish continues to eat and swim around but not as much as normal, does stringy white poop. If not treated the fish dies a week or so after these symptoms appear. Metronidazole normally works well for this.

There is a medication (API General Cure) that contains Praziquantel and Metronidazole.

It's interesting that API and the Californian government have listed Metronidazole as a carcinogen. That's a concern considering it was widely used to treat intestinal infections in people.

Anyway, if you use this or any medication, handle with care, don't ingest or inhale the medication, and wash hands with soapy water after treating the fish or working in the tank.


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3) Intestinal Worms like tapeworm and threadworms cause the fish to lose weight, continue eating and swimming normally, and do a stringy white poop. Fish can do this for months and not be too badly affected. In some cases, fish with a bad worm infestation will actually gain weight and get fat and look like a pregnant guppy. This is due to the huge number of worms inside the fish.

Livebearers like guppies, mollies, swordtails & platies are regularly infected with gill flukes and intestinal worms. If the fish are still eating well, then worms is the most likely cause.

You can use Praziquantel to treat tapeworm and gill flukes. And Levamisole to treat thread/ round worms. If you can't find these medications, look for Flubendazole, which treats both lots of worms.

Remove carbon from filters before treatment and increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

You treat the fish once a week for 4 weeks. The first treatment will kill any worms in the fish. The second, third and forth treatments kill any baby worms that hatch from eggs inside the fish's digestive tract.

Treat every fish tank in the house at the same time to prevent cross contamination.
You do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment.
Clean the filter 24 hours after treatment too.

Do not use the 2 medications together. If you want to treat both medications in a short space of time, use Praziquantel on day one. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate on day 2 & 3. Treat the tank with Levamisole on day 4 and do a 75% water change and gravel clean on day 5, 6 & 7 and then start with Praziquantel again on day 8.

The water changes will remove most of the medication so you don't overdose the fish the next time you treat them. The gravel cleaning will suck out any worms and eggs that have been expelled by the fish. Repeating the treatment for 3-4 doses at weekly intervals will kill any worms that hatch from eggs. At the end of the treatment you will have healthier fish.

 

[cherryshrimp]

What are the ingredients in Paracleanse?

-----------------------
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 cured because massive internal organ failure has already occurred.


-----
2) Internal Protozoan Infections cause the fish to lose weight rapidly (over a week or two), fish continues to eat and swim around but not as much as normal, does stringy white poop. If not treated the fish dies a week or so after these symptoms appear. Metronidazole normally works well for this.

There is a medication (API General Cure) that contains Praziquantel and Metronidazole.

It's interesting that API and the Californian government have listed Metronidazole as a carcinogen. That's a concern considering it was widely used to treat intestinal infections in people.

Anyway, if you use this or any medication, handle with care, don't ingest or inhale the medication, and wash hands with soapy water after treating the fish or working in the tank.


-----
3) Intestinal Worms like tapeworm and threadworms cause the fish to lose weight, continue eating and swimming normally, and do a stringy white poop. Fish can do this for months and not be too badly affected. In some cases, fish with a bad worm infestation will actually gain weight and get fat and look like a pregnant guppy. This is due to the huge number of worms inside the fish.

Livebearers like guppies, mollies, swordtails & platies are regularly infected with gill flukes and intestinal worms. If the fish are still eating well, then worms is the most likely cause.

You can use Praziquantel to treat tapeworm and gill flukes. And Levamisole to treat thread/ round worms. If you can't find these medications, look for Flubendazole, which treats both lots of worms.

Remove carbon from filters before treatment and increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

You treat the fish once a week for 4 weeks. The first treatment will kill any worms in the fish. The second, third and forth treatments kill any baby worms that hatch from eggs inside the fish's digestive tract.

Treat every fish tank in the house at the same time to prevent cross contamination.
You do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment.
Clean the filter 24 hours after treatment too.

Do not use the 2 medications together. If you want to treat both medications in a short space of time, use Praziquantel on day one. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate on day 2 & 3. Treat the tank with Levamisole on day 4 and do a 75% water change and gravel clean on day 5, 6 & 7 and then start with Praziquantel again on day 8.

The water changes will remove most of the medication so you don't overdose the fish the next time you treat them. The gravel cleaning will suck out any worms and eggs that have been expelled by the fish. Repeating the treatment for 3-4 doses at weekly intervals will kill any worms that hatch from eggs. At the end of the treatment you will have healthier fish.

I just examined the BN pleco and he has very long poops like the one pictured above coming out of him. He seems to be the worst impacted, currently at least.

Thanks for this answer. Paracleanse is the same exact ingredients as General cure. #3 is the exact scenario I seem to be experiencing, and you don't list General cure as a solution. This might explain it, my guppies have been infected for months and the zebra danios in the tank have developed flukes!

I have Levamisole, and I can get Praziquantel in the form of Prazipro (A proprietary blend of water-soluable ingredients, Oxybispropanol (as an inert solubilizing agent) & <5% Praziquantel by Weight.) I will begin Levamisole treatment today. I have not used it yet on this tank because it has seemed very harsh when using it in the past.

Do I really need to treat every tank in the house? I have 2 other tanks that are doing well. I have been fighting the tape worms for 4-5 months now, so it has become protocol to always work on this tank last. Every tank has its own equipment. Can the tapeworms really spread on my hands?

Thanks again for the help, very nice to be able to narrow this down.

 

[Colin_T]

Before you treat the tank, do the following things.
Work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the bottom of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

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Levamisole is very safe for fish and the only issues I have seen, have been when it was massively overdosed, or when used on small/ baby fish. When this happened, the fish became nervous and skittish a few hours after treatment. I did a 50% water change and the fish were fine and acted normal after the water change.

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The reason you treat all tanks at the same time is to prevent cross contamination. The worm larvae or eggs can be transmitted from tank to tank via water on your hands or gravel cleans, sponges, plants, snails or anything that comes from an infected tank.

Eggs and larvae can be transmitted to fish via live foods that come from contaminated water ways or water bodies that have water birds.

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Praziquantel and Levamisole work within a few hours of being added to the tank. Using a full dose once a week for 4 weeks is sufficient to get rid fo any thread and tapeworms and gill flukes in fish. If there are still gill flukes or stringy white poop after that, then there is something else going on, or the medication has expired.

Medications should be kept in a cool dry dark place because heat, moisture and bright light can cause the ingredients to break down. You should also check the expiry date on any medications to make sure they haven't gone off.

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Salt works well for killing gill flukes. Use 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt for every 20 litres (5 gallons) of tank water. Keep the salt in the tank for 2-4 weeks, then stop using it.