First of all thank you for the valuable in formation on your site. I have porc puffer with tail rot, I read a previous posting about a porc puffer with no tail but it didn't answer all my questions. About 3 months ago while keeping a snow flake eel and porc puffer togther I noticed that the eel had bitten off some of the puffers tail fin. At that time the eel was removed and the puffer placed in a 30 gallon tank by himself. The tank was set up with 40 pounds of L.R. a remora protein skimmer and a back pack filter. The tank had 0 ammonia o nitrites but did have nirtate readings of 60 to 100 bofore I removed the sponge media in the back pack witch lowerd the nitrates down to 20- 40. Soon after the puffer was moved into the 30 gallon he developed a white cotton like growth on the end of his tail. The person at my LFS suggested, that if i just did frequent water changes amd added new carbon, things would improve. They did improve for awhile the white growth when't away and his tail seemed to heal. That was about a month and a half ago. In the last week I have been cycling a new 75 gallon just for the puffer. Ironically I had to move the 30 to put the 75 in and under the strain of the move the poor porc puffer has developed a another infection in his tail this one seems much worse. We moved him into the 75 yestererday after he hadn't eaten in four days in the 30. We feed him a mix of prawns ( shell on) squid , crab, krill. The new tanks readings are 0 ammonia 0 nitrite 20 nitrate we cycled with sea chem stability , live rock, some dirty water and live sand. He seems to adjusted to the new tanks perameters well but his tail is still BAD, it displayed a red fringe around the end yesterday and looked ragged and deteriorating. The Puffer still moves around all right he expresses an interest in eating but just sort of nips at it and gives up when he gets to the food. We we're going to us the 30 as a hospital tank and treat him with Maracyn. But after removing the the puffer and live rock from the 30. I noticed a stringy white slime all over the substrate of the old tank which also seemed to kill off a nassarius snail that got left behind in the move. I checked the parameters of the 30 GL this morning and the reading are fine, but I'm still dubious of using the old water and substrate for the hospital tank. Sorry to be so long winded i just don't know what to do at this point. Do I get rid of the old water and substrate in the old tank fill it with the water from the 75 and use that as a hospital tank? Does any one recommend a certain medication for tail rot in porc puffers? His other fins are fine ? Can I treat the 75 gallon directly with anything?
any help advice would be greatly appreciated
Guy and Clare
HELP! Porqupine puffer w/ tail rot infection
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.
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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Jager
well a double antibiotic sounds like what you need and id toss the old substrate or at least just q/t it by itself for a month with nothing else in there to kill off anything unwelcome.
heres what you need to do.
bleach or at least start with cool water then slowly add hotter water to the tank to slowly raise the 30s temp up till its as hot as you can stand (the going slow is so the glass doesnt crack from the stress of heating or cooling too fast. )
once its washed clean setup the tank as a bare bottomed with a cycled filter off the 75 with water from the 75. then add a product called fungus eliminator by jungle products (it contains the meds you need premixed) if you cant get that look for or ask for a nitrofurzonial (spelling is off some) or fuzonidal mixed antibiotics. these two are very powerful groups that treat most infections and are generally puffer safe if used exactly as the packaging says.
do heavier water changes on the tank and test the water quality at least daily if not twice daily. keep this up for 5-7 days as the packageing says you should see marked improvement. if you dont see it help post back and let me know.
heres what you need to do.
bleach or at least start with cool water then slowly add hotter water to the tank to slowly raise the 30s temp up till its as hot as you can stand (the going slow is so the glass doesnt crack from the stress of heating or cooling too fast. )
once its washed clean setup the tank as a bare bottomed with a cycled filter off the 75 with water from the 75. then add a product called fungus eliminator by jungle products (it contains the meds you need premixed) if you cant get that look for or ask for a nitrofurzonial (spelling is off some) or fuzonidal mixed antibiotics. these two are very powerful groups that treat most infections and are generally puffer safe if used exactly as the packaging says.
do heavier water changes on the tank and test the water quality at least daily if not twice daily. keep this up for 5-7 days as the packageing says you should see marked improvement. if you dont see it help post back and let me know.
re: puffer with tail rot
Hey Thanks For your quick reply Jager
Going to get jungle fungus eliminator this after noon. I was thinking I do have a 55 gallon that's been sitting empty the last two years. Could I avoid doing the slow teperature raise that I'd have to do with the old 30? if I clean out the 55 and use it as hospital tank. Should I transfer any of the L.R. to the hospital tank?
thanks again
Guy
Going to get jungle fungus eliminator this after noon. I was thinking I do have a 55 gallon that's been sitting empty the last two years. Could I avoid doing the slow teperature raise that I'd have to do with the old 30? if I clean out the 55 and use it as hospital tank. Should I transfer any of the L.R. to the hospital tank?
thanks again
Guy
So after a few days and many visits to the LFS, we've got meds ( jungle fungus eliminater, melafix) and a hospital tank with cycled water running. I got the jungle brand fungus eliminator after some searching and some questioning from the fish store owner who was dubious about it's use in SW. we just added the fungus eliminator it turned the water yellow green and it's slowly dissolving. We are planning to add the protein skimmer from our 75 gl onto the hospital tank, It seems like our only option because the meds prohibit the use of carbon filtration. The instructions says that a water change should be done after 4 days. is this dependent on water quality perameters alone? As for our porc puff he ate a little yesterday ( first time in 5 days) his tail is no longer red at all but it still appears frayed and sensitive. He is slow and hides allot. I really hope he pulls through.
Hello Again
So our porc puffers been in his hospital tank treated with fugus eliminator for three and a half days now. I've been doing daily checks for ammonia, nitrates,nitites, etc. everythings cool on that front. I must say his tail is looking much better, the white growth and redness are gone. His tail hasn't really grown back but he fans it out now as opposed to it being constantly curled before.The base of his tail appears darker than the rest. He seems alert and more active.
But my problem still, is getting him to eat. For the past week and a half he has expressed an interest in food. But either loses interest once directly it's front of him or once he makes a couple of futile attempts at biting the bait. We've been aware to vary his diet since we got him and I'm well aware of the potential for "lock jaw in puffers. The best luck I've had is using small pieces of calamri which he has managed to suck in on a few occasions. A couple of times once he's tried to eat his food he appears to have what I can best describe as a "coughing" fit.
I plan on doing a water change tomorrow with a little more antibiotic and melafix, and to keep trying with the small bits of food . Are more extreme treatments needed in this case?
thanks for your help
Guy
So our porc puffers been in his hospital tank treated with fugus eliminator for three and a half days now. I've been doing daily checks for ammonia, nitrates,nitites, etc. everythings cool on that front. I must say his tail is looking much better, the white growth and redness are gone. His tail hasn't really grown back but he fans it out now as opposed to it being constantly curled before.The base of his tail appears darker than the rest. He seems alert and more active.
But my problem still, is getting him to eat. For the past week and a half he has expressed an interest in food. But either loses interest once directly it's front of him or once he makes a couple of futile attempts at biting the bait. We've been aware to vary his diet since we got him and I'm well aware of the potential for "lock jaw in puffers. The best luck I've had is using small pieces of calamri which he has managed to suck in on a few occasions. A couple of times once he's tried to eat his food he appears to have what I can best describe as a "coughing" fit.
I plan on doing a water change tomorrow with a little more antibiotic and melafix, and to keep trying with the small bits of food . Are more extreme treatments needed in this case?
thanks for your help
Guy
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Jager
well i would try a garlic suppiment to add to the food or a garlic scent. it drives puffers nuts and generally they cant resist it. as for the "coughing" its fairly normal for them to swallow a huge chunk then cough it back out some to break it off some then swallow again etc till the whole thing is managable.
Hello
So our porc puffs has been in his hospital tank seven days now. His tail has appeared to have cleared up completly. The edges are still frayed, and his tail hasn't grown back but he fans it, and it no longer appears to be sensitive or bothering him. Yet he still has not eaten. We tried krill, squid , prawn, mussels. We Soaked them in garlic oil, still he will not eat. Again he initially seems interested in food then just sort of gives up on it. We did a water change of unmedicated salt water into his hospital tank. I figured after seven days and his tail appearing healed that we could start to remove the meds. I thought we could try live food and someone suggested ghost shrimp if we could find them. Should we put him back in his 75 gallon? If he's going to not eat and die it atleast seems like a happier place for him to do so. I'm trying to do all I can for this guy, but it's starting to look a little hopeless. He hasn't really eaten anything substantial in more than 2 weeks.
thank you as always
Guy
So our porc puffs has been in his hospital tank seven days now. His tail has appeared to have cleared up completly. The edges are still frayed, and his tail hasn't grown back but he fans it, and it no longer appears to be sensitive or bothering him. Yet he still has not eaten. We tried krill, squid , prawn, mussels. We Soaked them in garlic oil, still he will not eat. Again he initially seems interested in food then just sort of gives up on it. We did a water change of unmedicated salt water into his hospital tank. I figured after seven days and his tail appearing healed that we could start to remove the meds. I thought we could try live food and someone suggested ghost shrimp if we could find them. Should we put him back in his 75 gallon? If he's going to not eat and die it atleast seems like a happier place for him to do so. I'm trying to do all I can for this guy, but it's starting to look a little hopeless. He hasn't really eaten anything substantial in more than 2 weeks.
thank you as always
Guy
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Pufferpunk
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they can probably go much longer than 2 weeks w/o food but go ahead & put him back in the larger tank, careful to acclimate him as if you just bought him. Try a small crayfish.
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!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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Feathers&Fins
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 201
- Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:42 pm
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- My Puffers: Pufferless since Nova passed; had 2 red T.miuris, 4 T.biocellatus for many years.
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- Location: (US) Kentucky
re: is he having problems opening his mouth?
It's tough to say. Sometimes he will try to bite food directly and it will sort of pop out of his mouth.Sometimes he will go after food and miss it altogether or give up on it as he approches. He was even spitting water at us last night but he did not eat when we placed food in the water. He did suffer from this before, right after we bought him, though he did not have tail rot that time. we fed him small pieces of squid which he managed to suck in. After a few days he was as ravenous and healthy as ever.
We have tried to vary his food as much as possible, and provide him with prawns , crabs etc with shell on. I've never quite understood it though, the mouth of a porc puff seems more like seperate fused plates, as opposed to visible beaks like dog face puffers and triggers. We placed him back in the 75 gallon today, keeping a close eye on him and hoping for the best.
thanks
Guy
We have tried to vary his food as much as possible, and provide him with prawns , crabs etc with shell on. I've never quite understood it though, the mouth of a porc puff seems more like seperate fused plates, as opposed to visible beaks like dog face puffers and triggers. We placed him back in the 75 gallon today, keeping a close eye on him and hoping for the best.
thanks
Guy
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Feathers&Fins
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 201
- Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:42 pm
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Pufferless since Nova passed; had 2 red T.miuris, 4 T.biocellatus for many years.
- Location (country): KY (USA)
- Location: (US) Kentucky
-
Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32979
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Puffers I have kept:
T lineatus
T miurus
A modestus
T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
C lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Greenville, SC
- Contact: