internal parasite or something else?

[carpenter981]

Hey, Im pretty new to the hobby. My tank has been set up for about 2 months now (60gal) so I decided to get 2 clowns a week ago. I got 2 ocellaris', one orange one black. I noticed the the other night that both of them have stringy white feces hanging from them. Neither of them seem interested in any food Im putting in the tank, slightly heavier breathing. Im putting them in QT. How should I go about treating this if its an internal parasite. If its not, what could it be?

thanks

Jason

 

[Conrad25]

I need more info. Was this tank cycled with Live rock? If it just sat for 2 months with nothing in it and than you just toss clowns in the tank, you are experiencing your clowns breathing hard etc due to the cycle in process. Also your water parameters would be good like salinity, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, ph etc.... More info you give, more I can help. Also a picture would do world wonders in figuring out what is going on.

 

[deangelr]

The "stringy white poop" you see can be from an internal parasite.. usually if your fish has an internal parasite you are in serious trouble.. Antibiotics can be purchased at LFS of online to soak the food in..

Another possiblity is too much Mysis shrimp.. I have had this happen with my clowns.. I fed a pair of clowns a while back only mysis shrimp.. after a week of this diet they would poop white stringy stuff.. a little manipulation of the diet and all was corrected.

If your fish are eating and swimming around then my GUESS is that it is probably diet related.. often a LFS will feed their fish only one food and more often then not that seems to me mysis shrimp

 

[April_Sherwood]

Usually white stringy feces coming from your fish indicate an internal parasite. Sounds like they are going to need to be put into QT with some treatment. I'm sure you'll get more detailed advise but there are quite a few topics on this within the forum. If you go to the Search tab and type in white stringy feces, I'm sure you'll find tons of info you can compare with. Good luck!

 

[carpenter981]

I need more info. Was this tank cycled with Live rock? If it just sat for 2 months with nothing in it and than you just toss clowns in the tank, you are experiencing your clowns breathing hard etc due to the cycle in process. Also your water parameters would be good like salinity, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, ph etc.... More info you give, more I can help. Also a picture would do world wonders in figuring out what is going on.

The tank cycled with live rock. Had the spikes, everything normalized...water parameters are good.

pH 8.2
salinity 1.026 (trying to bring it down a little)
ammonia, nitrite, nitrate all 0

The "stringy white poop" you see can be from an internal parasite.. usually if your fish has an internal parasite you are in serious trouble.. Antibiotics can be purchased at LFS of online to soak the food in..

Another possiblity is too much Mysis shrimp.. I have had this happen with my clowns.. I fed a pair of clowns a while back only mysis shrimp.. after a week of this diet they would poop white stringy stuff.. a little manipulation of the diet and all was corrected.

If your fish are eating and swimming around then my GUESS is that it is probably diet related.. often a LFS will feed their fish only one food and more often then not that seems to me mysis shrimp

That was one of my guesses. I had trouble getting one of them to eat so I gave them frozen brine shrimp. They both ate it and it was not to long after that I noticed it. I havent given them any shrimp since then and its still happening. They are swimming around but not to actively (which they never really did)

 

[deangelr]

It may take them a week or a few weeks to get comfortable and start exploring their new tank. As long as they are eating I would be optimistic, if they stop eating a particular food be sure and have other options.

Change their diet around if they still have the white stringy feces in two days it could be trouble.

 

[Maximus]

I would set up a small hospital tank and use Maracyn 2 for the meds. If they both have white, stringy poop, it sounds like a bacterial infection and/or internal parasites. Make sure you double the dose for Saltwater and dose the meds for a minimum of 5 days.

 

[Arc Katana]

I'll betcha 10 bucks its worms. Prazi-pro (or similar) will cure it. Make sure to remove all carbon from filters. I've gotten wild caught fish in with it, one dose, gone in 2-3 days.

Re-dose if its persistent and won't go away. Only thing I've had it hurt is some smaller tubeworms.

 

[deangelr]

arc katana... I just moved to the tri cities.. are you in WA or TN?


Also, carpenter any word?