Treatment for Hexamitiasis or White String Poops in Fishes

Hexamitiasis is an infection caused by a flagellated protozoan parasite. Some factors that may cause such infection would be indigestion of food, unclean water, and cold weather (usually with fishes having warm water as their habitat). Signs and symptoms of fishes infected with Hexamitiasis would be a white string poop hanging beneath his anus, Holes are seen in the head, and lose of appetite. Prolonging this disease in your fish without farther action would result to death. As a Hobbyist we wouldn't want that to happen to our dear pets.

Here are some tips for fish hobbyist around the globe on how to treat their fishes that shows signs and symptoms of having hexamitiasis.

1) Transfer fish to a separate tank at about 5-10 galloons of well -conditioned water.

2) Introduce a dewormer or furan 3 to your fish. One sachet of furan 3 is good for a 20-galloon tank. Since it's quite expensive you could just use ¼ or ½ of the sachet in a 5-10 galloon tank.

3) For those who have heaters, you could set it to 30-32°C.

4) For those who are using Filters, make sure to remove activated carbon from the filter box to prevent it from absorbing the medication that is being applied in the water.

5) Daily water change of 20% at least is needed to siphon the dirt out of the tank.

6) Usually fish condition improves within 2-3 days after the application of steps 2-5 daily.

7) Once your fish regains its appetite continue to apply steps 2-5 for about 3-4 more days to completely terminate every possible parasite in its body.

I have personally applied this treatment method on two of my Flowerhorn (Lou Han) fishes and luckily both fishes recovered within three days. So, you need not worry much as long as you apply the steps that I have given you upon onset of the disease.

One last tip for those who are new in the hobby of fish keeping. To prevent you from buying a fish that may already have hexamitiasis. Ask the store keeper if you could try to feed the fish a pellet or two before you purchase just to be sure that they have a good appetite. If the fish eats the pellet upon dropping it to its tank then that would mean everything's good with the fish. If not, you might want to chose another fish with a good appetite. That's all for now and Happy Fish Keeping Everyone!