Marine Fish White Poop / Internal bacterial - Part 1/2

It is a common disease in marine fish as the fishes are caught from the wild. About 30% of the fishes have some kind of intestinal infection.  You will see the fish is not eating at all, and there is white stringy poo. If not treated, the fish will slowly die. It will sometimes pass the disease to other fish in the tank.

Sometimes, you may see the fish is eating well, but do not means it does not have the internal disease. You still need to clear the intestine so that there is no problem in the future. If you are long enough in the hobby, you will realised that sometimes the fish is eating very well for weeks or months, suddenly stop eating and die. Part of the problem is the intestinal inflection becomes worst and causes the fish to stop eating. This is common in dwarf angels and large angels.

There is 3 basic causes of the internal problem, but I will not go in-depth to it technially. Just want to talk about the solutions.

1) Fish not eating:
Put the fish into QT and dose Praziquental
Chances of survial is very slim because the fish is not eating and it is difficult for the fish to absorb the medicine. So in the first place you should choose the fish from the LFS properly.

2) Fish eating (does not means no internal diseases): - Clear the internal disease. Sometimes, after a few weeks, the fish just stops eating and die, that is the reason you need to clear the internal disease with medicine and it is easier because you can feed the medicine to the fish as tit can be dosed in the fish foods.
Use Metronizazole.

Next part, I discuss my method of curing this internal bacterial disease and the medicine used, of course feeding one. Frankly speaking I also have very slim chance for curing the non-feeding one.

How to Quarantine Marine Fish

It is always important to quarantine the newly brought fish before introducing it to main display tank. Newly brought fishes carried diseases from from wild such as marine ich, velvet, flukes, worms, etc.

It normally need to quarantine for 3-4 weeks. Without quarantine the fish, it is very difficult to cure the fishes in the main display tank and it is very costly as some of the fishes will die once the disease enters the tank.

Below shows my quarantine tank

1. Tank : It can made of a plastic tub, mine is from Ikea. 
2. Rocks : Add enough live rocks for the fish to hide and to generate enough good bacteria to prevent ammonia and NO2. 
3. Filter: I have a pump to pump water to container with filter media and sponge (something like a over head filter - DIY)
4. Wave maker: It is good to have it to generate more flow in the water.
5. Water change: I used water from the main display tank for water change (weekly) - Make sure the main tank does not have diseases.
6. Medication: Cupramine and Praziquental
1. Praziquental is for flukes and worms 
2. Cupramine is for ich

With the correct doses of cupramine, the challenge is the fish not eating and the external bacteria, such as pop eye, fin rot, skin ulcer, etc, coming in. No good solution....


A very good articles on quarantine from advanced aquarist is shown below:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/quarantining-marine-fish-made-simple