The Puffer Forum

We picked up our new 3" A. manilensis from the LFS a few hours ago. At the store, he was very active and curious; "kissing" fingers through the glass, checking the substrate for bits of food, etc. After acclimation, we put him in his QT tank and he was as lively as at the store, so after a few hours we fed him our usual "welcome home" pre-opened live clam. He ate it with great gusto, but after the first couple of mouthfuls it seemed to go into the wrong place. He developed a bubble forward of the location food usually goes to on his right side, right under his pectoral fin. It looks like something may be coming out of the lump (shown in both photos); we've wiped it off twice, but it keeps coming back. We have not seen an open wound so far (he isn't easy to hold upside down). He's still acting the same as he has been. We've never seen anything like this before; does anyone have advice?

Perhaps an aggravated abscess? Was anything he ate pointy?

He didn't eat anything pointy in our care, just the squishy insides of a clam. He was checking the gravel at the LFS pretty thoroughly, but he did not appear to be swallowing any, and was not underweight.

The lump is gone now, and he's pretty plump, but there's still a spot on the bottom that looks as if something may be coming out. We're hopefully just being over-protective fishie parents.

Hmm... Well, my first reaction would be Melafix, clean water and keep an eye on it. Hopefully its not food coming out a hole in his side, but I doubt he'd look that good if it was. I'm thinking an abscessed pocket with "pus" being pushed out of it when he eats. In which case, antibiotics wouldn't be a bad idea, if it doesn't heal up in a few days.

Melafix will make a skimmer go nuts though, if you have one.

I LOVE that species, always have. Keep us updated on how it goes with him.

I'm thinking abcess too. Has anyone heard from Puffer Queen lately?

I've seen her on RC about 2-3 days ago.

The little guy continues being active and inquisitive, showing no signs of distress. Today we gave him an inch long piece of night crawler, which he slurped down like fish-spaghetti. This time there were no odd lumps, and no food seemed to be extruded from the wrong place. We're keeping our fingers crossed and will put a call in to the vet if anything changes. We have not added Melafix, as we are uncertain of its effectiveness in saltwater, and speaking of PufferQueen, iirc, she didn't recommend it in saltwater. We are also uncertain which antibiotic to use, and have not tried that, either. He's cuter than a bug, and we dared to name him.

Sooooo... what's his name?

His name is pretty geeky... Zooty. Our unnamed Stars and Stripes Puffer got the name Rebo at the same time.

FishFan wrote:His name is pretty geeky... Zooty. Our unnamed Stars and Stripes Puffer got the name Rebo at the same time.

Like the suit right?

When the name was first suggested, it was the suit Robert had in mind. The name pair settled on, Rebo and Zooty, comes from Babylon 5.

sorry... I don't know what that is.

Jase,
The best way to explain it is to recommend googling "Babylon 5 Rebo and Zooty".

never mind, I'm pretty sure I've seen it before