Internal parasites

[Brendan Reeves]

I’ve had my clownfish for about a month and now noticing white stringy poop, they’ve been eating, seem to be happy. I have corals and no way of taking the fish out for treatment. I bought seachem metroplex and focus today because I read that it will bind to the food making it reef safe. I fed the clownfish some of it with pellets and they ate it. I got a purple fire fish yesterday that hasn’t come out yet so I’m worried it will contract the parasites and not eat the food. How worried should I be? I’ve read some places that most parasites can pass on their own. Is this true? Sorry for all the questions. 

[Clown79]

3 hours ago, Brendan Reeves said:

I’ve had my clownfish for about a month and now noticing white stringy poop, they’ve been eating, seem to be happy. I have corals and no way of taking the fish out for treatment. I bought seachem metroplex and focus today because I read that it will bind to the food making it reef safe. I fed the clownfish some of it with pellets and they ate it. I got a purple fire fish yesterday that hasn’t come out yet so I’m worried it will contract the parasites and not eat the food. How worried should I be? I’ve read some places that most parasites can pass on their own. Is this true? Sorry for all the questions. 

Depends on the internal parasite. Some certainly can be passed on to other fish. 

 

White stringy poop isn't always parasites. Diet can cause it too.

 

Firefish are pretty docile and known to hide when added to a tank, clowns can be aggressive fish which may lead the firefish to hide out longer until its comfortable in it's new home.

 

Clowns are also aggressive, fast eaters so with a passive fish, feeding may require specialized attempts like a pipette.

[Humblefish]

As a general rule, if the white stringy poop persists for more than a week then the fish should be treated for intestinal worms or internal flagellates. Metro + Focus can be used for flagellates; however praziquantel or fenbendazole is needed to clear intestinal worms. 

[Brendan Reeves]

I’ve seen their poop before and it’s been brown so hopefully it doesn’t persist but I am feeding metro+focus just Incase. Are those medicines reef safe if used with focus? 

[Pbh]

Yes the focus binds them to the food Keeping the medicine out of the water although I wouldn’t want corals or shrimps to eat lots of the medicated food so try target feeding the fish if you can. You can also run carbon to pull any meds that somehow leach out.  API general cure has both Prazi and metro so you can try that if you want to treat for both flagellates and worms at once. Good luck!

[Brendan Reeves]

Thanks for all the responses! I’m going to continue with the metro and focus for now to see if there’s any change. I will say they seem to be a lot more active, exploring new parts of the tank and hunting copepods all day. They’ve always been good eaters but they’ve stayed more in one area before yesterday, when I first the poop. I hope I’m more worried then I should be. When I saw their poop I got right up and went to the lfs after doing some research on reef safe options. 

[mcarroll]

On 2/21/2020 at 2:57 PM, Brendan Reeves said:

I’ve had my clownfish for about a month and now noticing white stringy poop, they’ve been eating, seem to be happy.

I take it you noticed nothing before now?

 

What have they been eating?

[Brendan Reeves]

I’ve been giving them new life spectrum pellets with metro bonded with focus for 2 weeks now, it seems to be helping. 

[markosaiden]

Actually, most of them are able to contract the parasites but there isn't the end of the world whether it happens. Just watch your pet a certain amount of time and if you see that he gets weaker, less active or something like that - first of all, try to get the parasites out. For that you can buy antiparasite med like niclosam.com. Again, wait a little bit, and if your fish isn't better - probably not parasites are causing it, but diet can lead it to. But I don't really know other reasons that can lead to such pet behaviour, so, that's all I can advice you, I guess.