white stringy poo

Hi all i have recently got some young blue marbles & after a couple of weeks in QT & all seemed to be doing well untill yesterday when i noticed a couple have white stringy poo
so was wondering what this would be as never had this in any of my fish before & what if anything would i use to cure it? It doesnt look like worms but i would like to make sure ,other than that they appear just fine all eating well & acting just fine.Any info would be great.

Paul

Hi Paul,
If they are acting and feeding fine I wouldn't be too concerned, if they stop feeding or start to look thin then I would treat them with a wormer or possibly with octozin.

It could also be a reaction to a change in diet or changed water conditions. Is it all 6 that are affected or just one or two of them?
What have you been feeding them? Here they only got baby brine shrimp & tetramin.

If you have been feeding anything different it might be worth just sticking to what they're used to for a few days, it's probably a good idea to do a few water changes too.

Hi Rob,it just seems to be a couple of the 8 & no they are not looking skinny in any way if anything they are starting to put on a good bit in size & weight.I have been feeding them a varied diet,the flake i use is from TA Aquaculture & always get good results with it as far as growth is concerned,i also feed mini bloodworm (frozen) aswell as brineshrimp with garlick (fozen) .They are getting a 20% water change every other day & have been doing great until this.It probably is as you say a change in diet but felt it best to ask as would rather be safe than sorry.The M/+ are really showing some good colour & the M/g are also starting to show a nice blue in places ie around the gills on the head & on a couple the flanks near the base of the tail so over all im very pleased with them.

Ok Paul,
Let us know how things go.

I thought i would give an update on this situation as i left but watched the fish i suspected were not well or because i had changed there diet & the stringy poo continued so i finally wormed all my fish with Kusuri wormer +, just to find it was worms after all as there were quite a few found in the tank the day after worming & now im pleased i did & hope all should be fine.

Glad to hear you got to the bottom of the problem, but sorry you had a problem with them. I hope they make a full recovery.
I haven't had any problems with the ones that I kept form that batch, but I will keep a close watch on mine, just in case!

Hi Rob i was wondering how worms are transmitted mainly because i found when i wormed all my tanks that my 2 albino's also had them & the only commom denominator i could find was the sponge filter i seeded in the Albino tank was the one i used in my QT tank for the marbles,so could this of been the cause?

How common are these worms?? Does one just keep an eye out "just in case"? Or am I likely to have a problem at some stage?? I've been keeping tropical fish for 30 years and not to my knowledge had a problem, but I've only had Angels for the last couple of years.

Lindsey

i was wondering how worms are transmitted

If you think about it there's one obvious route by which the worms, or at least their eggs, leave the intestinal tract. Similarly there's one obvious place that they enter it!
Some worms have very complex life cycles, so the egg in faeces needs to be eaten by a snail, which in turn needs to be eaten by a bird, which in turn needs to excrete an egg, larva, or similar, which finally gets eaten by a fish again.
Clearly worms with such a complex life history don't usually cause problems in aquariums.
Those that do cause problems, simply come out of one end of a fish, as an egg of larvae, and then get ingested at the other end.
I suspect if you cut open almost any fish, you'd find a population of intestinal worms, and I'm not convinced that regular worming, as practiced by some discus breeders for example, will do anything other than help breed worms that are resistant to worming treatments.
Most of the time the body's own immune defences will keep any parasitic load in check, but sometimes stress can weaken the immune system and allow intestinal parasites to get out of control. A good way to stress a fish is to chase it around a tank, put it in a bag, then move it to a new tank, with different water quality.

Personally, I don't treat fish for worms, unless they are showing the sort of obvious symptoms that Paul observed. The one exception to this is with wild caught fish, when a precautionary dose of wormer can help avoid problems further down the line.

So in truth, the answer to the question .....

How common are these worms??

probably very, but it's only fairly rarely that they cause serious problems.

my 2 albino's also had them & the only commom denominator i could find was the sponge filter i seeded in the Albino tank was the one i used in my QT tank for the marbles,so could this of been the cause?

So yes, it's possible that eggs/larvae were introduced to the marble tank on the filter sponge, but it's also possible that they picked them up here. I presume your albinos appeared happy & healthy before you treated them, the marbles appeared happy and healthy before they left here!
The good news is that once treated, affected fish usually make a full and speedy recovery.

Hi Rob,the Albino's did appear ok although one was looking a little thiner than the other but i didnt pay much attention to it as they are also only 5 month old & as they seem to be growing from when they first arrived as 8 week olds i assumed one was getting fatter than the other as they do.Since worming them i have been doing daily water changes & all fish are looking a lot better for it & this morning i didnt notice any worms on the bottom of any tanks so fingers crossed the wormer + has done the trick.

Thanks Rob comforting help