Distended abdomen pea puffer

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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.

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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.

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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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steve8719
Puffer Fry
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2024 11:02 pm
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Distended abdomen pea puffer

Post by steve8719 »

Hi all, just found this forum, hoping you can help. One of my pea puffers has a very distended abdomen, first noticed today.
IMG_1912.jpeg
Sorry the picture is out of focus, she was not cooperative.

Behavior seems normal. She’s eating, but she’s picky. I’ve had her about 3 weeks. She’s in a community tank, so I offer flakes, betta pellets, and algae wafers for her neighbors, and I rotate frozen blood worms, frozen brine shrimp and Vibra-bites for the puffer. I also inoculated the tank with a dozen ‘pest snails’ (bladder, rams horn, and Malaysian trumpet snails) just after I got the puffers, but I don’t know that they have survived.

65 gallon, cycled in 2016, moderately to heavily planted (the plants struggled recently, they’re rebounding now, but still thinner than I’d like). I’ve been using Thrive-S fertilizer for about a week.
Just added an air stone and pump less than a week ago. (All to try to fill out the plants.)

Bristlenose, EBR, about half a dozen each danios, tetras, cherry barbs, ghost shrimp and one very lonely platy. 6 pea puffers, including one (maybe 2) males.

0/0/10, 76 F, 7.6 pH, 7dKH, 0.25 PO4

Thanks in advance.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Distended abdomen pea puffer

Post by Pufferpunk »

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!"
steve8719
Puffer Fry
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2024 11:02 pm
Location (country): US

Re: Distended abdomen pea puffer

Post by steve8719 »

He (She?)'s just fat? lol. Thank you! I thought she had a tumor or something...
User avatar
Pufferpunk
Queen Admin
Posts: 32979
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept:
T lineatus
T miurus
A modestus
T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
C lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles
Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Greenville, SC
Contact:

Re: Distended abdomen pea puffer

Post by Pufferpunk »

Not fat, just full of food. Has it gone down?
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!"
steve8719
Puffer Fry
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2024 11:02 pm
Location (country): US

Re: Distended abdomen pea puffer

Post by steve8719 »

No, not really. And it looks a little asymmetrical too. I'd say it's a bit more distended on her right than left :/
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