Male guppy is fat with white, stringy poop?

Question

I have a male guppy, and he is really fat. At first I thought the fish was a pregnant female, but I did my research, and he is definitely a male. I'm not overfeeding them as far as I know, but now I noticed that he has white stringy poop coming out of him. I read this might be an intestinal bacterial infection? He's still eating, which I guess is a good sign. But he can barely swim around because of how big he is. Any advice?

Answer 1

Yep, that's a bacterial infection or a parasitic infection.
Most fish have parasites of some sort. Did you get him recently? When fish are moved or kept in unclean conditions, they get stressed and unhealthy, allowing the infection to take hold and make your fish sicker.
However, with proper care and good food, he should recover on his own. If you do wish to medicate, I suggest first not feeding him for one day, then feeding him anti-biotic fish food until it clears up, then resume feeding normal food.

Be sure to keep his water crystal clean by doing 30% weekly water changes to ensure he stays healthy.

Answer 2

White stringy poop can also be the result of a very protein rich diet. You don;t mention what you feed or how much, but be sure you are using a good quality dry flake food as a staple. Guppies do need and enjoy some rich foods like bloodworms or mosquito larvae, but it's really easy to over do it. Stop feeding anything like that for a week and cut back on the flake food. It will mostly likely clear up in short order (1-2 days) if this was the cause and you can simply adjust what and how much you are feeding in the future to prevent it from reoccuring.

I would highly suggest you try this before simply dumping a bunch of chemicals in the tank. While that is sometimes the best course of action, in general aquarium keepers way, way over use such products and tend to think the cure for anything is in a bottle or batch of pills from the aquarium store.

Answer 3

Stringy Poop—A good sign that there is an internal parasite present is stringy, whitish poop. Normal waste should be solid looking, opaque, and a color that reflects what the fish is being fed (mostly shades of brown and green).

Use Parasite clear, Melafix, Pimafix, or binox.

Answer 4

Your best bet may be to drink one or two glasses of red wine, preferably a merlot or a burgundy (best bet that one), high in alcohol content, each day for about one month. Then, stop drinking it. Don't become an alcoholic. Keep eating, small amounts of vegies and very little meat, some greasy meat, is best. And take that one to two medium sized glasses of wine every day. You will become addicted to it over one month. Stop it at the end of that month, drink a small glass every day afterwards for about one week. During that week, make it smaller and smaller. Until you are drinking about 1/4 glass on that last day. Best method for totally getting rid of the worms. If they reoccur (check your BM now and then, wash your hands and keep your nails trimmed down almost to the quick, every day or so). Keep great hygiene habits. And get it down to that last little glass of wine - don't become an alcoholic. And don't tell me you're "predisposed" or all of that nonsense. Just do it. Then you will be rid of your intestinal worms. The problem with taking a medication or a drug is they can make Super Worms happen. That is what is Wrong with them. So the old fashioned alcohol method is best. Red wine is best, healthiest for you, and something like the Mediterranean diet. In small amounts. Large amounts can clog up your intestines like you wouldn't believe; huge amounts of food are bad for you, even when you're losing weight. Worms such as tapeworms end up eating your food. So be careful and do as I say, it's the best things to do. You're welcome!