strange clear poop - advice for treatment

[FeGrl]

Hi all,

I have a sick fish and nothing I am doing seems to help, I would appreciate any advice you have.

I have a 2 year old, 200L tank. 0.5in pebble, planted with 8 ~2.5in discus. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate. 32 Celsius, pH 7.4.

She started acting strange ~2 months ago, shying away from the others (but not hiding) and not eating with everyone else - but she is still alive, so she must be eating at some point. She has large, clear poop, and poops a lot - many times a day. I tried ~50% water changes everyday, turned up the temp, and treated with Metro for 1week with no change. Since then I have intermittently tried treating with Metro 2 more times (each time for a week) and still no change. I have attached a pic of the poop (sorry for the grossness). Does this look like Hex to you guys, or something else? Any other advice for treating her?

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[Hollowman]

looks like it is expelling the stomach lining, probably caused by a build up of parasites. If metro hasn't done the trick try moving to a small quarantine tank under the same conditions and get yourself some Esha Hex.

http://www.eshalabs.eu/europe/products/esha-hexamita.html

I have had success with this product and it picks them up and cleans them out. Try feeding black worms as this might make it start to eat again. It does not look look too far gone, as sometimes they get a very sunken look to their heads, so good luck and come back with results please so we can see if you can turn this one around.

One more thing to try would be Epsom salts, use one or two teaspoons of Epsom Salt per 10 gallons of water, if the stomach is irritated this can clean them out and minimize internal parasites and give it it's appetite back.

good luck
H

[Sabrina]

Hello FeGrl,

Welcome to the boards here!

I am confused if your tank is 2 years old why it would have no Nitrate reading? Please confirm your nitrate reading, it should be 5.0 - 20ppm. I don't think you should leave the heat turned up to 32C for a long period of time, it might cause other problems, maybe turn it back down to 30C.
Did you Quarantine this fish in a hospital tank alone for the treatment with Metro? Did you remove the carbon (if any) in your filter during treatment? Metro is the go to medication for fish and one would think it should have worked by now. To me white poop means internal parasites, but I am not an expert in fish illnesses I'm sorry. I will call on 2 other members here for extra help on this issue..
@Hollowman
@Siyd

[sayid]

Hi FeGrl'
Welcome ,as Sabrina mentioned your nitrate reading does not look as i expect ,either your kit is out of date or you are not following the testing exactly , having said that you probably have treated your fish with low dosage of metro for short period of time not in a hospital tank and your fish has developed resistance to metro .
May i suggest you do the followings,
. Move the sick fish to a hospital tank e.g a small tank let say 40 liter or a bit bigger ,the tank has to be bare bottom with a mature cycled sponge filter .
. treat the water with 1 TB spoon of epsom salt for 40 liter of water.

. treat with 15mg of metro per liter of water for 14 days .


.once the fish start to eat mix metro in her food at the rate of 1% e.g beef heart .
Once your fish is eating you can return her to a BB tank , the bottom of your tank is full of detritus and fish waste .
You can keep the hospital tank temp at 32 c while under treatment .
I hope this helps.

[sayid]

Sorry i forgot make sure that the light is off during the treatment as metro degrades in the present of light.

[FeGrl]

Hi both,

Indeed the test may be out of date - I have asked the hubby to bring a new one home.

Thank you for your suggestions - I really appreciate it. I will treat her accordingly and keep you updated on our progress. Wish us luck :)

Many, many thanks.

[Sabrina]

Thanks Sayid,

Good luck FeGrl! I hope things go well and your fish returns to health very soon.
Just a quick note on the Nitrate test, I assume you are using the API master test kit? If so, make sure you are shaking both bottles to start with, then place the drops of bottle 1 in the test tube with tank water, cap it, at the same time shake the test tube and bottle number 2 together for 1 minute, shake them fast, then stop and add the bottle number 2 drops, cap it, then shake for another 1 minute, then let it sit for 5 minutes next to the chart for exact readings :)

[FeGrl]

Thanks so much for the detailed description! I really appreciate the kindness and effort you've put in to help :)

[Sabrina]

Your very welcome, good luck and please call back to let us know how you get on :)

[FeGrl]

Hi Discus friends, it has been a while, but wanted to thank you all again for your concern and advice. It was a long road to recovery - i tried what we discussed on this thread and was still not having any luck. Eventually got some meds 'from the back' from our LFS, cranked up the heat and hoped for the best - after 2 more weeks in the hospital tank, she started to show some interest in food. After a few days of poking around I moved back in with her friends and she came back to life better than ever! She is fat and happy now and I can not thank you all enough for the support! Thank you! Thank you! <3

[sayid]

Hi Discus friends, it has been a while, but wanted to thank you all again for your concern and advice. It was a long road to recovery - i tried what we discussed on this thread and was still not having any luck. Eventually got some meds 'from the back' from our LFS, cranked up the heat and hoped for the best - after 2 more weeks in the hospital tank, she started to show some interest in food. After a few days of poking around I moved back in with her friends and she came back to life better than ever! She is fat and happy now and I can not thank you all enough for the support! Thank you! Thank you! <3

You are welcome and good luck with your tank.