Rainbow cichlids and long poop!

[Camphilophus]

These things are ridiculous.. They are about 1.5-2" and every time I see them (even 12 hours after feeding them) I find them with 4" of stringy poop hanging from them! Soo annoying. I feed them a staple of sinking NLS along with all of my other fish and this doesn't happen to any of them (even the small ones,) just the multispinosas. Has anybody else had this problem with these fish or any other fish and if so how did you solve it..? sorry for the bad pictures, its all I could get.

 

[ben&debbie]

mine don't do that...unsure why that would be...

 

[japes]

Doesn't look like internal parasites due to it being 'NLS coloured' poo, and it's not bloat if they're excreting feces, so I'd say it's a simple case of you overfeeding or them being overly vigorous at feeding time. Physically they look overfed, those are some big bellies. I had this with my Keyhole Cichlids, though only ever an inch long but it was happening all the time, as they were eating some beard algae throughout the day which must have been slow to pass. They were never that physically 'fat' though.

I'd definitely look at feeding less.

 

[Cichlaholics Anonymous]

it doesn't have the appearance of internal parasites, which is the good news in the situation. just cut down on food, and if it still keeps happening then take it from there

 

[Camphilophus]

They, (5 rainbow cichlids) are in a 40breeder with a 3" severum, 9x 2" clown loaches, 5" red eye tetras, 5 kuhli loaches", and I feed them one whole pinch of sinking NLS per day. Like I said, I will find them 12-24 hours later with the poop still hanging, doesn't make any sense to me.