Dwarf w/ IPs - what else can I do?

[Dinsdale]

1) ph ~= 7.5, Amm = 0, Nitrites = 0, Nitrates = 0-10
2) 30g long tank w/ 2 DPs and a couple baby guppies
3) Frozen bloodworms once/day with an occasional day off and weekly water changes. added some salt and did a dose of Prazi yesterday
4) no changes
5) setup about 2 years ago

My dwarf puffer, Lorenzo, has been sick the past 5-6 days. He started appearing thinner than usual before feedings, and then stopped taking as much interest in his bloodworms. For the past two days he hasn't eaten at all. He appears to have some very small strings coming out of his anus. Yesterday I dosed his tank with "Parasite Clear - tank buddies" tablets - 3 tabs, one for each 10 gallons. The ingredients are: praziquentel, diflubenzuron, metronidazole, acriflavine. I left the tank medicated for almost 24 hours and then did a 50-60% water change with Prime. Levels were all 0. I also tried soaking some bloodworms in medicated water, both with and without garlic powder. He seemed like he wanted to eat but could not bring himself to do it.

I am having a hard time with this because I've had him for a couple years already. I really hate to see him suffer. The past couple days I've been surprised to find him alive still in the morning - he's still got the will to live but I don't know what else I can do to help him.

He's so skinny now I think if he doesn't eat soon he will die from starvation, if not from the worms. What else can I do? I need to go by the pet store and see what other meds they have. Should I try any other specific meds? Is there anything else I can try to get him to eat?

Thanks for your help!
Dan

[Nick]

See if you can get some levimisole or flubenziadole powder, it may be effective against different worms. Alternatively, after two years, your DP might just be getting old. They can breed at only about half a year old, so natural selection does not strongly favor long life, thats why their span is so variable from 2 to 5 years. If you have had him two years, he's probably between two and 3 years old.

[Dinsdale]

Ok, thanks for the suggestion. I've looked for at least levimisole before and could not find it, but I'll see what I can find.

My guess is he's probably about 3 years old, maybe a little more. He's still alive this morning, so something tells me he's not ready to die from old age - not without a fight.

Any suggestions to get him to eat something?

Thanks!

[Dinsdale]

Ok, I've found a place to purchase levamisole... what would be the best way to provide the sub-7 ph necessary for the drug to work?

[mikeosoft]

Changing the pH will likely stress the fish more than it's worth. The pH scale is not linear, so even a change of 0.5 can be very large as far as your fish are concerned.

It would be best if you can get the fish to eat something that has been soaked in the meds for a couple of hours. FW fish do not drink water so treating the water isn't as effective as feeding the meds. I doubt force feeding is an option since DP's are so small.

Hopefully he gets hungry and decides to eat something.

[Dinsdale]

Ok thanks, I won't bother with the ph.

I just bought some levamisol: http://www.farmandfleet.com/catalog/pro ... x?i=047528

It has a small amount (18.15g) of powder in it, and the directions say to fill the bottle up with water and mix. How should I go about administering this? I'm guessing I would mix it up to create the solution, but then how do I know how much to add to my tank, and how much would I add to some food?

Thanks for all the help!

[Dinsdale]

Ok, Ive figured out the dosing from this article:

http://www.loaches.com/disease-treatmen ... chloride-1

Ill update when I get back from work.

[Nick]

I believe levimisole hydrochloride doesn't care about the PH of the water very much, only freebase pure levimisole is strongly affected. I could be wrong...

[Dinsdale]

Yes, that's what I read today.

Lorenzo was still alive when I came home from work. I left again and came home now and tank lights are off...pretty hard to find him at night.

[Happy_Puffer]

I used this stuff called General Cure and I just soaked some krill and my f8 ate it. He was sick when I got him so I knew I needed to get meds into quick after giving him the meds he seemed better and much hungier. I hope he makes it dps are so cute!