Looks like it ate Cotton??

[vcorey04]

my black phantom tetra is pooping out some weird white ball..

it hasn't dropped yet, and kind of looks like it either ate cotton, or is expelling parts of what i'm guessing is the equivalent of a colon...




there are no other black phantoms in the tank, so i doubt it's eggs. but uh... yea..

pooping cotton balls???

 

[jsoong]

It is prob eggs. In the absence of a mate, the females will get rid of the unfertilized eggs anyway.

 

[bs6749]

It is prob eggs. In the absence of a mate, the females will get rid of the unfertilized eggs anyway.

Tetras are egg scatterers and they wouldn't come out like cotton. They'd be scattered in teh normal fashion, just as some female cichlids lay without a male present and still protect the eggs. They don't know any better and think that they are fertile so they go through the same process.

I've seen what the OP say in an otto of mine before and was unable to treat it. I suspect that it's an internal bacterial infection as opposed to a fungal infection. I'd put the tetra in a bath of "Quick Cure" for ick as it will have the active ingredient, formalin, that you should use to treat this fish. Get about a quart of water in a jar and put in 2 drops of quick cure. Make sure the water is about that of the tank temperature and put the fish in there for 20 minutes. Take the fish out after the time is up and put it back into the tank. Do this for 3-5 days or until you see the "cotton" go away. Don't treat the whole tank since the Quick Cure will stain the seals of the tank blue, which most people don't like, and you will lose quite a bit of your biofilter.

 

[vcorey04]

The "cotton" was gone this morning.

should i be worried?

 

[mike47517]

Dont think you should be worried. I saw this same thing on my mollie a month ago and it randomly disapeared and now the mollie is just fine.