Do my fish have parasites?

M

mcybyk

AC Members
Jan 9, 2008
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Cuyahoga Falls, OH
I've been searching other post about stringy white poo but have not been able to find a satisfactory answer to whether or not I have a problem. Here is the situation:

2 mickey mouse platies have been in a 40g cycled tank since 1/10/08. There were originally 4, but 2 died for some unknown reason. I added a dwarf gourami on 1/18/08 and an angel fish on 1/20. I did a 25% water change on 1/19. All of my readings have been consistent, with zero ammonia, zero nitrites and 0-5 nitrates since setting up the tank (I used media from another established tank).

This morning, one of the platies had what appeared to be a white stringy trailing behind. I could not quite tell if it was poo since it was slightly trailing off the side of her body. I asked my wife to keep an eye on all the fish since I was concerned about parasites. After having just spoken to her, she informed me that she saw the same platy having a regular bowel movement, with your standard black poo.

Do I have a possibility of parasites, or is it that an infected fish will always have white stringy poo when ill? I don't want to treat for something that isn't there.

As always, thanks for the help.
 
ive seen it from my fish and then regular poops. I think your fine.
 
I would keep an eye, sometimes fish will also get white stringy poo from food. Did you feed anything different?
I had good luck feeding metronidazole medicated food (antiparasitic food made by Jungle) mixed with crushed garlic to my fish when i was suspicious of intestinal parasites.
 
msjinkzd said:
I would keep an eye, sometimes fish will also get white stringy poo from food. Did you feed anything different?
I had good luck feeding metronidazole medicated food (antiparasitic food made by Jungle) mixed with crushed garlic to my fish when i was suspicious of intestinal parasites.
Click to expand...

All of the fish have been eating Tetra Color flake food. I did buy some bloodworms as a treat this weekend, which this platy did eat.

I will continue to monitor. Am I correct to understand that fish like crushed garlic? Or do you use it strictly for medicinal purposes?
 
the white poop thing is only a worry if it persists over a few days/week or so, maybe even a bit longer. Its not that unusual for a fish to have lets say a bit of an upset tummy briefly, just like people.
 
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