White poo - and I should have known better [Archive]

View Full Version : White poo - and I should have known better

Sean

Fri Nov 19, 2004, 07:28 AM

Howdy, I am wondering if anyone can give me advice regarding one fish in particular. I went ot my LFS and was offered 3 adult discus (pidgeon blood) for $20 each and I had already bought the day before a couple of blue turqs which were in my quarr tank. With the addition of an extra 3 adults I overloaded the filter big time (150Lt tank, not cycling for that long) nitrites went up one fish died :cry: and the others hid in the corner and lying sideways. I freaked acting stupidly I put all the fish in my display tank with 7 beautiful discus and as you would expect big disaster - every fish includng rummy noses and clown loaches and every discus develped white spot, aggggh. I have spent the last 2 weeks doing 25% water changes daily and medicating with formaldehyde and malachite green. Lost 4 tetras to white spot and managed to save the rest and now they all seem OK - clown loaches took a while to get back to health though. I estimate that I spent more than an hour a day on this one tank with measuring everything adjusting temp and changing water. Now I think I have at least 3 of the new fish with intestinal worms (and prob the rest too) please see photo attached and this fish is quite emaciated. I feel embarassed that I risk the health of my fish in this way - I have never treated for this before and am unsure how to proceed - if I need to. Not keen on outting anymore chemicals into my tanks too. Any advice would be much appreciated.

kalebjarrod

Fri Nov 19, 2004, 08:41 AM

sorry i could not see a photo?

you obviously know that you did the wrong thing with the Q/T tank so lets not dwell on probs we can't fix

flukes or Rod would be great to answer this question, i have never had to deal with this problem yet. so my advice would be only what information i got from them, sorry

Sean

Fri Nov 19, 2004, 08:49 AM

I tried to put the photo in with a size of about 20Kb and received the msg "Sorry, but the maximum filesize for all Attachments is reached. Please contact the Board Administrator if you have questions". Do you know who this is or what my prob is in posting the photo? Thank you for your reply.
Sean

kalebjarrod

Fri Nov 19, 2004, 08:53 AM

yeah o.k i got an idea about the problem i will see if we can sort it out now

thanks sean

(p.s i may remove/edit this post after we have fixed the problem)

weird

Fri Nov 19, 2004, 11:51 AM

parasite

Fri Nov 19, 2004, 11:13 PM

for intestinal worms i would use Prazi or Panacur . Prazi also de-flukes ur fish. I find panacur added into food more effective at intestinal worms

www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=871

www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=870

Sean

Sat Nov 20, 2004, 12:16 AM

Sean

Sat Nov 20, 2004, 10:05 AM

flukes

Sat Nov 20, 2004, 10:56 AM

Iam actually a bit worried about this one, normally i would say yeah its hex use metro and you'll be right. But just yesterday i lost a beautiful crystal too something similar.

It started with the white poo, i treated with metro, nothing... Then it started getting fin rot till most of its fins where gone. Then i did a treatment of prazi, still nothing. Then the last thing was a treatment of multi cure.

Nothing seemed too help this fish, although now i look at it the white poo looked like it was the skin from the inside of the rectum, iam still unsure.

Overall the fish had been sic for about 2 months. Then the air pump died and so did he. Which then makes me think it might have had something too do with his respritary system.

Ill have too look into.

Sean - First thing is too try the metro, if that doesnt work, hopefully i will have found the reason and sorted out a treatment..

Thanks

Scott

Sean

Sat Nov 20, 2004, 11:08 AM

Thanks, i will give it a try and let you know. I have a reasonable photo of the fish which may help, but am unable to post it on the forum. I think Ryan is looking into fixing this problem.
Cheers
Sean

parasite

Sat Nov 20, 2004, 11:20 AM

But just yesterday i lost a beautiful crystal too something similar.

Sorry for your loss flukes , hope all is well with the others

parasite

Sat Nov 20, 2004, 11:23 AM

Does ayone know what the normal range for 'breathing' or respiration rate in Discus? Some of mine have rates around 130 per minute and others 112 and one calm chap 92. Is this a good indication of stress level?

"A healthy discus will not have more than 60 breaths per minute with one exception: they have just been eating, then the breathing rate increases to 70 - 80 breaths per minute."

Quoted from : www.netpets.org/fish/reference/freshref/discusbegin.html

Sean

Mon Nov 22, 2004, 11:48 AM

Thanks for that - I re checked my discus and the breathing range was 68 to 130, might give an indication of which fish have worms. I have the temp up around 31 degrees - which may also contribute to the increased breathing rate. Hopefully I have been able to post a photo of the pidgeon blood that has high breathing rate and the white poo. Oops still have probs with photos even though they are 20K

Does ayone know what the normal range for 'breathing' or respiration rate in Discus? Some of mine have rates around 130 per minute and others 112 and one calm chap 92. Is this a good indication of stress level?

"A healthy discus will not have more than 60 breaths per minute with one exception: they have just been eating, then the breathing rate increases to 70 - 80 breaths per minute."

Quoted from : www.netpets.org/fish/reference/freshref/discusbegin.html

weird

Mon Nov 22, 2004, 12:15 PM

white poo ... treat with metro (flagyl) ... please correct me if I am wrong !

I have a shocking case of it with my baby discus but I am assuming with white stringy poo ... treat with flagyl. This is my 2nd treatment of them ... 2nd week.

Sean

Wed Nov 24, 2004, 04:49 AM

Don't get me started with white poo problems ... so frustrating

There are quite a few posts on using flagyl , basically 3 daily treatments with w/cs ...

"6ppm means 6 mg / litre, so count the number of litres you have and multiply by 6 to figure out how many 400 or 200mg tabs you have to use. "

Of the treatments this one would have to be one of the less stressful on the fish.

I have been treating since Monday, and still white poo ... I think you have to do a follow up treatment if still persists.

Thanks again for your advice - I have been able to get 4 x 200mg metronidazole, but i am mixing one tab per day in the beef heart mix and hand feeding it to all the discus in one of my tanks. I hope this is a good way of administering metro.

parasite

Wed Nov 24, 2004, 06:23 AM

looks like tapeworm to me ...

buttnaked

Sun Dec 12, 2004, 11:41 AM

Where can I get Metro or Flagy? I've got white poo problem.

Where can I get Praziquantal, and will it treat the same problem as well?

Which one is more effective?

Please advise anyone

Don't get me started with white poo problems ... so frustrating

There are quite a few posts on using flagyl , basically 3 daily treatments with w/cs ...

"6ppm means 6 mg / litre, so count the number of litres you have and multiply by 6 to figure out how many 400 or 200mg tabs you have to use. "

Of the treatments this one would have to be one of the less stressful on the fish.

I have been treating since Monday, and still white poo ... I think you have to do a follow up treatment if still persists.

Thanks again for your advice - I have been able to get 4 x 200mg metronidazole, but i am mixing one tab per day in the beef heart mix and hand feeding it to all the discus in one of my tanks. I hope this is a good way of administering metro.

Sean

Sun Dec 12, 2004, 11:07 PM

Howdy Buttnaked!
Well, I have used the four doses of metro (Flagyl) and the fish have responded well. No more white poo and looking at them I think they have also put on weight/condition. I am still waiting for the panacur which is on backorder for me. As for getting the stuff - I am fortunate in that I can get it through my work - however, I have heard that some vets will only issue a script or sell you metro only after they have seen your fish. To me this is crazy, and I would not risk the health of any of my 'sickly' fish to take them to the vet - and then there is the cost of it all, which IMO is excessive. Perhaps ring around and speak to the vets in your area. If you have too many probs send me a PM and I will see what i can do. I mixed the metro in the food and all the fish had some - I have no idea what dose the affected fish received and also I increased the temp in the tanks to 31-32 degrees and 3 water changes per week (about 20%) - so it is difficult to say if the flagyl alone was responsible for the response. But IMO it is worth a try. Good luck

jim

Mon Dec 13, 2004, 12:10 AM

:oops: does it affect bio system in the filter?? :?

africandiscus

Mon Dec 13, 2004, 09:44 PM

What are you feeding them?

Sean

Wed Dec 15, 2004, 04:08 AM

I used the metro - crushed the 200mg tablet to a fine powder with a fork and mixed the powder in beef heart mix that was thawing out and fed it within 5 mins to the fish. Pretty sure that this did not affect the biofilter as did not notice changes in pH or in nitrite levels. There is another method that i was told about at my LFS - starve your fish for a day and then feed freshly ground garlic in beef heart to the fish. I must admit I tried this but was a hassel in the time and effort that it took. I think the idea was to repeat this every second day with a day of no feeding in between and at every feeding for the treatment day. I noticed my fish were able to spit out the garlic, but I am sure that they would have swallowed some. Apparently you can notice a big diffence in their poos - I didn't but have not got a bare bottom tank.