Hi everyone! I am sort of new here and my puffer is not doing well..

[thatmarinescienceguy]

Hi everyone! I am from Florida! I kept, well, I still have, a figure 8 in a 75 gallon brackish .. (I typically just eyeball it, and use a refractometer at water changes but it's usually 1.8 to 2.0ppt)... he lives in there with a hermit crab named buddy. Upon first meeting Puff decided the hermit might be a good snack.. but.. after a few weeks Puff decided Buddy was better served as a friend than a snack, so he did not eat him. The two became best buds. My figure 8 Puff tops out at almost 4" long. He's got something.. I think it started out as a parasite... which i think was cured with 1 dose of API general cure.. but the second dose 48 hours later brought him back down again.. maybe he caught a bacterial infection.. I don't know.. but he's not well.. What I do know is that I am probably going to lose my best bud this weekend. Here's the best photo I was able to get:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DstyPP ... sp=sharing

Not sure if that link will show, but that's his photo and he's adorable. My puff swam away from cameras, so, to get this photo, it really was the best day I had. I am joining today as I want to learn as much as I can about infections, bacterial and parasitic, and ways to diagnose, prevent, and cure. I'd also like to meet cool Puff people, too.

[Pufferpunk]

Great shot! He actually looks quite healthy. Why do you think he has a parasite? What is the SG of the tank?

[thatmarinescienceguy]

Hi! thank you for the compliment on my Puff! I thought it might have been a parasite due to his erratic patternistic swimming. He'd do this thing, where he'd look at a specific rock in the aquarium, like he was going to swim through it. Then he'd flip his tail, and seemingly itch the right side of his face on the rock. He did this in 3 places, that I saw, in a specific area on the glass, on that rock, and on the big clam shell in the aquarium.

I am sorry I did not get back to you, but my Puff passed away, I'm planning a new aquarium for a new Puff, and of course my job. ugh. So it turns out he was a boy with big, large, gonads - that's what I was told by the veterinarian who looked. He passed away from sepsis, I think. I assume a bacterial or viral infection, but the swimming behavior sure made me think parasitic. I treated him with API general cure for parasites, thinking that's what he had. It did not seem to do any harm but he did not get any better. :/

I miss my Puff. I made this 13 minute long video to remember him on YouTube but I decided to take it down due to copyright laws. I wish you could have seen it. I'll try and get it back up.