Med Q *W/FLICKS*

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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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allycat
Dwarf Puffer
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:38 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: 2 x DP's in planted 20-hi
Divine, F
Cujo, M
2 x Irrubesco in divided 15-long
Rogue, F
Probation, M (lorteti??)
1 x 2.5 in GSP in 10G 1.020
Merck, ?

Also kept: 29 G FW juvie loach community, soon to be 55G!)
10G Misgurnus tank
2.5G snail breeder
Location (country): USA-Indiana

Med Q *W/FLICKS*

Post by allycat »

Hey, I'm not sure if this is a "Hospital" post, but it is about medication...

I am about to use praziquantel to de-worm a quarantined puffer. I have used this product before on my DP's, but did not administer it on the puff's food. The worst-off puff died anyway, from that batch... sigh.
:(
I added about 5mL of the "PraziPro" medication (which is--according to the packaging--a <5% solution of prazi in a base of oxybispropanol). The directions say nothing about administering with food, but it seems to be the same product, possibly different concentration. I have read a post from PP that you cannot overdose on this stuff, so mixing the 5mL with some bloodworms in a couple ounces of water seemed legit. Bloodworms appeared to be my best option for maximizing the amount of medication swallowed. Don't think it would work with snails/blackworms?

It bubbled and fizzed when it hit the bloodworms! (SanFran BB frozen) Should I give it to puff? Is this normal?

It's soaking right now... stopped fizzing. It's a cloudy colour :P
Last edited by allycat on Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
ask: is this suffering necessary or unnecessary?
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J-P
Former Staff Member
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Location: Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan

Re: Med Q

Post by J-P »

they usually fizz when they hit liquid don't they?
if you follow me, you avoid stepping in the crap that I just did...

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allycat
Dwarf Puffer
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:38 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: 2 x DP's in planted 20-hi
Divine, F
Cujo, M
2 x Irrubesco in divided 15-long
Rogue, F
Probation, M (lorteti??)
1 x 2.5 in GSP in 10G 1.020
Merck, ?

Also kept: 29 G FW juvie loach community, soon to be 55G!)
10G Misgurnus tank
2.5G snail breeder
Location (country): USA-Indiana

Re: Med Q

Post by allycat »

Never noticed the bloodworms "fizz"... Bubbles form and are released whilst they soak, I've seen. I mean fizzing like vinegar and baking soda, an audible reaction. A friend of mine in the room saw me stir the prazi into the thawed worms and was like, "WHAT IS THAT???!??" Fizzing chemical worms... YUM

I'm guessing it's normal, but the dewormer "attacking" (reacting to) the worms seemed sort of...meta... and confusing.

I think I'll go ahead and do it! Puff gained a little weight since it has lived with me, so we'll see if it's ready! Don't want to feed those buggies for too long.
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Dadof4
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Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:50 am
Gender: Male
My Puffers: 1 GSP (Microfiche) RIP, 1 Monotrete Turgidus (Leon) in a 30gal. 1 Monotrete suvattii in a 40 gal FW. 120 gallon BW with 3 juvenile Dragon Gobies (so cool). 55 gal with a 2" GSP named Hank. 180 gallon being set up for a Fahaka in the next few months!
Location (country): United States
Location: North Wisconsin

Re: Med Q

Post by Dadof4 »

The fizz tabs are like Alka Seltzer and fizz when they hit water. They are not reacting to the worms. To get the best saturation of the med add it to water and then add some food that is freeze dried, as it soaks it will take the medicine in. You can also thaw food in it and it will soak it in that way. Either way alot of puffers turn their nose up at treated foods because of the taste so add some garlic extract to the mix. It works as an attractant for fish and has some stated IP treating properties.
"Darwin swings...annnnnnd a miss. Boy Jim, Chuck's suffered at the plate tonight. He's 0 for 3 and I'm not sure he's recovered from that shoulder pull a few weeks ago. I'll bet the front office is re-thinking that contract."
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User avatar
allycat
Dwarf Puffer
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:38 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: 2 x DP's in planted 20-hi
Divine, F
Cujo, M
2 x Irrubesco in divided 15-long
Rogue, F
Probation, M (lorteti??)
1 x 2.5 in GSP in 10G 1.020
Merck, ?

Also kept: 29 G FW juvie loach community, soon to be 55G!)
10G Misgurnus tank
2.5G snail breeder
Location (country): USA-Indiana

Re: Med Q *W/FLICKS*

Post by allycat »

Ok he did not think it was delicious per se, but he ate the flesh out of two large, prazi-marinated bloodworms. Didn't eat the exoskeletons, like he usually will. He would not have any more, so I filled his belly with blackworms and 2 small physellas.

Here's "Merck", who is a tiny little GSP I just HAD to have (I know) from LFS--I went to get some pinkies and new ghosties, and saw their puffer tank: OMFSM! There was a tiny little skeleton of a GSP with a wound on his head (looked like from other 2 tankmates in 10 gal tank...don't think I'm EVER buying fish there again!), it was lilting on the bottom of the tank, SO dark... :( One GSP looked pretty spiffy, chubby, likely stealing food from other two. I got an employee that I knew better than the rest, he keeps some fish, and told him that something needed to be done about skeleton puff. I'm a softie, but I seriously recommended that he euthanize the fish. He put in the back in a QT tank (w/ a net!) and said he would treat it for parasites, feed it a "high-protein" food, and raise the temperature. I couldn't help thinking about the other skinny, skinny puff in the tank, one of the two that were doing OK still. He looked so hungry, mashing his face against the glass. I set up the tank for him. I went back, they gave him to me for $2 b/c the same clerk was there (and I was like, WT* man?!), and I put him in the hospital tank I had set up in case I needed an emergency tank in a power outage. Hopefully the clerk does something differently next time...

1. pH 7.4, ammonia not detectable, nitrites not detectable, 'Ates less than 5ppm, barely reading. I have liquid test kids. They were (clearly) in FW, so no salinity until next week.Then up with pH and salinity, easy does it!
2. It's just a 10 G for now, but after reading PP's article on GSP's, I think this will be fine until he is acclimated into higher salinity, so I can cycle his bigger tank for him at marine! (Keep looking @ pics). There *were* some ghost shrimp that I plopped in with him, but I can't find any. Mysterious...
3. He's been eating bloodworms, blackworms, barely any mysis, lots of physella snails and a ramshorn here and there (he's tearing through my supply). Gonna try some mussels and shrimps/prawns or something crunchy from the market this weekend. I have some FinGuard ("Polyvinylpyrrolidone sodium thiosulfate salts" supposed to help with handling trauma) that I put a half-dose of in upon introduction.
4. No real changes, did a 50% tank change on his 4th night here. Moved stuff around a bit to vacuum. He's still under close observation in QT, brand new.
5. I used substrate, a BioFilter, and water all from a healthy FW tank. Like I said, I had that filter cycled (running in healthy tank) in case of power outages.

Day 1, after a couple feedings. He was SO grey at first, I wasn't optimistic. He was almost too weak to make it through the stress of reacclimating, was swimming pretty weakly, wobbling a lot. Check out his progression, though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr1bqJJJ_nU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5HSyF9wrOA

And his tank-to be:

Image

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ask: is this suffering necessary or unnecessary?
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User avatar
allycat
Dwarf Puffer
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:38 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: 2 x DP's in planted 20-hi
Divine, F
Cujo, M
2 x Irrubesco in divided 15-long
Rogue, F
Probation, M (lorteti??)
1 x 2.5 in GSP in 10G 1.020
Merck, ?

Also kept: 29 G FW juvie loach community, soon to be 55G!)
10G Misgurnus tank
2.5G snail breeder
Location (country): USA-Indiana

Re: Med Q *W/FLICKS*

Post by allycat »

Oh and @ Dad: It definitely was not "fizz tabs"...pry would have figured out why they were fizzing ;)

From first post: "I added about 5mL of the "PraziPro" medication (which is--according to the packaging--a <5% solution of prazi in a base of oxybispropanol)."

Liquid.

Morning after medication (yesterday) he looked OK, ate well, same last night and this morning :), though he is still, understandably, moody and grey sometimes. Did a 50% WC yesterday, 2nd one since he's been here. I've been feeding him whenever his belly is empty, due to his emaciation. I've been keeping the tank calm, half- covered and dark, just started a 12-hr light cycle today. Gonna try to get some java moss & fern growing once I see some algae start, since those could live for a while as I raise the salinity, and I have those plants in both other tanks. Can't WAIT for SW (neither can he!)
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