Re: parasites

[steve001]

Every week 25% or more water change and vacuum gravel. Fish didn't eat much when I got them. They seem to hate Omega One cichlid pellets and Omega One blood worms. Alternate food ideas? Also my Green Terrors have parasites. The loss of appetite, they eat the food and spit it out. They hide. Monitoring them I noticed they both poop kite string. Last water change saw what looked like QTIP tips where they like to hide. Just added 6 packets of API general cure to my 55 gallon straight to the tank. I removed the carbon first. Gonna treat in 48 hours again and an additional treatment 48 hours after that. Could be the fish won't eat due to the parasites but they are still really hardy so I suspect they eat some later off the gravel. Not sure but after this medication cycle I wish to introduce a new food. Something easy to find like from Petco if possible. Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks, Steve

 

[Colin_T]

Can you start again at the beginning and tell us about the tank, fish, etc?
Post pics and video of the fish.
How long has the tank been set up for?
What symptoms do the fish have?
How long have they been acting this way?
What sort of fish are they?

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You can feed most fish on raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp. Buy it frozen from a bait shop or supermarket and keep it in the freezer. When you want to feed the fish, remove a prawn and defrost it. Take the head, shell and gut from the prawn and throw these bits away. Use a pr of scissors to cut the remaining prawn tail into small bite size pieces. Offer 1 or 2 bits at a time and let the fish eat it. Remove uneaten food when you finish feeding them.

You can also use whitebait, blue sardines, squid, mussel/ clam meat, or most other marine meats.

 

[steve001]

Can you start again at the beginning and tell us about the tank, fish, etc?
Post pics and video of the fish.
How long has the tank been set up for?
What symptoms do the fish have?
How long have they been acting this way?
What sort of fish are they?

---------------------------
You can feed most fish on raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp. Buy it frozen from a bait shop or supermarket and keep it in the freezer. When you want to feed the fish, remove a prawn and defrost it. Take the head, shell and gut from the prawn and throw these bits away. Use a pr of scissors to cut the remaining prawn tail into small bite size pieces. Offer 1 or 2 bits at a time and let the fish eat it. Remove uneaten food when you finish feeding them.

You can also use whitebait, blue sardines, squid, mussel/ clam meat, or most other marine meats.

Every week 25% or more water change and vacuum gravel. Fish didn't eat much when I got them. They seem to hate Omega One cichlid pellets and Omega One blood worms. Alternate food ideas? Also my Green Terrors have parasites. The loss of appetite, they eat the food and spit it out. They hide. Monitoring them I noticed they both poop kite string. Last water change saw what looked like QTIP tips where they like to hide. Just added 6 packets of API general cure to my 55 gallon straight to the tank. I removed the carbon first. Gonna treat in 48 hours again and an additional treatment 48 hours after that. Could be the fish won't eat due to the parasites but they are still really hardy so I suspect they eat some later off the gravel. Not sure but after this medication cycle I wish to introduce a new food. Something easy to find like from Petco if possible. Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks, Steve

 

[steve001]

55 gallon, cycled, 2 hob 70 gallon fluval filters, 2 bubblers, have a powerhead, runs 3 sporadic hours a day. Tank temp is at 80. Got a Green Terror, guy netted 2 played bad English game. Felt sorry for the 2nd one he netted, deformed tail. Nobody would buy him. So got 2. They ate initially but cut way down for the last month and a half. They never really seemed to go after the food. I had Oscars in the past w other cooling fish but they all ate until they died. Just learned how to run a tank proper this round. I see white kite string poop and infrequent. They seem hardy but don't eat. I do a tiny pinch for food yet see food when I vacuum the tank. When I feed them they spit out the food. Also last vacuum of the tank saw what looked like 3 QTIP heads. Well added 6 packs of API general cure yesterday, removed carbon. They seem more active than usual today, good sign.

 

[Colin_T]

Have you checked the water quality for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?
If yes, what are the results in numbers?

How long has the tank been set up for?
How often do you do water changes and how much do you change?
How often do you clean the filters and how do you clean them?

They could have an internal protozoan infection or intestinal worms, maybe both.

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Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons.
1) internal bacterial infection causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at 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 infection 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 and might be worth trying.

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, handle with care, don't 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, do a stringy white poop. Fish can do this for months and not be too badly affected. In some cases, fish with 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.

You can use Praziquantel to treat tapeworm and gill flukes. And Levamisole to treat thread/ round 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 3-4 weeks. The first treatment will kill any worms in the fish. The second and third treatments kill any baby worms that hatch from eggs inside the fish's digestive tract.

You do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment. Clean the filter 24 hours after treatment too.

Treat every fish tank in the house at the same time.

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 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.