Poo Tang Clan

[Doglover_50]

Okay, play on words of the group's name aside....

what is tang poo supposed to look like? I want to make sure my tang doesn't have worms, but...don't really know what the stuff is supposed to look like. He's asymptomatic, just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

Can I pre-nominate this as Thread of the Month?

Close as I could find to constipated emoticon :thumbdown

 

[slowradio]

i'd second that nomination! lol!

also, props on using "asymptomatic" in a sentance.

my tang's poo is golden and smells like roses...j/k.

 

[frontosa_man80]

my tangs poo is dark green and solid, until one of the other fish bite at it.

 

[Doglover_50]

...my tang's poo can beat up your tang's poo.....

OK, let me be more specific, as I fear worms in this otherwise asymptomatic ;-) fish, great appetite, good behavior, he has a "full figure." Had him around 7 months now, other than popeye early on, always in excellent health, lots and lots of brown seaweed in his diet.

With the excitement of dinner time, he lets loose a stringy B.M., whitish, like alfalfa sprouts, but much thinner and like they've been through a curling iron--very straight. I'd say 1/2 inch long clump of about 4-7 of these, along with stuff that looks like what you expect from a fish.

I've watched closely--never seen the alfalfa sprouts move or do anything wormy.

 

[Philwd]

White and stringy is not a good combo. It is a sign of internal worms. If your fish is eating like a pig but getting skinny that is 2 strikes. I just lost a carpenters wrasse that ate like there was no tomorrow but wasted away over 5 months. Tried de-worming but it didn't help. Had stringy white poo sometimes.

BTW I deworm with praziquantel ; the brand is Prazi-Pro.

 

[Doglover_50]

No Phil NO! Nooooooooo!!
Well, one thing I can tell you is--this fish is NOT losing weight, at least obviously. He has nice full physique.

I had a yellow clown goby in my nano when I first set up my tanks(he never shared water/tank with my tang) who did have stomach parasites--he ate and was emaciated. I did a 30 day treatment with whatever that jungle medicated food is, 30 full days in hospital, he did great and is still alive.

The tang has the alfalfa poos every time, not on and off--I guess I was hoping that might mean it was normal. Denial, I guess. Sounds like I need to take some poophotos for confirmation. Sigh.

 

[buffalobunch]

try soaking the food in garlic. the black and white clowns that I had were doing that. After talking with several lfs here in town the general concensus was to use garlic in their food because the internal parasites don't like it and die. This cured my clowns hth.

 

[bajabum]

Hold in hand, pour RO down mouth. Unfortunately, garlic may be your only option if it is worms, cause there in the tank now. Other option is to quarinteen and drop salinity below 1.009 for a few days. If fish are healthy, I would feed garlic and have a cleaner shrimp.

 

[Doglover_50]

I haven't tried to trap him, PLUS my QT is busy with an incoming flame angel for another 13 days. As long as he continues to look healthy, I hope I don't need to rush.

He will be impossible to catch by hand, so I'll have to try a trap.

Baja, will this need to be the superactive garlic I've seen you write about--crushed up, used with thin 30 minutes, something like that.....? All I have at the moment is garlicguard for the taste. Fortunately, I have a skunk cleaner...I'm not clear how he helps for internal parasites, though?

 

[joeyf]

Is it possible that it is eating some cheato? I used to have a very healthy YT before that would eat cheato, and pooped like that. I did an experiment and removed the cheato to a nano for a week and that poo stopped, and went to the brown-green clumps. Cheato back in, white stringy poo came back.

 

[Salamander]

Aren't there websites dedicated to this sort of poo poo fetish?

 

[Doglover_50]

No Salamander, you are incorrect. The poo poo fetish sites are about "I'll show you my stinky skim if you show me yours."

JoeyF, you've introduced a plausible hypothesis! If this turns out to be it, I'll buy you a drink at a FRAG meeting! As it turns out, my tank doesn't have a refugeum, so in fact, I do keep a clump of chaeto and also the slimey red stuff (don't know the name). And his output does appear to look like bleached out, straightened chaeto! Same width, etc... I do see him eating the red stuff, never the chaeto, but maybe he does eat that, as well. Let's hope that's it! I'll repeat your experiment. The fact that he is a still a fatboy despite the apparent worms would be consistent--if I'm lucky enough that will be the answer.