Deworming and treating internal parasities in puffers by dosing in the water?

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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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EughPuffer
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Deworming and treating internal parasities in puffers by dosing in the water?

Post by EughPuffer »

Hi! I want to deworm my puffers and treat internal parasites, however they wont eat medicated feed (maybe its bitter or something). I'm trying to treat them with praziquantel and metronidazole.
There are instructions on the package on how to treat by dosing the water. However according to library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/
It isn't an effective way. And dosing it in the water can cause stress. Should i dose it anyway or just leave the puffer be? Since dosing in the water isn't effective, why should i do it?

p/s I'm definitely not gonna shove a catherer in its mouth, thats really scary!
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Re: Deworming and treating internal parasities in puffers by dosing in the water?

Post by Pufferpunk »

Are they FW puffers? Did you8 try adding garlic juice to the medicated soak?
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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Re: Deworming and treating internal parasities in puffers by dosing in the water?

Post by EughPuffer »

Pufferpunk wrote: Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:56 pm Are they FW puffers? Did you8 try adding garlic juice to the medicated soak?
No they are not fw, they are bw. Yes, i have mashed some garlic and soaked it in the garlic juice for 10 minutes. They did not like it at all. Maybe i need to buy seachem garlic instead? Or should i just pour the medicine in the water
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Pufferpunk
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Posts: 32755
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: Deworming and treating internal parasities in puffers by dosing in the water?

Post by Pufferpunk »

How about injecting an earthworm with the med?
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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Re: Deworming and treating internal parasities in puffers by dosing in the water?

Post by EughPuffer »

Pufferpunk wrote: Mon Feb 07, 2022 6:48 pm How about injecting an earthworm with the med?
Ooh I didnt think of that, i will try that method, hopefully it'll work. Thank you so much!!
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Re: Deworming and treating internal parasities in puffers by dosing in the water?

Post by Puffer PaPa »

I'm going to try injecting a worm I don't wanna get pinched by the mud bugs.
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