GT internal parasites

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
S

spazmattik

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Nov 28, 2012
297
11
33
Virginia
So my green terror has stringy white poop. First noticed it right before I went on vacation unfortunately. I suspect its internal parasites from what I have been reading and the culprit is most likely a feeder from petsmart which I am doing away with entirely now in exchange for insects or maybe if I start breeding mollies for feeders..

Anyway. I started treating with paraguard as soon as I got back. I also just picked up mendozenol or whatever yesterday but no luck getting him to eat yet.. I can try some more encouraging food like salad shrimp but if it comes down to it, I was thinking about using a feeding surenge (i would obviously be cautious while doing this, i have siccessfully handfed quite a few baby birds and doubt the fish is as fragile. .Lol.). Anyone ever go to this extreme or have any suggestions?
 
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?339362-Treating-Hexamita-aka-Spironucleus

Best advice I can link you to, I know it's in the flowerhorn section but it applies to any fish with sprionucleus which it sounds like your GT has. I treated the tank with epsom salt as listed in the article as well as dosing metro my flowerhorn was fine after about two days the fish started eating normally again. Epsom salt is cheap you can pick it up at your local grocier, walgreens, walmart, cvs ect. If the fish doesn't eat after a few days you can use the pipette method and force feed it some metro/epsom salt soaked food.
 
Don't try to feed during treatment. The meds your using should do the job.

GT benafit from a diet with a higher vegitable content. I don't recomend the use of feeders with these fish. A quality pellet such as NLS or Hakari Bio-Gold+ are the best two I've used for them, a good quality pellet is really all they will ever need. Another thing with GTs is that what appears to be IPs is somtimes a bacterial bloom in the gut. This caused caused by food that is too diffacult for them to digest (meaty foods, feeders) It spends too much time in the digestive tract and the proliferation of bacteria causes white stringy poop. Using a good quality pellet like NLS Thera +A is the best diet to start them on and then you can go to either of the two mentioned above if you wish or just stay with the Thera +A. I have raised some beautiful GTs on nothing but NLS and have never had an issue. No matter what pellet you decide on stay away from feeders.
 
I've bought several GTs from Petsmart over the years and they've all had the same problem. I started out believing that it was internal parasites as well; however, after various treatments and methods I noticed no improvement in any of the GTs I'd purchased. After a while they all died off.

I suspect it is something to do with faulty genetics in the GT strain that Petsmart is selling
 
I bought this guy at PetSmart a few years ago. I followed the advice I posted above.


011.JPG

011.JPG
 
Wow. Sweet GT. I do really like the NLS and I do feed it to my smaller fish because i only have the small pellets right now.. I did try giving her the NLS and Hikari cichlid gold but she didnt take it. The only thing ive got her to eat was a little flake food every now and then.. as far as pellets, before the white poop she was eating some aqeuon pellets that seemed to have a little bit of everything. I am going to invest in some larger nls pellets for my big guys to switch it up between hikari and nls.. Just was trying to finish off this aqueon
 
The trick with pellets is they should be small enough to swallowed whole. Much less waste then if the fish have to crush them. A lot of people feed pellets that are too large. The guy above was about 8" and ate NLS 3mm cichlid formula. Small fish can eat 1mm or 2mm depending on thier size. Ues the small stuff if you have it, but don't feed while treating for the IPs.
 
Yea, I know thats another perc of NLS. I currently have 1mm. Unfortunately I dont have a hospital tank setup. I usually feel like if there is a problem with one fish, the whole tank could have an issue so I treat my whole tank. I know, it sucks with larger tanks :(
 
Green Terrors and other large central & South American cichlids can soome time get Hexamita . I have had green terrors get this it is an intestinal flagellated protozoa that attacks the intestines and digestive system . If you search this on this sight there is a good note on how to treat. This can be very hard to cure. I used the Merto/Epson salt treatments with varied results.

JP.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom