The Puffer Forum

ph 7.6
ammo 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 10
salinity 1.024
90g, 1 Takifugu Ocellatus, a couple of tiny hermit crabs
Eats scallops, shrimp, earthworms, occasioonal mussels and snails and jumbo krill, everything gets soaked in vitamin water. Water change 10% weekly or larger right now. Doug is fed by hemostat and therefore is a very clean eater, there is never excess food left in the tank.
Only thing added to water is reef salt and vit c. I have discontinued the vit c right now as the skimmer is off due to melafix dosing.
The tank has been set up for about a year.

Douggie had a big freakout last week, he swam super-fast, bashing himself ionto one side of the tank then the other. (He used to do this a lot when he was in the smaller tank I purchased him in but doesn't do it very much anymore.) He scratched himself a bit on the side, it didn't look that bad. But a couple days later the scratch developed an inflamed looking area around it, his colors looked crappy, and he seemed to have a bit of extra slime on him. It's hard to tell for sure because he's always got sand on him from burying himself, but it definitely looked like more than normal. He also seemed to be holding his mouth open more than usual, and it looked a little swollen, and like he was in pain. I started treatment with melafix on Thursday. (The melafix I have says for salt and freshwater but it says to turn off the skimmer, so I did. I've been very-wet-skimming to do small (5g) water changes for the last few days, then adding more melafix and turning the skimmer off.

Since then, one time when I look, he seems better, then the next time, he looks worse. He's still open-mouth "panting". He's always been an off-and-on eater, and has gone for weeks without eating, but he was in a good-eating phase and now isn't been showing an interest in food, even eartworms. Then yesterday it seemed like he wanted to eat but couldn't get most of it back. I'm starting to wonder if he broke or severely bruised his jaw

To make matters worse, I've never had reason to believe he had parasites, but 2 times in the last few days, I've checked on him and he's had a very small bit of white stuff at his opening (looks like empty casing), don't know if it's just poo but there's nothing to really poop out or what???

He's swimming around and behaving more or less normally, but the slime thing and the jaw thing are really freaking me out, I'm just really afraid something is seriously wrong and shouldn't be ignored... Suggestions??? I would be devastated if he died

Bump...didn't get any replies...
We're on day 7 of melafix and he isn't really getting better or (thank goodness) any worse. Still not eating but he's done that before...I'm thinking he injured his jaw Should I stop meds, continue melafix, or change drugs? Is there anything anti-inflammatory I can add to the water...I was thinking the iherb vit c that I usually use might do that but I haven't been adding it cuz the skimmers off due to melafix...
Anyone?

Not a clue, sorry

If the Melafix isn't working, do a WC & add the VC. Too bad Yunachin doesn't post here anymore. Maybe try sending her an email?

Thanks, will do that tomorrow. Do you have an email address for Yunachin?

Should be available in her profile, otherwise PM me for it. She's also on Facebook a lot.

Yipee!!! Douggie just ate 2 good sized hunks of shrimp!!! His color is still not 100% but his mouth looks a little better...hopefully he's on his way back

Oh, thank goodness! Did you change anything? Did you ever hear from Chin?

I did, thank you so much for recommending that I contact her! I didn't really change that much. I stopped the melafix as she didn't think it was anything that that would help. Her thoughts were that it would just take time and that perfect water was more important than meds for his condition, so I did some big wc's.and got the skimmer back on. I also went back and re-read her article and I'm going to have to rethink my plans for the tank...since he was ignoring my starter corals, I was going to upgrade my light and add more but apparently they like lower light, so I might have to start another smaller reef tank

Glad Doug's better.

Some great pics you have of him!!!

Any chance a GSP and Occeletus could live together in like a 75 gal tank??

Too muck risk?

can you post the e-mail reply here for future ref?

I would NOT EVEN CONSIDER trying that combo.
Doug is my first fugu, but he is incredibly sensitive, and I believe the constant movement of a GSP would cause him a great deal of stress. When he's resting under the sand, any movement annoys him. And they are territorial. During one of Dougs early hunger strikes, in sheer desperation, I added a few mollies to see if he would eat them. (He had been fed feeder fish exclusively by his previous owner). He didn't seem to kill to eat them as much as hunt them to make them go away One is still living in my community tank because I couldn't watch him being tormented. The rest were left in bits to be fished out by me
Also, the MINIMUM for these guys is 55 gallons. Always the queen of overkill, I got a 90g (48") instead, and I think he'd be even better in a 60" tank, he loves to swim (not pace, just stroll) along the entire length of the tank...