The Puffer Forum

Hello,

My water parameter:

PH: 8.0
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrates: 5.0
Salinity: 1.004

Tank size :29
Temp: 79

I use to have a dwarf puffer which recently passed away after 3 years. So wife and I looked around for a new puffer and finnaly settled on a GSP. We had him in the old dwarf puffer tank (a 10 gal) for 4 weeks while we setup a new 29 gal tank for him. He was originally in fresh water. He had started turning dark, and seemed a little stressed in the 10 gal tank, so I decided to move him over to the new tank a little over a week ago.

He seemed to stress out imediately. I gave him a little over an hour to accumulate to the new tank before introducing him. The tank salinity at that time was 1.002. He seems to go back and forth. Some times he's got a little color back and is swiming around, other times he's dark and either sitting at the bottom or hanging at the top. While on the bottom he breaths heavily with his mouth open.

Yesterday I noticed him not really using a side fin. He'll use it occasionaly but most of the time he keeps it tucked next to his body. Also seems that he's barely using the gill on this side. The gill on the other side still is moving rapidly.

Not really sure whats going on. I've tried to deal with parisites before in Dwarf puffers, but most of the time I think it was to late, and they never reacted well to the medicine. I do still have some PraxilPro. Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm still moderately new to all of this, myself, so I hope that someone will either second me or correct me, but in my experience GSPs - as far as puffers go - have been pretty tolerant of medicine, so I'd probably get some Maracide and Maracyn II (half dose only of each), and raise the temp for a little while to maybe 85 or so. See if he's doing well after that, and then if there's any other noticeable problems, (ie internal parasites), treat those as they come. They seem to do okay with Melafix, as well, if you'd rather use that...but I'd probably stick with the first two. BTW, what are you feeding him?

Hey all
Yes the GPS's acts good with medicune but you must half the dose what the label says due to the fact that they dont have gills its directly afecting their breathing. Also while ading medicine ad an oxygin tablet because the medicine lowers the oxygin levels in one stank. I recently had to doctor my GSP's to health and they are happy.

The other reason may not be ilness but stress due to the saly level that was entreduced to fast do a rince sicle till about half of your tank is emty and put fresh water in for now and then weekly dose the water with brackish salt say a teaspoon per leater till you reach the aquered salt gravity wich is 1.0001g a good enviroment for you puffer! You get the gravity meter at any pet store!)

Well I hope your GSP's are doing good!!!! and soon doing great!!!

Enjoy!
T

Why would you treat a fish with an antibiotic, when it shows no sign of a bacterial infection? Also, treating with 1/2 doses of an antibiotic, could cause a bacteria to become immune to it.

Keep an eye on the puffeer & give it time to adjust. Is there plenty of decor/cover in there? Is the puffer eating?

See if you can look into his gill with a flashlight.

He is still eating very well, bloodworms, brine shrimp, and snails. I try ghost shrimp, but he just chases them around and eventual gives up trying to catch one. He is also almost 2" long, which is why I was starting to get him into brackish conditions.

Late last night I did notice a thin red thread like object coming out of the gill he's using. It was no longer there 15mins later. Today when I came home I noticed a thin white thread like object (about 2cm long) out of the same gill. The red one was solid the whole length while the white one was kind of stringy.

The gill that he's not using looks closed. a little white around it. The other gill looks red inside (this is the gill I've seen the thread like objects).

Right now he's laying on the currled in a ball. He does need more decore but he has a few hiding spots right now. He will still become active for a little bit if I turn the light on, then he hides. So I've been keeping it off trying not to stress him anymore.

It sounds like he could have gill flukes or some similar parasite then.

Since he's having trouble breathing, I'd probably keep the temp a little lower (warmer water holds less oxygen) and consider adding an airstone.

I'll go search the forum quick for info on how to treat gill flukes, puffers can be very touchy with meds so if there's a simple way to treat such as a salt bath, that's usually a lot safer. I'll be back in a minute hopefully!

Okay, it looks like the two common treatments for gill flukes are salt baths or PraziPro. Since you have the PraziPro, I'd probably go ahead and use that. I'm not sure if that med can crash your biofilter or not, but keep an eye on ammonia, just in case, if you use it in the main tank.

Thanks for the response. I have started to treat him using the PraziPro in a bath at 32mg/gal as suggested in the Library.

Should I instead treat the whole tank? I started suspecting gill flukes a day ago and started the treatment yesterday for a 3 hr bath. Today he seems to be using his other fin a bit more, and is using that gill more. I still see a little worm or something like a worm hanging out of the other gill.

He's also starting to thin. Is still eating well. But gets thin rather quickly after eating (this started today). Should I try soaking his food in the PraziPro? Or just do baths, or treat the whole tank?

Anti-paracitic drugs will not hurt your biological filtration.

Well his first bath went great. The next day he was using both gills, and starting to perk up. After the second bath, he still had a worm out of his on gill. His stomach quickly shrunk after he ate though. And he started going down hill. The third day I decided to treat the whole tank at the dosage listed on the bottle (about 2.5ml/liter). He was doing ok, he still was eating, just wasn't coming out much to swim. Sadly about 24 hrs later he stopped breathing. He had 1 visble worm on both gills, and his stomach was about half the size it was just 3 days earlier.

So, how do I treat this tank, to rid it of parasites? There are no other fish in the tank, and I just want to make sure that my next GSP doesn't get these things. And how would I go about treating a GSP when I first get him for possible parasites?