Possible Ick?

P

Plague

O.o
Aug 4, 2010
718
0
0
Miami, Fl
My dwarf gourami sometimes will scratch on the surface of ornaments and rocks. But it isn't common, not even uncommon. He rarely does it. I don't know if this is natural. He has been doing this for the 3 months I've had him and he has nothing visible. The only thing I have noticed is that he poops white, but not clear.

I'm a bit iffy on using medications because my best friend has used meds and the fish seem to die after using the meds.

If it turns out he has something should I dose the whole tank? Thanks in advance for the help.

Edit: He has been pooping white real recent, not the entire three months I've had him.
My water parameters are all 0 and I have live plants. He used to be in a 10g but is now in my newly establish 55g. None of the other fish have anything wrong with them. My ph is 7.4.
 
Scratching once in a blue moon is not unusual, but I would keep an eye out to see if the scratching/flashing becomes more frequent.

What do you feed the tank? Do you have a lot of algae? Do you notice him eating a lot of Algae? The poop can be really light in color, or even white looking when a lot of algae is consumed. Is it firm and like little stiff cylindrical tubes, or is is filmy and irregularly shaped, sort of lumpy/stringy?

He may be chowing down on a lot of algae which can cause the poop to be white-ish. As long as it looks firm and well formed he's probably alright.
 
I didn't know gourami's ate algae O.o lol But the tank is newly established and there is no visible algae. There was also no visible algae in the 10g tank. The poo is long, almost like what a typical pleco releases. My only concern is that he hasn't eaten in the new tank. Might be cause he is still getting used to it. My other concern is that there are times were it looks like he has a really really bad scratch and starts to dart around the tank. But it really is rare for him to do any of this. None of my other fish seem to do the same thing.

Forgot to mention what I feed. I been feeding my fish nutrafin flakes and occasionally freeze dried blood worms.
 
White thin zig-zaggy type poop can be an indication of an internal parasitic issue. It can also be caused by other things.

The flashing (scratching) could be an indication of an external parasitic issue. It's not likely Ich since Ich would show up to the human eye as the fish looking like it has salt/sugar sprinkled on it. Some other external parasites will burrow under scales or be much smaller and barely visible. Velvet looks more like a light dusting on the fish... it can be gold to white colored... much smaller than Ich.

Check out the pictures, descriptions, etc. on this page to try and see if you can match up anything. http://web.archive.org/web/20051217230513/http://www.fishpalace.org/disease.html That is an Archived page on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine so it will take a little longer to load than most websites. The original website for Pandora's Fish Disease page is shut down but at least it's saved by the Wayback Machine!

Check to see if AquariaCentral has a sticky on fish poop diagnosis with pictures.
 
I agree with the above.

And actually internal parasites can also cause fish to "flash" due to internal irritation. So I'd highly suggest treating with something like prazipro.

Internal and external parasites are not uncommon in mass produced farmed fish like dwarf gouramis. Personally if I bought a dwarf gourami from a LFS I'd treat right off the bat. They ALWAYS seem to have some kind of parasites.
 
Plague said:
Assuming this was internal parasites, is this contagious to other fish?
Click to expand...

It's generally not unless the fish with the parasites gets eaten by another fish. Though some can be passed if the other fish eat the poop, or the parasite attaches to an intermediate host (such as a snail) and then the fish eats that host.
 
Only reason I ask if other meds would work is because Prazipro is not available to me unless I ordered online. I would like to get it today while I go out and buy my next batch of fish.

Edit: what about quick cure?
There is also Jungle's Parasite buddies. I dunno if any of these would work.
 
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