The Puffer Forum

This is probably unnecessary now, but I'd still like to get an idea of what was happening with poor Zitrone. Two nights ago he committed suicide by jumping out of the tank (not sure if it's relevant to his problem).

Anyway, about 4 weeks ago I bought two F8s and placed them in my 18 gallon tall tank. (Don't worry upgrade soon, read ahead). They seemed fine for 2 or 3 days. Then Zitrone's right eye got cloudy. Within 2 days it almost looked normal, except for a white bump in the middle. Within a week of starting treatment, it was completely fine. I'd treated with Melafix.

Then after 2 days of being off Melafix, it started looking cloudy again and little bit swollen. I treated with Epsom salt. He was fine again within 2 days. I might have imagined the swollen eye.

I acquired a 20 gallon long tank in between the sicknesses, and I'd had snails in there to breed for the puffers. I also had 6 ghost shrimp. Then I thought it was silly to have the puffers in the smaller tank, so I carefully switched them. At the same time, I changed the substrate for the puffers to crushed coral. They've now been there for 2 weeks. In the puffer tank, I also have several Windelov ferns, some Zebra rock and black slate from the lfs, a piece of driftwood with ferns attached, some Greek columns from lfs, a bamboo, and a bubble curtain. The filter is a Tetra Whisper for up to 30 gallon tanks. The heater is a Jager Eheim 125w.

Parameters: pH 7.8, nitrite 0, ammonia 0, nitrate 40 (might be higher as the test is hard to read). Test kit is the API saltwater kit. Salinity is 1.005. Temp is 79F.

A week after the switch, Zitrone started doing this odd coughing or chocking type thing. It occurred when he was eating and a couple times when he was just swimming around. When he was eating, he'd suck in the bloodworms or mysis shrimp, do the coughing thing, and usually the food came back out. He seemed to get enough to eat because his belly would get rounded. Sometimes I'd have to net Grün (the other one) against the side of the tank to ensure that Zitrone could eat. I started feeding them frozen brine shrimp the first 2 weeks as that's all the local store had in stock. I also fed snails during that time and frozen shrimp from the supermarket. Once I got to the bigger store farther away, I started feeding mainly the frozen bloodworms, frozen mysis shrimp, frozen supermarket shrimp. I also threw in live snails occasionally (eaten with fervor ) and sun dried baby shrimp.

Zitrone seemed to be thinner than he should be even though he was eating just as much as Grün who was nicely rounded. I treated them with Gel-Tek Ultra Guard Px for IPs by soaking their food in it for about 20 minutes. I did this for 7 days. He didn't seem to be getting any fatter, but I didn't want to poison them.

Zitrone stayed rather light colored for 4 days after the tank and substrate switch. Grün went back to regular colors by the 2nd day. Zitrone also tended to pace in the corner of the tank or in the bubble curtain that's against the back of the tank. He also scared much more easily than Grün.

Then I tried to give them ghost shrimp which they ignored (they're still in there a week later). Zitrone did try to eat one, but it swam away so fast that Zitrone was surprised and gave up.

Then 2 days ago he jumped out of the tank in the middle of the night. Other than the weird action and the thin-ness, he seemed fine. Bright white belly, clear eyes, active, not seeming to be breathing too fast. And he may have been just fine for the thin-ness, it was just that he seemed so much thinner than Grün. I hope that's enough info. Ideas?

i have a 2" gsp that did that for a while. it could just be stress from moving. as for the cloudy eye i think that cured but from the swith more stress was caused. and i think they jump if they get stressed too. thats what mine does during water changes and moves. it also could just be they dont like the food (unlikely) but other than that i really cant explain much. srry for your loss tho.

No one else has any other ideas?

Certain protozoan diseases can cause spitting problems.

We've had just about all off our puffers cough from time to time. Often we see a few coughs after water chemistry changes due to water changes or other causes. It also occurs as a result of diseases such as ich. My interpretation of the coughing action is that it is done to relieve irritation or expel slime that may accumulate on the gills due to irritation of any type. If the cough is disease related or due to poor water quality it will be regular and persistent. With these causes the coughing will sometimes be accompanied by scratching against items in the aquarium or faster or harder than normal gilling. If it is due to a one-time change in water chemistry the problem should go away by the next day or two at the most.

Nick, under what conditions would you think treatment for protozoan diseases would be warranted.
-Robert

Difficulty consuming any significant portion of food eaten warrants treatment IMO. Usually if it's a local protozoan infection in the upper digestive track, the fish will not be able to eat anything but the smallest foods or bits of food, if even that. Flubendazole has been show to be effective even for sensitive fish; metrodazole may work as well, but as a very old medication, may encounter resistance more frequently. Formulin doesn't seem to be effective in most cases for some reason.

Nick, with Mr. Busy (the severely emaciated Lined Burrfish we got last month) what you describe with swallowing problems was exactly the problem this poor fish had. He would chew food over and over and then spit out most or all of it. He didn't cough, but the swallowing problem sounds similar to what Bazil323 describes. As you probably recall, Nick, we treat Mr. Busy with Praziquantel and Metronidazole with good results. Puffer Queen and some others thought the problem with swallowing was muscle atrophy due to prolonged starvation, however.

Regardless, with the problem Bazil323 is describing I'd be inclined to think Zitrone had internal parasites, because of the skinniness, and perhaps also a protozoan infection, because of the coughing and spitting of food. If Zitrone were my fish, I'd have been inclined to use the same treatment I did for Mr. Busy, API General Cure, though, Nick, I believe you said in another thread that you were not a big fan of this particular product. With Mr. Busy, we used General Cure at 133% the recommended dose (4 packets in 30 gallons rather than 3) because Praziquantel requires higher levels to treat some types of internal parasites and to address the problem with possible tolerance to Metronidosole. Per packet API General Cure is Metronidizole 250mg and Quaziprantel 75mg used per 10 gallons. Metronidizole (AKA Flagyl) can be toxic to fish, so we watched the fish closely during treatment.

For what it's worth, Nick, I know you like, and recommend Flubendazole over Metronidizole. We didn't go that route because the only source we could find was unfamiliar and so was the possible shipping time. We opted to use what was available locally in part because we wanted to treat ASAP.

On a side note we've noticed very mild oxygen starvation symptoms virtually every time we've used Hikari's praziquantel product, Prazipro. This was true in both fresh and salt water, and we've used the product many times. I didn't see these symptoms with Mr. Busy when we treated him with General Cure, which includes the same dose per gallon of praziquantel. We've only used General Cure to treat the one fish, however.

Basil323, I hope this discussion includes the kind of information you were hoping for.

I'm not sure why I've had bad luck with general cure, it could be the specific cases I was treating, or stale product. I have had more luck with jungle labs parasite tabs, even though they are nearly the same ingredients. I've also heard praziquantel products can be administered very effectively as a dip for a few hours via pufferqueen. Getting your hands on quality easily dissolved flubendazole products is definately the greatest challenge to using the stuff.

The General Cure we used expires in 8/2010, so it was definitely fresh. We use Jungles' Parasite Guard on virtually all our non-Marine puffers while they are in the QT. I agree, Nick, the Jungle tabs would be a good alternative to API's General Cure for treatment of the problem Bazil323 describes. We don't use Parasite Guard in Marine tanks because it contains acriflavin, which is a medication I've never seen advocated for Marine fish.

Parasite Guard is definitely a broader spectrum treatment. Because of the acrifavin it will also treat dinoflagellates such as FW Velvet, and with the insecticide diflubenzeron it should also treat the monogenic flukes that sometimes cause skin sliminess, gill flukes, leaches, and crustacean parasites.

The only thing I don't like about the Jungle medication is their delivery system. The fizz tabs tend to carbonate and therefore acidify tank water. This problem is easily remedied, however, by dissolving the tabs in tank water before adding them to the tank.

Thanks for the replies! Seeing as Grün hasn't developed any of the symptoms that Zitrone was displaying, I'm inclined to think that it wasn't contagious.

On a happier note, I managed to find a great deal on a 44 gallon corner tank with the stand, filter, heater, gravel vacuum, hood, and light. For only $50!! So Grün is happily buzzing about exploring his new digs. I have the same decorations as before plus 6 clay pots, a piece of mopani wood, a piece of coral, a seashell, and 10 pounds of "live" aragonite sand. The "bio active" aragonite sand was the only aragonite sand that I could find. I put a few tablespoons in the filter and the rest on the bottom of the tank.

Grün will be joined by 5 bumblebee gobies in a couple weeks. I was reluctant to get another F8 after my troubles with Zitrone, and the only lfs that carries F8s is the one that I originally bought from. Plus, the ones that they had in stock looked a bit beat up and thin, with the exception of one who seems to be a bully as his belly was way too full. So anyway, the lfs agreed to special order the bumblebee gobies for me as they don't carry them because they get picked on by the other fish that they sell. The more I go there, the more responsible they seem as they carry decent products at better prices than the stores in the larger city that's about an hour away. They aren't very well informed regarding F8s as they tried to get me to buy aquarium salt rather than marine, but they seem to take good care of the rest of the fish.