Possible nematode

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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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vuphy
Puffer Fry
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Stumpy - F8
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Location: Milwaukee, WI

Possible nematode

Post by vuphy »

Hello everyone,

We found this site a few months ago, and i have to admit, our puffers are much happier these days. Thanks for all the info and help, even tho you didn't know i was here using it.

Now for the problem. This is Frank, we've had him for about 5mo.

Image

The bump on his back was not there when we got him, we had him in a quarantine tank for a couple of weeks, then we moved him to our 55g with Stumpy (full grown F8P) and Tag (young GSP), after a couple of days we noticed a sore right where that bump is. At first we thought that Tag had bitten him, so, we soon moved Tag to a 40g with a Lon (a young Ceylon, which was our plan, it was just pushed forward a bit sooner). The wound seem to heal up OK, but a small bump appeared after a week or so, and slowly over a few months grew. When it began to get "lumpy" and Frank stopped eating, was when we moved him to quarantine, thinking that maybe he'd gotten a parasite in the open wound, and we treated it as such with Myracen and Myracen 2 (sp?). He started to eat after a couple of days, and the lumps became smoothed over, and seemed to get smaller. We decided that since he was eating again, and the bump hadn't changed in a couple of weeks, that he as good as he was going to get. but, last month, the "lumps" came back, with a vengeance and we were getting pretty worried... then they moved. This is what lead me to do some more research, and why i think its a Nematode. Basically, we like to know if he is in pain or if there's anything else we can do for him?

Image
This pic was taken last night, you can see how bump is now on the other side of his body. Also, it keeps changing shape.


Thanks again for everything.

vu
55g / 2 - F8 | 4 - Bumblebee Goby
40g / 1 - GSP
10g / 2 - Dwarf
10g / 1 - Knight Goby | 1 - wood shrimp | 1 - molly
56g / 1 - SAP | 2 - DP
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vuphy
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Post by vuphy »

yeah, that's something we're trying to come to terms with. Is there anything we can do, so that we don't aggravate it more, or to slow its growth. We're worried that it might burrow deeper in, and cause more severe damage.
55g / 2 - F8 | 4 - Bumblebee Goby
40g / 1 - GSP
10g / 2 - Dwarf
10g / 1 - Knight Goby | 1 - wood shrimp | 1 - molly
56g / 1 - SAP | 2 - DP
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puffernuke
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Post by puffernuke »

Keep the fish tank stress free. Stress is what will cause the nematode to burrow. Many puffers that have nematodes will live a long happy life. After a while you will get used to the nematode, as I am with my GSP with them. No known cure for them that wont kill the fish, so keep the fish as happy as possible and he should be fine.
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Post by The Fisherman »

this is really OT, but, i absolutely LOVE the F8 in your avatar! hes gorgeous! howd you get him to grow that big?
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vuphy
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Post by vuphy »

Puffernuke: thanks for the advice, we're going to have to get him a larger tank, since he's just in a 10g now.

The Fisherman: we've had him for almost 2yrs. He was the largest of our first 4 puffers, and we almost didn't get him because he was in such rough shape, he had several fins bitten to almost nothing and if you look closely at him, he's even missing one of his "nostrils". He's the only one of that group that lived tho. We've worked really hard to keep him happy, by re-arranging the tanks every couple of months or so, and moving him to a larger one when he got bigger. He's the KING of our 55g, which we're keeping at a low brackish setting now (1.003), since we have a SAP in there. The tank is planted, cause he likes to chew on them. We pretty much do what ever we can to keep him getting bored or stressed... if we change something, and he starts glass surfing for more than a couple days, we try to either change it back, or find something else to counter act it. He's generally got a belly that's noticeable, which we know isn't the best, but if we dint feed the tank enough for him, he eats all the food insight.

Here's a few more pics of him, if you'd like to see them.
http://rob.madsen.googlepages.com/stumpy
[/url]
55g / 2 - F8 | 4 - Bumblebee Goby
40g / 1 - GSP
10g / 2 - Dwarf
10g / 1 - Knight Goby | 1 - wood shrimp | 1 - molly
56g / 1 - SAP | 2 - DP
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Raphael
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Post by Raphael »

Very nice pictures. You should consider sending in one of them to puufer of the month. I like the last one most.
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vuphy
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Post by vuphy »

Thx, i did enter one, just not of Stumpy. :wink:
55g / 2 - F8 | 4 - Bumblebee Goby
40g / 1 - GSP
10g / 2 - Dwarf
10g / 1 - Knight Goby | 1 - wood shrimp | 1 - molly
56g / 1 - SAP | 2 - DP
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lisalisa

Post by lisalisa »

I would seriously consider separating the SAP and F8.
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vuphy
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Post by vuphy »

Its in our plan for the future. When we bought it, they had several in brackish and we had read about them being brackish in the past. Though i must admit, we did jump the gun a bit when we bought him, because we had not seen them for sale. At the moment we don't have the room for another tank in our small apartment. :(

He's been doing quite well for the time being, if there should be any signs of real stress, we do have another 10g that could house him for a short time.
55g / 2 - F8 | 4 - Bumblebee Goby
40g / 1 - GSP
10g / 2 - Dwarf
10g / 1 - Knight Goby | 1 - wood shrimp | 1 - molly
56g / 1 - SAP | 2 - DP
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vuphy
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yay!

Post by vuphy »

Just because i like to read about other people's happy stories, i though i would follow up with ours. Frank was in a pretty bad place when we last talked about him here. since then, we've gotten him a 29g which he shares with a bumble bee goby (named leif), and a knight goby (named Galahad).

Image
Image
Image

so, thx again to everyone for their help/advice.

ps. sorry about the poor image quality, he doesnt like the flash and usually runs from the camera, so its hard to get a good clean close up.
55g / 2 - F8 | 4 - Bumblebee Goby
40g / 1 - GSP
10g / 2 - Dwarf
10g / 1 - Knight Goby | 1 - wood shrimp | 1 - molly
56g / 1 - SAP | 2 - DP
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Post by Pufferpunk »

The lumps are gone?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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vuphy
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Post by vuphy »

for the most part. in the first pic you can see a residual lump. we're not sure if they burrowed in, or died. we're hoping they died, but we have no way of telling. other than regaining his appetite and getting a little fat, we havent seen any coiling in his belly. so, they're either deep inside him, or died and were absorbed.

we kept him in the 10g QT for longer than we had planned, but since he was eating and held his color, we didnt want to risk a move. as you can see, he's looking much better now that he's got a real tank. we dont expect him to live a long life, since we're not sure about the parasite. but really, we just dont worry about it, we've done everything we can think of at this point, and he seems happy. we wish he could be back with his other tank mates, but we cant risk any sort of out break. overall he's prolly got more room to himself this way anyhow.
55g / 2 - F8 | 4 - Bumblebee Goby
40g / 1 - GSP
10g / 2 - Dwarf
10g / 1 - Knight Goby | 1 - wood shrimp | 1 - molly
56g / 1 - SAP | 2 - DP
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Post by Rusty »

Woah, im thinking happy thoughts for him!
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Post by ChesapeakeSwellfish »

vuphy - thank you for sharing this news. This is an excellent example of a good outcome (so far) of a possible nematode infection. Surgery to remove the nematode would likely have killed the patient either outright or allowed new infections by bacteria, fungi, protozoans, etc. He looks great !
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