White poop video

[Daky]

Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?

About 2-3 weeks ago 3 out of 7 discus turned almost completely dark, and all of them are mostly uninterested in food-they eat very little except for live white worms. Problems I have had for a few months are I find traces of white poop, the rest of the poop is normal color but sometimes extremely sticky-it almost glues itself to the glass, sometimes I find a piece of poo that is short and thick, about 0,2inches or 0,5cm. The not eating started when I changed form one discus recipe to another but the fish didn't loose weight so I didn't panic, then I rebuilt my fish room and had to move discus from one tank to other which led to hierarchy problems but the real problem started when I went from the new discus recipe to pellets, that's when they turned dark.

2. Symptoms (i.e. turning dark, excess slime, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, headstanding or tailstanding, white on tips of fins, rotting or fungus, blisters/white zits on fish, bloated, cloudy eyes, wounds).

Turning dark, perhaps a bit of excess slime, not eating, a bit of scared darting sometimes, white poop, one of the dark ones often did head/tail/sidestanding, one has a few minor wounds/scraches

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.

A few months ago I treated with esha hexamita according to the instructions and i think it helped a bit bit the problem is back again.
I started raising the temp a few days ago


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.

Currently I have them in 2 50gal tanks with a 50gal sump


5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).

On a drip system, about 10% daily


6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?

The sump has been running for 2 years and the tanks are bb


7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.

No

8. Parameters and water source;

I stopped testing water a few years ago so these wont be the latest


- temp 86F or 30C

- ph around 8

- ammonia reading usualy 0

- nitrite reading ____

- nitrate reading around 20

What type of water or combinations of water sources do you use? If it is an RO/tap/well water mix, please list percentages in the mix.

- well water ____

- municipal water 100%

- RO water ____


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.

3 new Stendker discus which are much more active and hungry than my own

10. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.

Currently i feed Tropical discus pellets about 2-3 times a day

11. Include any pictures or videos you have which shows the symptoms. If you can't add them to this post, please provide a link to them.

video of my white poop sample under a microscope:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFts...ature=youtu.be
I would love it if someone could tell me what the worm thing is and what the little things are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaJ9xPjCyd8
I have almost as much of the little things as this guy I just didn't film them

I can't show any pictures because 2 of the 3 dark ones sort of turned back to a more normal color after about a week of being sick and since I started the temp treatment the third one is also back to normal color. But the not eating persists

[Daky]

Took another sample today and added videos that show more little egg things, bigger egg things and a lot more worms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ESBcnSlWuM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_0KJceW0IQ

[DJW]

Fecal samples need to be collected before they reach the bottom of the tank, where they get invaded by all sorts of microscopic creatures. A clean sample would be needed for a better diagnosis, but the discus are probably infected with 'hex' flagellates.

Are you running the continuous drip water through carbon to remove chlorine or chloramine? 10% per day drip, if that is all, is not enough water. The water quality would be equivalent to that of water that has been in the tank for 9 or 10 days with no water changes. The flagellates that cause Hex are in most healthy discus in low numbers. They escalate to a debilitating sickness when the fish are stressed in some way or when water quality is poor over a period of months. In these conditions the fish eventually lose their ability to resist the parasites.

Pictures of the fish would be helpful.

[Daky]

Thanks for the reply. It's hard to get a fresh sample because I only find white poop in the morning, during the day the infected fish don't poop. And even an old sample should still be valid since its a bb discus only tank, and any creatures that invade the poop must already be present in the fish,right? I'm gonna treat again for hex, but I'm not sure it is hex because the creatures lack the tentacles typical for hex plus it doesn't explain the worms.

I am currently not running through carbon because the fish room isn't fully set up, but it should be irrelevant because my water is pristine. I bumped my water to 30% to see if that helps.

Tried getting pictures of the problem but since I started the heat treatment they pretty much look normal, except for not eating.

[DJW]

The tentacles you are looking for are the flagella. They are almost impossible to see without special techniques in prepping the slide, but there is a subtle difference in the way flagellates move.

I saw some larger ciliates in the video. Its extremely unlikely they came from inside the fish. They are common in just about any aquarium. The worms look like some type of microscopic oligochaete, also common in aquariums and not something you expect to see in unpolluted fecal samples.

At any rate... loss of appetite, white mucous poop, darkening, staring at the floor... these are signs that point to hex. I would be doing daily 90% water changes with metronidazole, but if you can't get metro they say in the UK that Esha Hex works too.

[Daky]

Thank you again. For curiosity I'll try to get a fresh sample check that out. After the holidays I'll also start treating with Esha Hex again because I don't have enough at home. As for metro, I can only get it in some special order Sera medicine which costs a lot and takes a lot of time to get, so I am forced to go with Esha. One more question, the ingredients of Esha Hex are: Ethacridine lactate 6.7mg, cuprum 2+ 2.8mg, acriflavine 2mg, methylrosanilinium chloride 6.3mg per 1ml. Is this more or less effective than a standard metro treatment?

[bluelagoon]

I am currently not running through carbon because the fish room isn't fully set up, but it should be irrelevant because my water is pristine. I bumped my water to 30% to see if that helps.

Hi,I would think that your water is not pristine.The nitrates should be much lower.When I see high nitrates,it usually indicates higher levels of waste.I'm thinking larger WC's are needed because there are higher concentrations of organisms/TDS/DOC in the tank as well.This will cause disease like organisms to flourish and stress the fishes immune system.Try to aim for a 5 nitrate reading.

[Daky]

Hi. My tap water is pristine since it comes almost directly from a mountain spring so I don't have problems with too much contaminants. As for the nitrate value, that's from the top of my head. I know it was usually the first color after 0

[bluelagoon]

Dang questionnaire!!!The water gets old/dirty,depleted in the warm,stocked tank fast.Discus are not the cleanest fish either;slimy but beauiful.I would say discus need greater than a 10% daily WC.This might be the stressor that brought on the higher levels of protozoan in the gut.Also,I'm curious if you clean your sump often or if there is any sludge on anything.

[DJW]

... the ingredients of Esha Hex are: Ethacridine lactate 6.7mg, cuprum 2+ 2.8mg, acriflavine 2mg, methylrosanilinium chloride 6.3mg per 1ml. Is this more or less effective than a standard metro treatment?

I have never used it, so I don't know how effective it is. Some people on the Bidka forum (UK discus forum) have recommended trying Octozin or Esha Hexamita when metro isn't available. It is a mix of antiprotozoal, antibacterial and antifungal meds.

I have to ask about the tap water again. In the questionnaire you said it is municipal water. Don't they add some kind of disinfectant like chlorine? Do you know how it is disinfected? What do you use for a water conditioner?

[Daky]

Dang questionnaire!!!The water gets old/dirty,depleted in the warm,stocked tank fast.Discus are not the cleanest fish either;slimy but beauiful.I would say discus need greater than a 10% daily WC.This might be the stressor that brought on the higher levels of protozoan in the gut.Also,I'm curious if you clean your sump often or if there is any sludge on anything.

Hi thanks for the advice. I bumped the wc to 30% to see if that helps, but usually my water is not the problem or at least I don't think so. I've been keeping discus for about 10years now and have found that about 10% wc per tank (including sump) per day seems to work for me, heck I even raised some fry last year. But since I got my hands on a new microscope I want to learn how each disease looks like under it, so I can target treat my fish. I can't give you any usefull info about the sump because it was moved and cleaned often in the past few months.

I have never used it, so I don't know how effective it is. Some people on the Bidka forum (UK discus forum) have recommended trying Octozin or Esha Hexamita when metro isn't available. It is a mix of antiprotozoal, antibacterial and antifungal meds.

I have to ask about the tap water again. In the questionnaire you said it is municipal water. Don't they add some kind of disinfectant like chlorine? Do you know how it is disinfected? What do you use for a water conditioner?

Thanks for the info, I'll research it a bit more.
Like I said before, my water is pristine and most of the time it is not treated, that is why I don't use any conditioners and only have a carbon filter installed for emergencies.

My current lab results for my municipal water provider are:
Amount of water (l/s): 70 to 120
Temp at source (C): 5,8 to 6,2
pH: 7,90 to 8,35
Conductivity µS/cm): 185 to 205
Hardness: od 5,5 to 6
Water treatment (filtration, disinfection): no, water is free flowing
Supported population: 14.000
Type of pipes: PVC, cast iron

Escherichia coli not found CFU/100 mL
Coliform bacteria not found CFU/100 mL
Microorganisms at 22 and 37 °C (<4) CFU/mL (max 100)

[bluelagoon]

All water ways have some sort of micro organisms in them.HERE IS A SAMPLE.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uFXqLLf5lY

[DJW]

It would be nice to have water like that. I have spring and river water here but it can't be used for the fish without some form of disinfection, it has parasites in it.

With the microscope, its good to take small samples of uneaten food or other crud from the floor of the tank and check out what lives there. It gives you a picture of the normal flora & fauna, and also tells you if the tank is being kept clean enough. I recently had an outbreak of water mites in a tank of wild rams, which surprised me. I wasn't slacking on water changes, they get plenty. I was probably overfeeding.

[Daky]

Sorry it took me this long but it's been real hectic, so here's an update.

I treated with Esha Hex and it didn't help. Later I managed to get hold of metronidazole pills and did the treatment. I helped a bit and i can't find any more white feces but other symptoms remain. After the treatment my discus started having odd problems with fins but it's getting better now. I took some photos of the problem.

https://imgur.com/a/idNBf

Right now the blue discus seems almost normal but is still only eating white worms and has starting scratching, but the brown one is much worse than in the pics. I have been trying to force feed him with a syringe with basically no success and I think he will soon starve to death and i still have no idea what is wrong with him