Amazon puffer with visable internal parasite

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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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cwesping
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:35 am
Location (country): Sweden

Amazon puffer with visable internal parasite

Post by cwesping »

Got this cute little bumblebee of a puffer about three months ago. It is a wild caught Amazon puffer/SAP. He's been eating well and been really active and curios up to about two weeks ago when he got more shy and started window surfing a lot more. Then we noticed he had these horrible squiggly lines on him, that were moving around on his body. He is in a heavily planted,, cycled 20 gallon tank with a group of five kuhli loaches. The water parameters have been good and stable since we got him, with a temperature of 80 F. He's been eating well, and still is. We're feeding him assorted frozen food and ramshorn snails.

We replanted the tank and added a new piece of driftwood(boiled) about a month ago.

We visited our LFS last week and saw that their other amazon puffers looked to have grown more than our, but it could also have been a new batch of puffers.

There does not seem to be much information on this type of parasite, so we are afraid he's in pain and don't know what to do. Please help!
'
Tank was cykled with guppies, about 1 year ago
PH 6.8
Nitrates ~10
Weekly waterchanges of 30%
No salt added

Image
Last edited by cwesping on Mon Dec 03, 2018 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Amazon puffer with visable internal parasite

Post by Pufferpunk »

Although I cannot really tell by your image, I believe those are nematodes. Not much you can do about them but keep the puffer happy & healthy. They can live a while with them. They are contagious, so keep the puffer alone. He does look a bit thin, so you could treat that internally by soaking foods in IP meds.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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cwesping
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2018 9:35 am
Location (country): Sweden

Re: Amazon puffer with visable internal parasite

Post by cwesping »

Ok, will do. Thanks for your answer!
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