Puff Wasting Away, How Often to Feed?

[TammyLiz]

Two weeks ago I was given a GSP that is about 1.5 inches TL. He looked healthy at the time and not too skinny but almost as soon as I brought him home he started losing weight. I have been feeding it live brine shrimp, live snails, frozen bloodworms, and frozen mysis shrimp. I feed it once a day until it looks quite round. By about 12 hours later it looks thin again and every day it looks thinner! I am assuming that it has parasites that need to be treated, so I bought some organic raw pumpkin seeds last night and I am trying that method with his feeding tonight.

He is still active like everything is normal, but frighteningly thin! Seriously I look at him and wonder how he is still alive. I hope he makes it through the parasite treatment.

My question is should I be feeding him more than once a day? I'm just wondering if I am contributing to the problem by not feeding often enough.

Any other suggestions are welcome, too.

Thanks,

Tammy

[Agnate]

Well, feeding him more would at least help him to not be as thin, but you REALLY need to get rid of those Internal Parasites immediately. The more you feed the parasite, the bigger it gets, and the worse the condition gets. From what I heard he should look better after about three days of using some form of dewormer (though, use it for a week to make sure the unhatched parasites die as well). If the pumpkin seed formula doesn't seem to be helping by then, you might want to pick up a medication to soak his food in. From what I've heard, though, the pumpkin seeds thing seems to do the trick.

[Pufferpunk]

Excellent article in our Library on IPs.

[StormySkiez]

That does sound like IP's. You should only have to feed a puffer that size once a day 6 days a week. Reference one of the many feeding articles here: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... gproblems/

IP Article here:
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... treatment/

I wish your puffer well!

[TammyLiz]

I guess I should have posted in the hospital section instead. Hope nobody minds me posting in here.

I started the pumpkin seed treatment last night, using bloodworms. I ground and cooked the pumpkin seeds in water, strained them out, put the bloodworms in the milky water and put that in the fridge for a couple of hours to soak before feeding. I put them back in the fridge again and they soaked overnight and I fed them to him again this morning. I put them back into the fridge again and am going to feed again tonight because I think seriously he might starve if I don't. I think the bloodworms should be still OK in the fridge after 24 hours. Alert me if I'm wrong! I am not sure after that how long they'll be good for, and if I should make a new batch tomorrow.

I am considering also going to the store and buying some sort of parasite treatment to add to the water. I don't want to over medicate and kill the puffer with the treatments but this little guy has really got to get rid of this issue ASAP! I don't think there is time (before he dies) for me to try the pumpkin seed and then try something else if that doesn't work. He is just so unbelievably thin. It was just slowly getting worse so I was feeding more and more thinking "maybe I should treat for IPs" and then BAM it was so bad. Then I had to go to the store and get the pumpkin seeds but that day I had to be out late that night and couldn't cook and feed it when I got home so I did it the next night (last night) and by then it was just so bad; I am afraid I might have waited too long.

So should I go ahead and try to treat with another med along with the pumpkin seeds or might that be too much? I'm going to buy something this afternoon either way. I'll just get whatever they have. Let me know if you think I should use it. I can post later what I got but in general do you think it'll be safe to do at the same time as the pumpkin seed.

Thanks.

Tammy

Err...sorry for the rambling post I'm just sort of freaked out. I lost a whole tank of loaches recently, partially due to parasites, and I never want that to happen again! Its just a terrible way to lose a fish--feeding them and watching them starve until they die! And they were active all the way up until they died so I know that this guy being active doesn't mean a thing.

[TammyLiz]

Well he's still kicking. Tuesday night honestly I went to bed thinking he would be dead when I woke up. But he was alive. I am treating him with flubendazole. Hopefully he'll pull through. He is just so skinny I am not convinced he'll be able to gain weight once it is all over even if he's "cured" of the IPs. I hope so, though. He seems to have such a will to live. Seriously, these must be pretty intelligent creatures. I have not noticed that in a fish before.

[StormySkiez]

Has the little puffer been eating?

[crazedpuffer]

I hope he makes it!

[Agnate]

Don't worry! Once the parasites are gone, he'll put on the weight! The parasite doesn't attack things, it just eats all the food before the puffer can absorb the nutrients (thus starving to death). Sometimes starvation can cause malnutrition, but unless he's been that thin for a month or something, he should be okay after the treatment.