The Puffer Forum

How does his tummy look? I'm glad to hear he is eating better .

Great news!

I bet it was the parasites... usually when they get really bad the fish stops eating all together, your guys was still TRYING to eat but just couldn't do it. Walking that tightrope. I bet he improves very quickly now, although you might have to still redose a few times along the way.

StormySkiez, Mayj,

He still can't eat pieces that are not cut long and thin, but he is eating them. Here is our original picture and one taken today. I think you can see that the notch in his belly in the first photo has begun to fill in. Today he was biting at the filter tube where it exits the water. I moved the tube and found he was hunting the last of the 15 or so Ghost Shrimp we put in his tank the first day.





Edit: Note the second photo shows his right side rather than left - it was mirror imaged to facilitate comparison.

Wow what a difference in just a few days. Glad to see he's eating. Lot's of luck to you wit you new baby. Can't wait to see how he looks after a few weeks.

wow, he's skinny! can't wait to see some pics with a little more weight on him.

Glad to see PQ is helping with this.

Pufferpunk wrote:Glad to see PQ is helping with this.

Yeah, we're extremely grateful that with all the poor lady is going through, she is still helping others.

I do see improvement. Keep up the good work! Good work FishFan .

What a success story this has turned out to be, though not out of the woods yet the Puffer looks great and the desire to hunt and feed is really really promising WELL DONE!!!!!

Fishfan

I read the whole story and it touched me! What great job you're doing! I'm keeping my fingers crossed to see pictures of your puffer when he gets super shape!

I really wish you both GOOD LUCK!

How is the puffer doing? I saw the pictures and he looks much better then he did. I hope all is still going well!

He continues to be alert and swims constantly; never sitting on the bottom or hiding like he's feeling really sick. He still can't swallow food pieces with a diameter slightly larger than a cooked spaghetti noodle, but that's much better than he was originally when the pieces had to be smaller than the size of the uncooked noodles. We think he is eating slightly above subsistence levels. He eats only 2-3 pieces of food at a time. We've been offering food in small amounts every 3-4 hours or so. We're also offering him a good supply of gut loaded Ghost Shrimp twice now. The first time he chewed them up but most or all were spit out.

Yesterday we put 20 gut loaded Ghost Shrimp in his tank. We think he's eating some of them and just chewing others. Regardless, it takes days to catch them all and provides entertainment and activity that we feel will help him adjust to his new environment. His favorite food continues to be small strips of the firm meat cut from live clams' feet.

After our first dose of PraziPro (praziquantel) we found what looked like parasites stuck to the filter. The photos were a bit fuzzy but Puffer Queen thought they might look like nematodes. It took us a while to find some metronidozole that wasn't years expired or mixed with other medications and labeled for use only in fresh water. Yesterday we gave him a medication that is a powered form of praziquantel and metronidozole. We also soaked his food in a concentrated mixture of the same. We'll see if that helps in the next couple days. We're feeling pretty optimistic based on the progress we're seeing. We've ordered some additional medications and vitamins for tube feeding that were recommended by Puffer Queen should tube feeding be needed. If things continue to improve, we won't need to tube feed. Puffer Queen's level of knowledge is really impressive.

Be sure to soak the fod in a good vitamin, like Selcon, along with the meds.

Well I am happy that he is doing better. I was worried that since you hadn't posted in awhile that something bad had happened. I guess I'm just a negative Nancy . I really hope he gets better soon and you both seem like good puffer parents! Feeding every 3 to 4 hours is very caring!

Here's an updated photo of this cute little guy, along with the old ones for comparison. Based on the photo and his eating behaviors we see steady progress. This evening we're feeling confident enough about his progress that we're trying to decide on a name.

April 16th (Day of purchase)

April 20th

April 25th edit: fixed broken pic link