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My new paradise gourami ate some of its poo while in the bag! Should i worry? Is it poisonous? I just want to know just in case! Poor thing looked once at it and took a bite....Then it threw up bits and bits of brownish stuff, and made my water cloudy.

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Shouldn't be an issue, fish do it all the time. Or at least, I could consistently watch my guppy tank and see one fish poop, then another guppy was like, "Ooo, food! Eeew! Pfft, pfft, patooie!" Same fish turns around, comes back to the same piece of stuff floating "Ooo, food!" It was amusing how very dense the fish could be.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Most omnivorous fish are capable of eating poo. The technical term is coprophagy, (cop- roff -a-gee : to be coprophageous, to basically eat faeces ) and it is an adaptation for many freshwater fish that allows them to extract all possible nutrition from their own poo, or indeed that of other fish. Scavengers are fairly dedicated to the task,although it is only a component of their diet, and the fry of some species will deliberately eat poo to extract the fauna (ie small beneficial worm species, bacteria and protozoa - yes there are some!)and hasten their digestive, and consequently , bodily development. Think of it as the fish version of the first feed of a mammal, known as the colustrum, feed that contains all the bacterial resistance and gut fauna that a baby mammal needs to flourish.

This aid to digestion helps the fish to break down complex fats and cellulose, and extract the nutrition from them, it is also an aid to poo texture,and smooth passing of faecal material, thus avoiding constipation.

These organisms are typically killed by antiparasitic meds, and this can actually have a negative effect on the fish, since digestive health may be reduced, obesity and constipation more likely,and other syptoms like low immunity can occur too if the gut fauna are destroyed. This is why many fishkeepers are hesitant about deparisitising or "worming" every fish they own until a critical need for it arises.

Only trouble is of course that the parasitic species exploit the behaviour to do damage. We refer to beneficial species as symbiants (sim- bee-ants, those unrelated species who live in colonial harmony either internally of eternally of each other for mutual benefit)

Basically coprophagy is a useful survival tool. Disgusting as it may seem, lots of animals do it,rabbits even produce different types of poo. They like to eat the green pellets they produce, as their digestion is a two stage thing. Baby prehensile-tailed skinks, given the choice will often eat only the poo of their parents for the first few months if given the chance. Pigs, sheep goats, horses, cows etc will all somitimes imbibe in the odd bit of poo, it helps to recycle the nutrients and restablish their gut fauna, and in fact the evolutionary lines and strength of the fauna species themselves is reinforced by these animals uptaking different and varied colonies.

I think thats enough about poo, I feel vaguely sick now.