One of my fish stopped eating...

[LizStreithorst]

Jacob, once the poop hits the bottom of the tank it becomes contaminated by all the microorganisms on the bottom of the tank. To get a good sample you need to catch one after it has been newly pooped and still drifting down in the water.

[jwcarlson]

Yes, I know as soon as it hits it is basically unusable. Was mostly just dusting off the microscope.

The number of times I have seen one of my fish poop is very very minimal, almost never. I'm going to have to put him in a little box and carry him around.

[jeep]

Maybe this is what you need?

take fish.jpg

[jwcarlson]

That would do it, Brian!

I'm off work next week (was off last week, but was bow hunting so spent like 6-8 hours a day up a tree) so maybe I can sit in front of the tank and read or something.

[jeep]

You're welcome to come sit in my back yard. One of those little jerks ate my peach trees...

[jwcarlson]

They do like to ruin fruit trees if given the chance.

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Very obviously green or yellow-ish green. Does that indicate anything? I had just walked away to finish WC in the big tank and apparently he decided to drop this. Dang it.

[jeep]

This could be a little infection in the digestive tract or it could be flagellates or nematodes, which is why the microscope would help. Capillaria and roundworms are pretty common in aquariums and can cause yellowish slimy feces.

If confirmed, I would treat with levamisole.

[jwcarlson]

Is there a way to force a bowel movement? I know epsom salt can help relax muscles to get things moving. I'd love to be able to put the fish in a gallon container with some magic concoction and have it poop. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I have seen my discus poop MAYBE five times in the 9-ish months of having them.

In any event, I am going to try to focus on this fish in the coming days to try to get a fresh sample. If I don't have something soon I will probably just go with levamisole as I did do some reading of really old threads here and did sound like possible secondary infection.

Thanks everyone, I will update here if/when I learn anything. What would the opinion be of the tank I pulled this fish out of if I find worms in this one? If ones got them they all do, yes?

[jeep]

If ones got them they all do, yes?

Correct. And to treat correctly they should be in bare bottom, lights off and scrub all surfaces between water changes. Repeat in a week. The eggs aren't killed and reinfestation is likely, so cleaning out the eggs is your goal. A little epsom salts can be used to help expel the gut. This will most likely throw them off foods for a bit but don't worry. And if you see some little white bugs dancing around the the edge of the tank, don't worry and freak out like I did. They are just copepods evacuating the filter because they don't like the meds...

[jwcarlson]

Yep, everyone is bare bottom, 90% changes every night. Ugh... I've already done this (levamisole), but I did add some dithers so they probably brought it over.

Should I go scorched earth and jack the temps back to 93 or is that not necessarily helpful for levamisole? I'd like to treat everyone at the same time (including dithers), but I doubt they'd like 93 degrees.

[jeep]

I don't know about that one. I've always treated at 82.

The heat is applied during hex because it speeds up the discus's metabolism and help the appetite. It also speeds up the life cycle of hex. The metro helps end the cycle. With levamisole you're killing the adults and the water changes help break the cycle by removing the eggs. Logically, I don't know if heat would help in this situation since possible loss of appetite is part of the process...

[jwcarlson]

Excellent, thanks! I don't see any reason to not treat with levamisole at this point.

Should I treat with epsom salt as well? I haven't done that before when doing levamisole.

[jeep]

It wouldn't hurt but may not be necessary. If anything dies in the gut it'll help expel it...

[LizStreithorst]

Have you considered Absolute wormer?

[jeep]

As safe as they say it is, my only issue with Absolute is that it contains flubendazole.