The Puffer Forum

Glad to hear! You have got to follow through with the complete med treatment so the IP's do not become immune. Also I have read here not all worms will be expelled, it depends on the type of worm it is.

Christemo wrote:I think I'm going to do a smaller treatment later because he hasn't expelled the worms yet

Do NOT do "smaller" treatments with any parasite medication. Use the recommended amount every time. Lowering the dosage can make the parasites immune, which is a very, very bad thing.

Also, when a fish is heavily infested with parasites, you actually don't want them to expel all of the worms at once. Purging them of so many at once can cause a huge strain on the fish, and can actually cause them to perish. This isn't to say that you shouldn't continue dosing, but I just wanted to point out that a "fixed in one dose" approach shouldn't be the ultimate aim of an IP treatment.

I'm glad to hear he's doing better! Stick with the treatment and make sure he gets some food (and vitamins, if you can get some) to build his immunity system back up.

Has he started eating yet?
If not; have you tried live foods like brine shrimp or glassworm just to fatten him up a bit? the biting and spitting out sounds like my waspfish when he's snapped at a frozen bloodworm and realised that its not wriggling.

He's just started nibbling on food today.. so I'll try that out.

Great news!

Make sure you really vaccuum the substrate well, to clean out anything he's purged.

Don't be let down or assume failure if you see no visible worms purged. Protozoan internal parasites are very common and do not visibly purge like tapeworms other "real" worm IPs do.