Loosing my mind over internal parasites....

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

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 31, 2006
464
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Indiana
At least I believe that to be the problem.

I have a male GT(about 2.5") that will only eat blood worms. No pellets, no flakes, nothing else. On top of that he has never had a regular looking poop. It's always the long white stringy poop. I've treated the tank with a med that I'll have to look up the name of when I get home. No luck.

Water params are fine. Tank temp is 80F. The female in the tank eats and poops just fine. What are the best options for treatment? I'm going crazy over here. :nilly:
 
White, stringy poop and spitting out food are usually signs of hexamita, an intestinal flagellate.

Set up a simple bare bottom quarantine tank with just a heater, cycled sponge filter, and some extra air from a pump. Raise the temp to 88, increase the aeration, and treat with pure metronidazole for seven days. I get pure metronidazole powder from John @ Jehm Co. Use 1/4 level teaspoon per 10 gallons once a day, doing at least a 50% water change daily before dosing. You can add the metro to a jar or bottle and shake it up in tank water to try and dissolve it but it's a real pain. Just give it a shake as best you can then pour it in. The combination of heat and metro will usually get them eating within a week.
 
Thanks Ryan!

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The only thing I'd ad to that is that if the fish is eating bloodworms soak the bloodworms in metro before feeding. It's a much more effective treatment internally vs. externally.
 
GT's are prone to this, and I doubt it's parasitic. I've had no trouble getting worms out of other fish, but no matter what meds I hit my GT with, none worked. So I got rid of my GT when he started shrinking.

The best advice I've seen is the idea that the digestive tract gets overgrown with bacteria from cheap food (grains, other garbage) and gets stuffed up. Peas and algae wafers, and long fasts worked for the guy who brought this up on MFK a few years ago. That means no massivore, no hikari anything - it's all pretty much junk compared to real food. Stick with veggies and bugs which are - gasp - what fish actually eat. And get algae wafers that have good fiber in them, and not too much corn, soy or wheat (aka the toxic trifecta).
 
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