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Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 7:31 am
by KittyKat
I have a figure 8 puffer, alone in a 20 gallon tank.
He was bought from a local fish store about 2 years ago, as a fresh water fish but I gently introduced brackish water whilst doing water changes.

We are having some building work done in our home, so I needed to move the tank, so rather than stressing him out by moving him from one tank to another, whilst doing my water change we decided to move the entire tank, whilst if was only half full, which went very well, ( although rather heavy!) without any hiccups!

Once moved and the water change completed, in its new location, my puffer was swimming around happily, coming to the front of the tank to greet anyone who passed.

I was so happy with my little fella coping so well with the move that a few days later I decided to reward him with some live blood worms, (as he normally has frozen), which he guzzled down.

However the next day I noticed that his belly had strange lumps in (and I apologise for my crudeness) his anus seemed rather noticeably open.
This is not just the normal big belly after food, but almost looks like 3 small pea size lumps, not see though or coloured, just normal colour.
I have attached pics to try to show them.

I read up on you site and thought that maybe he is constipated, so I added some aquarium salt to his tank....
1 tbls for each 5 gallons of brackish water

That was 2 days ago now and he doesn't seem to have changed, still 3 large lumps in his belly and although he isnt eating the food I offer him,
He is still swimming around as normal and coming to say hello every time I walk up to tank.

So here are my questions if any one can help,
could it be caused by the stress of the move or is it more lightly constipation?
If so how long should it take for the salt to..... relieve him?!
Should I just keep adding the aquarium salt to the water once a week whilst I do my water changes until the lumps go?
Or is there something else I should try?
As I said hes not eating now either, how long will he be able to survive without food?
Is there a chance it could be internal parasites? if so is there a product anyone would recommend in the UK,
Im struggling to find one on the uk market.

Other info I thought you might want to know is,
normal diet of frozen bloodworms, snails and cockles in shells.
Ph is 7.5
Ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate between 0 and 2.5 ( it wasn't white but a slight pink tone to it)
water salinity 1.005
water temp 24.5

I am sorry to bombard everyone with questions,
but we have become very fond of the little fella, so any help anyone could offer would be much appreciated!!

Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 8:42 am
by Pufferpunk
[welcome]
IDK where you heard aquarium salt was for treating constipation, because it's Epsom salt. I'd do your regular WC & add the Epsom salt at the same dose.

Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:56 am
by ArchiesMum
I have a similar problem with my figure 8 Puffer.
We have moved him from a 90 litre tank to a 190 litre tank. Ran the new tank with old filter in it for 24 hours prior to moving him in. Only half filled the tank. Tested water etc... which all came within the accepted parameters. He is swimming around ok, but stops at the bottom of the tank for a while quite frequently, does this weird jiggly, wiggly, jumping movement when he gets near the surface of the water and absolutely refuses to eat!
He HATES water changes of any description anyway, but we have had him for about 3 years and never seen him act like this before. We are putting it down to stress and hope he will return to normal soon, but as he usually eats everything in sight, seeing him not eat us quite worrying and we too have wondered how long he can go without eating anything.
Hope your Puffer recovers soon too.

Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:58 am
by Pufferpunk
What are your water parameters?
I would move ALL the filter media to the new filter. 24 hours isn't nearly long enough--more like 1-2 months!

Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Posted: Thu May 03, 2018 5:39 am
by Wipeout
Did you get any improvement, did the lumpy belly go down?
You can get parasite treatment here, it's called Wormer Plus from http://wormerplus.co.uk/ they also have an eBay shop.
It's a Flubendazole based product and from what I've reserched it's ok to use.
I picked up some recently to hold as a precaution for my F8.

Cheers
Chris