The Puffer Forum

Before we knew anything about deworming, we had purchased Jungle Parasite Clear tank buddies. You drop a tab in the wtaer and it fizzes. We read that you can soak food in this, and of course that would be much less stressful than dropping one in the water. The ingredients are praziquantel, diflubenzuron, metronidazole, and acriflavine.

How would we use these to deworm our puffers? How much, and how long, etc.

Are there any other medications that are better to deworm with?

I recently treated a couple puffers with them, in the water. It's perfectly safe as long as you do the large volume water changes afterwords. I recommend treating the water even if you treat the food as well, so expelled parasites are also killed and not picked up again.

Thanks for that info. We were wondering about the expelled parasites in the water. We have a 55 gallon tank, so that will take several tabs! We just picked up some Gel-Tek Ultra Cure PX and soaked some krill in it. They don't eve notice the meds! I think we'll do that for 5 instead of 3 days, just to be sure, AND do the tabs.

-Did you dissolve yours before putting them in the water?
-And how many times did you treat it?
-Should we use the tabs at the same time as the Gel-Tek?

Thanks for the info!

Yes, at the same time. You want to kill anything in the tank before any reinfection can occur. I just plunked mine in the filters and let them fizz in there. I'd do the ultra cure for ten days, treating with the parasite tabs on the first day, then 48 hours after that, then again a week after the first treatment, then again with a large water change and a second dose 48 hours after that.

What Nick said. lol. I did dissolve mine first, but only because the box said something about doing that. I don't remember why (size of tank or brackish?).

I used both meds you mentioned, at the same time, and they worked very well.

Thanks for the info, that's exactly what we'll do. We are gonig to treat for ich first, then deworm.

If you have internal parasites, do NOT wait the month for ich treatment. Separate Ich treatment is unnecessary for GSP anyway, as when you raise the SG by .002 a week, the ich will quickly die from the increasingly brackish conditions.

Thanks for the info. We stopped the ich meds, as it looks to be simply a secondary infection or the little casings have not dropped off yet. The SG is at 1.009 and temp at about 80, so anythign there would die anyway! We are going to treat them for IP in a few days, once the water has stabilized a bit more and they have calmed down a bit.