internal protozoan infection?

[tjnelson44]

Hello everybody. I have a 20 gallon tank with a pair of nijsseni and I recently added a few female kribs that I had quarantined for two weeks. Now I have notice that my nijsseni sometimes have white, stringy feces and other times it looks normal. Sometimes a piece may be half normal and half white. They also seem to be less active but still are eating well. The kribs were in my tank for about a week and a half before i noticed this problem. The white stringy feces and slowed activity seems consistent with what I have read about internal protozon infections but I was under the impression that it was a quick killer and not something that a fish could live with for weeks so I am confused. Do you think it may be an internal protozoan infection?
thanks,
Trevor

 

[fishgeek]

some intestinal irritant for sure , hence the increased mucous in feaces=> paler and more tenacious

internal protozoan and nematode/cestode probs can all be implicated

generally none of these problems cause rapid death , rather slow malnutrition due to lack of normal digestive balance in the gut and chronic losses of inflammatory protein accross a leaking gut membrane

metronidazol for protozoa
levamisol/flubendazol for worms and a good varied diet for recovery
as long as your fish are still feeding you have a fighting chance with either of these problems

andrew

 

[tjnelson44]

Andrew, Thank you very much for the quick response. How should I determine if the problem is caused by worms or protozoans?
Trevor

 

[fishgeek]

ideally a feacal sample or use the lazy method and treat both :wink:

andrew
though protozoan conditions seems more common
and you will often see worms protruding form the anus of fish , usually though this is late in the disease progression and ideally treatment is started early

 

[mummymonkey]

If you see this:

Get some levamisole hydrochloride (Levacide) from the vet.

 

[tjnelson44]

Thanks for the pic, luckily my fish don't look like that. I have started treatment with hex-a-mit. Thank you for the advice Andrew.
Trevor

 

[tjnelson44]

I don't want to re-infect my fish once i get this problem cleared up so do I need to disenfect all the stuff like buckets and vacuums with bleach? I am guessing that simply letting them sit and dry out is not sufficient enough to prevent getting my fish sick again right?

Thanks,
Trevor

 

[fishgeek]

not 100% sure on this
though most protozoans have a 2 host life cycle i believe all life stages of aquatic species are usually within the one host , free swimming life stages may contaminate nets etc and i believe shoiuld be easily controlled with basic cleaning measures
drying or dessication will certainly damage the free swimming stages and possibly a peroids of dryness broken by immersion for 24hrs would be sufficent

most fish will mount a significant immune response and so if even only reducing numbers of protozoa your fish are unlikely to succumb to this problem again unless placed under stress

obviously new fish to the system will not have this immune response and this will be the time that you need to be vigilant

if using chlorine then dechlorinate well after

andrew