Goodbye, my little friend...

[Agnate]

Yeah, I'm going to try a few more things in terms of food, but I don't want to shove food into her face (it'll just stress her more), kinda like someone showing you spaghetti when you're nauseous. I'm going to pick up a couple other things tonight and try those out.

[dab335]

I too heard about garlic, they sell pellets that contain garlic and there is a liquid garlic that u could also add to the puffers food. They swear by it at the fish place I use!

[Agnate]

Yeah, I soaked a couple things in garlic (mashed up a clove of it), but the little porc didn't even look at it. I think after tasting that PraziPro, it thinks I'm trying to feed it poison.

[yunachin]

Did you see it feed at the shop? What were they feeding it? When was the last time it ate? (if applicable)
Sometimes puffers can be stubborn and it may take a couple of days before it wants to eat.

[Agnate]

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to ask if they fed him at all, let alone what he ate. I'm going to look for some frozen Mysis and Krill, see if he'll munch on that. I don't really care *what* he eats, so long as it's food that will help him through this rough time.

[yunachin]

It's a stressful event but I am sure he will pull through with flying colors.
I will be telepathically telling him to eat.

[Agnate]

Great! He needs the extra motivation! ^_^

[Agnate]

Well, I picked up some frozen Mysis shrimp and Krill, and I think he's just too weak to eat, or too stubborn to try. I put krill in front of his mouth, and he nibbled on it a bit, but wouldn't eat it.

He's also been swimming REALLY slowly and getting stuck on the filter intake's EVEN LARGER cover that I made (meaning that he's basically making zero resistance), unless of course I try to feed him, in which case he slowly swims away.

The tank is in hypo as of 7:30 am this morning, and I thought he was looking better, but he's not all that great.

I wish I knew what to do for the poor guy.

[lazee]

Sorry I can't offer any further advice... but hope he does ok. Looks like he's got one of the best placed people to look after him though

[Pufferpunk]

I would speak to PQ about force-feeding, if it becomes necessary.
I also think this article may help:
http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/misce ... min-c.html

[t1gerbee]

sorry you are finding it so difficult...

there's a girl on here who fed her porc selena with a seringue and that worked, maybe worth trying, just to get this ones strength up a bit..

search selena to read about it.. user name em.. can't remember the rest..


fingers and toes crossed for you. x

[StormySkiez]

Here it is: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12037&hilit=+selena&start=0

edmlfc1 tells how she force feeds her porc in the thread somewhere towards the first few pages I think. Keep up the good work Agnate. I wish the little porc well.

[Agnate]

Well, I thought for sure that little porcy had passed on this morning. I looked in his ceramic pot, and it didn't look good (I was at an odd angle and it was hard to see). So I turn the put, but little porcy slowly starting swimming again, so he's still holding on. Doesn't look any better, but yeah.

I was under the impression that putting a fish into hypo salinity would cause a lot of the ich to fall off and such, as they cannot live at a salinity of 1.009... Was I mistaken? He still has a lot of white spots on his fin and body, and I figured they would have fallen off already...

I got ahold of some cycled media from a fish friend, so hopefully that will help reduce the stress. One of my LFS keeps Vitamin C for aquariums on hand, I believe, so I'm going to go pick that up, probably. I'm also going to try cutting up a krill and see if I can feed the puffer with a syringe. He doesn't look all that skinny yet, but I know that'll happen soon enough if he doesn't start eating.

[edmlfc1]

It was me that fed Selena with a syringe. I purreed her food in a mini chopper with garlic and vitamins. I moved her to a small bowl and gently held her underwater, then I put the syringe up to her mouth. When she took a hold of it I slowly pushed the food into her mouth. Once she got the hang of it she would attack the syringe and try to suck the food out, after that I didn't even have to hold her. To get the air out of the syringe I used a toothpick to stir and compact it in. Hope this helps you.

[Agnate]

Yes, it definitely does. Thank you!

Also, does anyone think that peroxide dips would be good for ich, as well? I feel helpless just sitting there "waiting for him to get better", and would like to be a lot more pro-active about it! If he can hang on so tightly to life, I want to give him a shot at it!