The Puffer Forum

Oh and his name is Puffy

Thank you so much for the help. I seriously appreciate it so much. I am in love with this fish and I just want him to be comfortable. He's like my child.

I need him to get healthy. I'm going to be SO upset if he dies.

Better to put Puffy in the larger tank right away. Your 10 gallon isn't cycled either. Check out Craigslist you will be surprised what a great deal you will be able to get.
And your welcome.

P.S. You will still have to do the emergency cycle on the bigger tank so read that article over again. It is just with more water less pollution better chance for Puffy. Good luck with him.

Ok i'm going to get a new tank on thursday or friday!

Thanks so much for ur help

Puffy and I greatly appreciate it!

its great to see how dedicated you are to puffy
we quickly become attached!
good luck with him, and getting your bigger tank!

So I did a 50% water change and used some of the water conditioner that came with the tank.
There were also samples to speed up your biological filter or something, so I put one of those in as well.

I used distiled water which I got at the drug store.

He got up and was swimming around for 10 minutes. I bought him a cave too, but he didn't seem too interested in it he prefers corners.

He is swimming with his tail clenched, but at times I saw him fan it (that's a good thing, right?)

BUT THEN he drove his face into the sand and dragged his face through it super fast and smacked his little puffer face into the cave.

I googled what that could be and it turns out if puffers do that they probably have ich (which I have been treating him for).

Since I put in two scoops earlier of the ich and bacteria treatment and the suggested dose is 1-2 scoops per 10 gallon but I did a 50% water change I put in half a scoop of the ich treatment. so a quarter of the recommended dose.

I'm quite worried about this ich. He still hasn't eaten either of the snails I bought him which has me really bummed out.

I'm pretty sure my ex's fish all had ich because all the fish had white spots and he treated them for that and said the remaining ones were okay- although most of them did die

What is the best treatment for ich?

The stuff I am using now reads as follows

Seachem Metronidazole

effective and safe treatment for several protozoan and anerobic bacterial diseases of fish crytocaryon, hexamita, ichhyphtirius. Does not effective filter etc
use 1-2 measures for every 10 gallons.

Is this stuff good? It's in a cylinder and has a scooper and is white powder.

I'm going to do another 50% water change tomorrow night and then Thursday I'll do two water changes and Friday I'll get him a new tank.

Sorry for all the questions I just wanna get my baby better so he eats more and doesn't look so upset all the time

This is the method I have used to rid my fish of ich twice. It works well and is quite simple. If I remember correctly metro needs to be dosed with water changes several times a day (I remember reading 3 times per day for someone who was treating Hex). Thankfully it is puffer safe.

library/hospital/fwich/

Please don't ever worry about asking too many questions, we're all here to help and we care about your fish too

Can anyone clarify which meds she should and shouldn't continue with once she has used media from the lfs? It would be a shame if she got them and nuked them

You'd be way better off getting something used for him for way cheaper, as he's going to outgrow that 29g pretty quickly. It sounds like he has IPs too: library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/

How long have you owned him altogether?

Iluvshoes you really got to be careful what medication you throw in there with him. You can't just throw in what the people at the pet store recommend, better to follow the articles and advice of the people here. Does Puffy have what looks to be small grains of salt of his body? I agree with PP that I thought he possibly does have Internal Parasites.

Well, it looks like he had like little clear or white colored things coming off of him. Kinda like hair. I thought it was like a layer of slime or something.

Then he had two white patches on his body.

The guy at the store has puffers, so gave me this.

I don't want him to die from the parasites so can someone recommend a good medicine for him?

Price doesn't matter at this point either.

I think he might have eaten a bit. 90% of the blood worms are gone in the tank.

And I've owned him for about three weeks? maybe four tops.

Ok the article I was just linked to suggested the medicine I started giving him yesterday. Thank god!

But my puffer will barely eat and it suggested soaking the food in the medicine. So what do I do?

If the fish refuses to eat then you can treat the water.

just my 2 cents:

1) Get the cheap bigger tank of craigslist or kijiji
2) Keep with the double daily water changes, 75~80% And get that used sponge material .. or squeeze the dirty water out of the sponge and put that into the filter of the 10 gal
3) Pray the new tank comes with a filter.
4) Fill the new tank, place the filter inline and do a leak test.
5) Get more dirty Water for the filter and get that tank cycled.
6) Keep that 10 gal handy as you are going to use it for your meds.
7) Daily water changes on the larger tank (or 2x daily) at aprox 50 % Running the filter with carbon
When it is time to medicate, corral the puffer into a measuring cup and into the 10 gal it goes. This is a dip method. Then you take it out after 5-10 mins and put it back into the main tank trying to get as little water from the 10 into the larger one.

Pros: It works and you can have higher concentrations of meds.
Cons: Meds are going to trash your biofilter thus using the spare tank is ideal (or any food grade bucket).

Other: Ammonia, IPs (internal parasites) and Ich all at the same time? Possible but, get the tanks cycled first to eliminate the ammonia portion of the equation. Ammonia poisoning displays all of these symptoms (even the flashing and burying in the sand) with the exception of the emaciated look.

Equipment needed: 1 liquid test kit for FW testing ammonia, nitrite and nitrate (don't worry about nitrates at this point). 2 filters, one that is fully cycled and a level head ... panicking and dosing the tank for the wrong reasons is just as harmful (trust me on that one!).

Others may have better suggestions and always get confirmation before proceeding (my method may not be the best method, someone more experienced may have another idea). While you wait ... do a water change