Treating Internal Parasites

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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Cocobear11
Puffer Fry
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Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2018 8:41 pm
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Treating Internal Parasites

Post by Cocobear11 »

Hey all,
I am new to this forum and really hoping you can help me. I recently purchased 5 figured 8 puffers from my LFS. 1 already died randomly, he spazzed out and then died in front of me in a matter of minutes 😢. The rest have been kinda 50/50 health wise. One has been struggling the whole time, sitting at the bottom of the tank, labored breathing, grey/black belly, the works. :( the other 3 still alive are some where in the middle. Resting a lot with slightly grey bellies. I treated yesterday with Focus and Metroplex from Seachem in their bloodworms. They definitely expelled some red worms, so I did a 50% water change today. They are all resting a lot on the bottom of the tank with labored breathing. But occasionally coming up and swimming still. I tested my water and so far my Nitrites are not the best at a 3 after all of this. Im thinking its the extra fish poop and dead worms? Not sure what to do about that..? Also...I have not fed them since dosing them, should I feed them today? Dose again? When do i feed next? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Treating Internal Parasites

Post by Pufferpunk »

Please answer ALL the questions above in red, so we can help.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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hadla
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Re: Treating Internal Parasites

Post by hadla »

If they’re not eating at all, you’d have to force feed them food soaked in medicine as they need to ingest the meds...

Oh didn’t see that they did eat. How big is the tank and what else is in it?
Never trust big puffers. The fingers you save may be your own. -RTR
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