platys not doing good, white stringy poop!

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fishing

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Sep 12, 2004
Messages
51
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florida
I've got six female platys in my 29 gallon tank and two of them are not doing good. They have white stringy poop thats hanging from them. They are not eating well and they look skinnier than the others. I think it's an internal parasite of some type thats attacking them. My tank has ALOT of small brown pointed spiral snails. Could they be the carriers of the parasites? Should I get rid of them? What's the best way to treat internal parasites? I only have quick cure. Will it help any, will medicated food be better or should I use both? How long do I have treat them before they are completely clear of the parasites? Thanks alot for the advice!!!!!
 
i think quick cure is for ich. I had bad luck with it and lost a lot of fish. The only parasite treatements i've seen have a lot of antibiotics added to them that will mess up the biological filter, but i guess that's what you will have to use. (maybe you could take some gravel or filter media out while you treat and put it back in after the treatement to preserve some of the bacteria.. keep it wet though)
 
How long have you had the platies? How long have they shown signs on distress?

Medicated food might be the way to go. I wouldn't add any quick cure. The medicines in that usually aren't highly reccomended.
 
I'd be really interested to read more advice in this thread...I'm having the same problem. I have 6 platies, and several of them have been having white, stringy poo. The others seem pretty normal so far. I have Jungle's Anti-Parasite food, but even when I ground that up, they didn't seem to take to it. They're used to flake food. I also have KanaPlex, and was going to soak some peas in some water with the KanaPlex, and then feed them that. BUT!! KanaPlex is for fungal and bacterial infections, so I don't know if it would even affect the parasites, unless it just made them stronger :evil: I'm about to start another thread anyway though, because there were some other symptoms I was seeing also...
 
The only cause of "white, stringy poo" that I have come across is intestinal flagillates. I CAN'T say that IS what they have, but if it is the treatment is Flagyl... or some other brand names too, metronitrazole I think the ingredient is. I am not sure how expensive it is. If it is intestinal flagillates, then you would have to treat the whole tank as there is a high risk of it being passed on.

Anyone else know about white stringy poo?
 
I agree with Mattrox -- I would think that white stringy poop means that internal parasites are present. I would use metronidazole (Seachem brand makes a med with this ingredient) shown here on the DrsFosterSmith.com site. I would also recommend the Jungle brand of food -- Pepso food. You could cut the food up into smaller pieces and see if they'll eat it.

As for how long to treat, follow the directions on the package. I think that you'd need to treat for about a week to make sure all the parasites have gone through their life cycle (new ones hatching and maturing) and die.
 
Metronidazole breaks down in warm tank water. I would do daily pwcs then redose completely after the water change. You need to treat for at least 7 days. This is a commonish problem with discus and specific discus forms sometimes have complete sections on how to use 'metro'.
 
I have alot of small nuisance snails (little spiral ones) in my tank. Are they possible carriers of internal parasites that transmit them to the fish? Should I get rid of them?
 
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