The Puffer Forum

hello

i need some help identifying some worms/parasites that are underneath my golden puffers skin. I have noticed this for about a week. here are a couple of pictures.
any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks
IanB

Looks like your puffer is having an acne breakout. I guess puberty is setting in?
I'd PM pufferqueen, she's the expert.
My guess is it's some type of external fungal/bacterial infection. Treat in a quarantine/hospital tank with medicine baths daily.

ya it looks as if there is something inside the small pimples though. i have never seen a fungal or bacteria like this

They are correct, it's Puffer Queen (Kelly Jedlicki) that is the expert on SW puffer diseases here.

this is the worst of the three pictures. i need to help him asap. please help.

I'm not sure if you read the above posts but you need to pm pufferqueen, she knows about sw puffer diseases.

ya i did that thanks guys for all the help!

Sorry we can't be of help here--I hope she responds quickly. In the meantime, post answers to everything above, in red. She'll be looking for that.

Are they under the skin or on top? Looks kinda like isopods. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/rs/index.php

Isopods more commonly fasten themselves in the mouth of fish,but when on the fish externally you would be able to tell immediately. Here is one on a French Grunt and as you can see, they almost look like an out-stretched pill bug.

I don't doubt that this could be some sort of reaction to a parasite or even some sort of bacterial infection though. I would wait for what Puffer Queen says ultimately. She knows what is best.

Anyway you can open one of the areas in question and look at what comes out under a microscope......could be bacterial infection or worms. I have seen both.

I would isolate this puffer. Depending on what comes out of the areas, either treat with antibiotic baths (nitrofurazone or kanamycin) for bacterial infection or praziquantel both via bath and orally for worms.

Isopods scare me so much!

A friend of mine got those little things on a corydoras in a FW tank, at the same time as it was suspection of livoneca there. This was FW, but I guess isopods doesn't change so much from species to species. The thing went away after a cure of Flubenol and some other stuff she bought on the internet, that was to kill fish lice.

how and where do i get this medication?
i googled it and it looks like i need a prescription

Flubenol isn't available anymore. Try your vet. Best to have some idea of what you are battling--as long as you're there, see if you can get them to look at a scraping under their microscope.