The Puffer Forum

LoL had to find a neighbor that had a clove of garlic. Damn little booger isn't eating. Now I have a soup of meds, garlic and bws waiting to be fed to him LoL

So unless someone tells me different, I planned on only keeping the new 10g a 1 puff tank, because Pufftastic, among many others, say they do better as singles. However, it would be nice to maybe have something in there that this little guy won't bother.....maybe some corys? Some little buds to help keep the substrate clean? Is this possible? And will it affect his personality? I saw PP had some loaches, and corys with a DP. I wasn't sure what everyone thought about it though. Any thoughts and or tank mate suggestions are very welcome. =)

My dwarves live in a 10 gallon with 7 ghost shrimp.... Idk why they leave the ghost shrimp alone but mine do for some reason lol

goldielocke76 wrote:LoL had to find a neighbor that had a clove of garlic. Damn little booger isn't eating. Now I have a soup of meds, garlic and bws waiting to be fed to him LoL

He's still not eating the medicated, garlicy smelling blood worms = / what am I doing wrong???

goldielocke76 wrote:

goldielocke76 wrote:LoL had to find a neighbor that had a clove of garlic. Damn little booger isn't eating. Now I have a soup of meds, garlic and bws waiting to be fed to him LoL

He's still not eating the medicated, garlicy smelling blood worms = / what am I doing wrong???

Kind of panicking. I am pretty sure I just worry too much, but still. This little fish needs to live.

I just did about a 75% water change. Don't have a great filter, so I have been doing WCs every other day or so, especially with the meds and him being sick and all. Test results are:

PH: 7.4
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm

I also threw out the old bws, and re did another batch, using less medication, and less garlic. Hoping maybe I just made it too strong? I even crushed one of my last snails and soaked it in the mixture. PZ didn't even touch it. He waited until it was in the water a good 15 minutes before even poking at it. So far, haven't seen him poop, so I am not sure if I am getting any meds in there to work. If nothing white comes out, is it possible he's just skinny?

It's possible that he's just too skinny- but not likely. Make sure he also eats regular food. Try less medicine, less soaking, and maybe skip the garlic. They are super smart and probably already know the garlic ones are medicated.
Try an unmedicated one, followed by a medicated one, maybe it will trick him. Try soaking it for only a few minutes, and with and without garlic. It's for some reason harder to get dp's to eat medicated food.

The garlic may have even been too strong if he waited so long before eating it. It would have had time to dilute a little. This is why I love the metronidazole I have, lol. It can literally be sticking to worms slime coats and the puffers don't seem to mind it.

sevenyearnight wrote:It's for some reason harder to get dp's to eat medicated food.

Yep yep yep! It was almost impossible to get my little DPs to eat food soaked in meds. My F8s gobbled it down like it was nothing.

Mine finally caved the 3rd or 4th time I gave them meds-soaked bloodworms. Like you, goldielocke, I used a bit less of the medicine after they refused the first couple of batches, so that hopefully the food wouldn't smell/taste so awful to them. Got them to eat the worms that way, and did that for a few days because it was such a light dose of meds. They started pooping out worms almost right away.

Well, he finally caved and ate 1 worm and chewed on another. I'm not sure how many worms he should/could eat, but at least he ate and swallowed one. Not sure if I would see the worms being pooped out, but it would be nice to just so I know it's working LoL. Little booger. Sorry for all the posts last night. I didn't realize how late it was and I was starting to really worry. Thinking I might take a trip to our Hamilton Petsmart, just because I get all the snails I want from them. PZ really likes it when I crush them up, definitely eats more of the whole and it's nice not to have to fish the empty shells out. I worry about the filter being crap (which it is). I can't wait to get a bigger one! Tired of doing daily/EOD wcs lol

Hey, that's great that he finally ate something medicated!!
DP's are SO stubborn!

I wouldn't worry about it not seeming like enough. If they actually ingest it, it doesn't seem to take much to get things moving.

jjj5311 wrote:My dwarves live in a 10 gallon with 7 ghost shrimp.... Idk why they leave the ghost shrimp alone but mine do for some reason lol

I think its a combo of the ghost shrimps speed, and being hard to see

xrayjeeper83 wrote:

jjj5311 wrote:My dwarves live in a 10 gallon with 7 ghost shrimp.... Idk why they leave the ghost shrimp alone but mine do for some reason lol

I think its a combo of the ghost shrimps speed, and being hard to see

Idk what it is about ghost shrimp in my house but my gsp used to love them, (Not eat them but follow them look at them and nudge them) and the dwarves love them and follow them around lol. i just dont get it. but they are fast and are hard to see lol

They live peacefully with my fahaka, hell they even share food(as in eat the same piece of shrimp at the same time)

Reaperpilot2014 wrote:The garlic may have even been too strong if he waited so long before eating it. It would have had time to dilute a little. This is why I love the metronidazole I have, lol. It can literally be sticking to worms slime coats and the puffers don't seem to mind it.

I didn't know that I could use metronidazole = / lol. I think I let the garlic get too strong then. My new batch, I only put a tiny bit, let it soak for 15 minutes, then took it out. The bws sat in the medication all night, but he didn't eat any more after the first bw bit, so I dumped some of the liquid out, and put in some water, and let it sit. I hope they are still technically medicated, cause he eats them like a champ now haha