Urgent Care :: Long white stuff in tank

[tjent]

Our slider is about 2 years old and close to 6 inches. He is inside in an aquarium with a basic setup of a uv light and a basking area. I have a few goldfish in with him for snacking and he eats mostly dried food like pellets or plankton. The last few days there has been some long white stringy stuff in the tank that the fish are consuming. It kinda looks like tapeworm and is relatively firm. Anyone seen this before?

[Turtlebiz]

i don't know what the long white stuff is, but you shouldn't feed your turtle goldfish cuz they are high in fat.

[tjent]

he dosn't get the fish too often, we also suplement with an ever changing varieto of fruits and veggies. Plus I get the plants whenever I get to the Fish store.

[mat012]

My guess is planaria. I saw one in my tank. You can treat them with aquarium salt. I think I got it long with a fish I bought - unfortunately I wasnt careful enough in introducing it to the tank. But I've have not seen any since. If you look closely and they have "eyes" and they can move of their own volition even against the filter's current than that is probably little wormies. Here is a link

http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/ ... ite_worms/

Also search for "worms" in the other forums. I think there is a thread about them. If I remember correctly they are not necessarily harmful to the turtle, but annoying and ugly. Apple or mystery snails will also eat them. But dont treat with salt and get a snail. Did that...(duh) The snails cant tolerate the salt and I basically killed them.

[marisa]

Can you post a picture of the stuff?

[SpotsMama]

Long and stringy looking could be a tape worm. Photo would help.

[mat012]

Marisa, Spotsmama,

How would you treat for tapeworm? I assume they would be quite harmful for the turtle - rob of nutrition?

[marisa]

You'd need to take a stool sample to a herp vet and have it tested for tapeworm. If the test is positive for tapeworm, the vet would prescribe medication. Different medications treat different parasites (but do not allow any vet to administer Invermectin).

Can you post a picture of the white stuff? Is it segmented?

[TitanRES]

hello all,

sorry for bringing this post back. I just recently PULLED 12 inches worth of tape worm out of my 3" RES' butt!

I have been noticing that he's had diarrhea for a while - at least for a month. I didn't take it too seriously and just hoped that it would go away. However it's been a month and he's still pooping liquid. You can totally tell that it's diarrhea the way it comes out of his butt. Anyhow, tonight I was sitting there watching him as usual. All of a sudden he started pooping out a white string... first it was 1", then 2", then 3".... and it wouldn't stop. It got to about 7" when it stopped coming out but still was stuck on his anus. Then I picked him up and pulled the rest of it out.

It was white in color. It was fragmented in similar shaped fragments. There were long, short, thin, thick in a very organic matter. It was definitely tape worm. I remember the shape from biology class.

What do I do now? Do you think I pulled everything out or is there still a fragment left in there?

The thing is about 12" long and 1/8" in width. Hopefully I can get a picture of it up. It's quite frightening to be honest.

What do i do guys?

[SpotsMama]

Yuck.

First of all, your turtle still has tapeworms.

You need help from a vet. Different types of parasites require different types of treatment. The exact type and doseage is important which is why the vet needs to call the shots. Take your "sample" to the vet along with the turtle.

A standard caution for anyone taking a turt to a vet. If the vet offers to give a vitamin a shot, first be sure your turtle really needs vitamin a then discuss with the vet some other way to get the supplement besides a shot - like cod liver oil or extra foods containing vitamin a (carrots and sweet potatoes for example). I mention this too much vitamin a is toxic and the doseage in an injection is hard to judge and several turtles on here have had really bad reactions due to vitamin a overdose. Your vet may suggest something like this because a turtle infected with parasites may have some nuitritional deficiencies since the parasite has been stealing the nuitrition.

Good luck!

[TitanRES]

Thank you SpotsMama