The Puffer Forum

I am very sad to say Rasputin passed last night. My wife and I are devastated.

He was a fighter, but in the end even with the medicine it seems there were just too many of the worms inside him -- he passed several intestinal worms and ended up concave and would not eat, and the other worms were emerging from his gill areas, to the point that I do not think he could breathe properly. We stayed up watching over him, but were exhausted. Around 3 am last night my wife checked on him and found him listless and stuck to the filter intake. I tried to revive him by forcing water over his gills, holding him loosely in my hands, but he was gone within an hour. It has been a very somber day here. We did all we could.

He was an amazing fish and will never be forgotten. I'll miss him every day when I come home and he isn't there to greet me at the front of his tank.

We love you Raspy.

That's so sad... How long did you have him? Where do you think those worms came from?

About four months, but it felt like much longer. We were very attached.

Talking to some friends who are biologists and have done some work with fish, their best guess is that he already had the eggs inside him when we got him. After a while they just hatched and started working their way out, and he was too weak to go on.

Yeah, that sounded like 4 months worth of worms infested in him.

Awwww... I'm very sorry for your loss. That had to be horrible watching him go like that. I can't imagine seeing something like that happening to one of my puffers. That's the downside to these puffers being wild caught, you don't know what they are coming to you with.

Will you get another puffer? I highly recommend it, they can be such a joy. I think we've all had our bad experiences, that's part of fish-keeping.

Please accept my condolences.

Pure prazi is great at what it does, which is kill flatworms, like tapeworms. But it is not useful for camalanus worms, nematodes, or small roundworms, as they don't have the susceptible muscles, nor protozoan infection. If the fish is trying to eat but spits out all or most of the food, especially very early on in the course of the parasite infection, it's likely protozoan, they can spread up the digestive track to the throat and make swallowing difficult. Prazi is in the jungle tablets.

Levimisole is much broader spectrum, but hard to find and my fish acted like they were dying when in contact with it, forcing me to immediately change 90% of the water. First panic-ey swimming, then thrashing, finally settling on the bottom, black as rocks, shaking. No idea why, many have used it with no problems. Also ineffective against protozoans, however.

Metronadazole kills hexama (the cause of most hole in the head), some other small parasites, internal protozoan infections, and infections of several types of anaerobic bacteria. It's a bit hit and miss, but until recently was the only way to treat protozoan or most anaerobic bacterial wasting diseases. Also in the jungle tablets.

Flubendazole kills almost any type of actual worm, flatworms, roundworms, nematodes, as well as internal protozoans and hexima. Some recent research I've done has indicated it may need a higher dose for the nematodes, camalanus worms, or internal protozoans, but it's safe at nearly 30 times the recommended dose of the only widely available brand, Kusari Wormer Plus, so I always about double the dose anyway. It can be safely combined with Metronidazole for a stronger effect, much the way combination antibiotics are used to overpower nastier infections.

I generally use flubendazole as it's the broadest spectrum, hardest to overdose, cheap, and has the best results with fish that won't or can't eat, where the meds are only going into the water. The difficult to overdose part makes treating a very very skinny fish that does eat easier, too, as I can inject and earthworm with a very potent suspension of the stuff without worrying about hurting the fish that will eat it. It's also theorized to kill the free swimming strange of both strains of ich, but salt (or hypo) does this just fine, and is much cheaper. so I haven't tested that.

Sorry for the loss.