Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

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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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KittyKat
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Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Post by KittyKat »

I have a figure 8 puffer, alone in a 20 gallon tank.
He was bought from a local fish store about 2 years ago, as a fresh water fish but I gently introduced brackish water whilst doing water changes.

We are having some building work done in our home, so I needed to move the tank, so rather than stressing him out by moving him from one tank to another, whilst doing my water change we decided to move the entire tank, whilst if was only half full, which went very well, ( although rather heavy!) without any hiccups!

Once moved and the water change completed, in its new location, my puffer was swimming around happily, coming to the front of the tank to greet anyone who passed.

I was so happy with my little fella coping so well with the move that a few days later I decided to reward him with some live blood worms, (as he normally has frozen), which he guzzled down.

However the next day I noticed that his belly had strange lumps in (and I apologise for my crudeness) his anus seemed rather noticeably open.
This is not just the normal big belly after food, but almost looks like 3 small pea size lumps, not see though or coloured, just normal colour.
I have attached pics to try to show them.

I read up on you site and thought that maybe he is constipated, so I added some aquarium salt to his tank....
1 tbls for each 5 gallons of brackish water

That was 2 days ago now and he doesn't seem to have changed, still 3 large lumps in his belly and although he isnt eating the food I offer him,
He is still swimming around as normal and coming to say hello every time I walk up to tank.

So here are my questions if any one can help,
could it be caused by the stress of the move or is it more lightly constipation?
If so how long should it take for the salt to..... relieve him?!
Should I just keep adding the aquarium salt to the water once a week whilst I do my water changes until the lumps go?
Or is there something else I should try?
As I said hes not eating now either, how long will he be able to survive without food?
Is there a chance it could be internal parasites? if so is there a product anyone would recommend in the UK,
Im struggling to find one on the uk market.

Other info I thought you might want to know is,
normal diet of frozen bloodworms, snails and cockles in shells.
Ph is 7.5
Ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate between 0 and 2.5 ( it wasn't white but a slight pink tone to it)
water salinity 1.005
water temp 24.5

I am sorry to bombard everyone with questions,
but we have become very fond of the little fella, so any help anyone could offer would be much appreciated!!
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Post by Pufferpunk »

[welcome]
IDK where you heard aquarium salt was for treating constipation, because it's Epsom salt. I'd do your regular WC & add the Epsom salt at the same dose.
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!"
ArchiesMum
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Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Post by ArchiesMum »

I have a similar problem with my figure 8 Puffer.
We have moved him from a 90 litre tank to a 190 litre tank. Ran the new tank with old filter in it for 24 hours prior to moving him in. Only half filled the tank. Tested water etc... which all came within the accepted parameters. He is swimming around ok, but stops at the bottom of the tank for a while quite frequently, does this weird jiggly, wiggly, jumping movement when he gets near the surface of the water and absolutely refuses to eat!
He HATES water changes of any description anyway, but we have had him for about 3 years and never seen him act like this before. We are putting it down to stress and hope he will return to normal soon, but as he usually eats everything in sight, seeing him not eat us quite worrying and we too have wondered how long he can go without eating anything.
Hope your Puffer recovers soon too.
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Pufferpunk
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Posts: 32764
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles
Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Post by Pufferpunk »

What are your water parameters?
I would move ALL the filter media to the new filter. 24 hours isn't nearly long enough--more like 1-2 months!
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!"
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Wipeout
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Re: Advice needed for a Lumpy bellied Puffer!!

Post by Wipeout »

Did you get any improvement, did the lumpy belly go down?
You can get parasite treatment here, it's called Wormer Plus from http://wormerplus.co.uk/ they also have an eBay shop.
It's a Flubendazole based product and from what I've reserched it's ok to use.
I picked up some recently to hold as a precaution for my F8.

Cheers
Chris
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