The Puffer Forum

As some of you may remember, I've treated my irrubesco, Poofer, twice now for IPs. The first time I administered Jungle Parasite Clear orally in soaked food, as per instrctions given to me on this site .The second time, I dosed her tank weekly for 5 weeks with Flubenol at the dosage recommended here. I thought she was getting better for a while there, but she's started to go downhill again. She still will not gain weight. She has that big-eyed, stunted look. If I leave her 48 hrs without food she looks like skin stretched over bones. If I feed her once a day until she's rounded out, she's skinny and sunken again once I come by to feed her the next day. It's not an issue of inappetance or inability to eat--she is always eager and quick to eat.

I just don't know what to do. I have enough Flubenol to dose the tank a second time, but would it do any good? Maybe she has some other problem than IPs? Is there anything I can try besides Flubenol?

Are there any good foods I can give her to try to put weight on her? Would it be a good idea to start trying to feed her twice daily until she stops looking like such a scarecrow? Are there any high-energy foods I can give her? She gets Hikari Bio-Pure Mysis and bloodworms, and SF Bay Glassworms in rotation. She is very picky. A few weeks ago I tried not feeding her for a couple of days to try to get her to eat a new food (pellets), but the weight just melted off of her, so now I am very hesitant to try new things on her. She will eat krill, I just don't have any right now, and she will eat plankton, snails, and live brine (a treat). She won't eat mussel, flake, pellets, or wafers. Is it possible that I have introduced more IPs with her food?

Thank you in advance for any advice or ideas. I wish she will be a fat, happy little girl someday.

Well, you're certainly trying... Are you soaking her foods in vitamins? I'd feed her as many times/day as necessary, to get the weight on.

I'm not soaking in vitamins. I honestly have not been able to find Kent Zoe or anything like that locally. Maybe an order from the Drs is in order here. Will the frozen stuff absorb any vitamins, or do I need to use freeze-dried?

I just had a thought: I'm going to try and see if she'll eat bloodworm or her other favorites mashed with crushed pellets. I've been giving my other fish New Life Spectrum Cichlid pellets and they are all plump and glowing with color. Maybe I can sneak in some supplemental vitamins and so forth with crushed pellet. Off I go...

i am not an expert so take other advice first, but my puffer i rescued from the fish shop was in a tiny tank and had and still has huge big bush baby eyes, over the last few months we built him up as he was so underweight and skinny when we got him home, was all going well then suddlenly would not eat his favourite food which was mussells, i tried night crawlers, shrimp, prawns up until he had his own shelf in the freezer, the only thing he would eat were blood worms but he was not putting weight on , i posted on here and several people told me to try and soak mussells in garlic, not loads of garlic ,but evidently it can help to get their appetite back, boy did it do the trick, but like i say get more advice as i am not an expert,
i also did extra water changes and added an extra air stone as well as the garlic remedy.

hope you find the answer

If he had IPs for a long time, there could be permanent intestinal damage which will leave him needing to overeat to gain weight.

Well, she ate a little bit of mussel today, but was much more interested in the mysis shrimp. The frozen mussel I have is honestly pretty revolting. I don't blame her for not being too thrilled about it--It's sort of like rubbery tan snot to be honest. She also got a snail. I'll be feeding her several times a day from now on. Luckily she still has an appetite. However, she seems kind of "meh" about her food at the moment. She could take it or leave it. She's much more interested in the chopsticks I've been feeding her with lately. I'll try a different color. I'll also try some garlic, and see if I can find some vitamins.

I think I'll head on down to the seafood counter on Friday (I need to study big-time tomorrow) and see if I can get some little bits of crab, shrimp, prawn, clam, squid, etc. to chop up and freeze for her. Maybe they will be more tempting. They would certainly be more nutrient-dense than her current Top 3 favorites (mysis, glassworms, and bloodworms), which seem to be mostly water with not much fat or protein.

I'll also get her some fruit flies. She loves those.