The Puffer Forum

Watch your parameters very closely. I tend to do water changes and add new meds often.

you should do all the maintenance you need to keep the water as clean as possible. it does remove meds so youll have to redose them.

Okey Dokey. Is there a recommended brand or type of antibiotics, and are they available from most fish stores?

Just tested my water again, and I've got:
pH 7.8 (gone down)
NitrIte <0.25 (gone way up)
NitrAte 5
Ammonia 0

Why would my pH and NitrIte change like that? Could it be due to the meds?
Doing water change now

Yes, the meds could be killing off some of the bacteria, causing a mini cycle. Waterchange! You could also look into adding some prime to help detoxify.

I'd do both the WC, and Prime.
Good call Phaedrus .

I've been thinking about products like cycle and stability that contain bacteria (if you're lucky). Even though aren't useful for cycling a tank, they could be useful in situations like this where the bacterial culture is damaged and unable to function at full capacity. The addition of Stability could boost the nitrifying capacity for the short term to prevent nitrite buildup, because they do contain nitrifying bacteria, just not the kind we need to cycle a tank.

I'd be tempted to test it out anyway.

The thing is that since the bacteria is (mostly, if not completely) dead, you are only adding to the bio-load problem.

That's why I'd like to test it to see if a "fresh" bottle of stability actually helps at all.

That might be interesting.

Very good news! Takashi the GSP is on the mend! He is now eating as normal, snails bloodworms and the like. He also greets me at the tank again!! sooo happy!

I dont think it can have been the flesh eating disease or the fungus (unless the fungus has dissapeared now) as his skin is just plain white now around his tail. Before there was stuff flaking off, but whatever I've been doing with meds/water changes has paid off. Thanks very much for you're help so far everyone!

Like I said above, the skin around his tail is still white but smooth like the rest of the skin. He is also getting the use of his tail back as it looked paralysed before.
:3*: yourock :38:

Things sound as if they are looking up. Well done. I new to puffs so could not contribute but have been following and think you've done a great job. Good job everyone.

Yippee! Keep up with what you have been doing, so it doesn't have a relapse.

Awesome news!!!!!

Like PP said, stick with what you're doing now, as it certainly seems to be working.

Cheers guys! Just some quick pics to show the general improvement. As you can see, there is still a lot of white but he's just been eating well.
Sorry about the blur, he's so hard to photograph:


Nice and fat!