The Puffer Forum

Past member that let my membership lapse, glad to be back. I'll get on the profile in a moment. I apologize for the lack of manners in posting only in emergency times but...

I have an emergency eye situation with a viral infection on a 2 year old Ceylon. Medications were ineffective, and the progress was shocking, killing my 10" French Angel, and nearly destroying Tiger, my 6" Ceyon Puffer. Thought I would reach out to the community for any radical solutions other than Furan-2 or Cupramine. I have tried fresh water dips earlier in the infection that helped a little but the progress was too swift. Looks like the poor fellow has cataracts after this viral attack and the LFS thinks he will lose his sight.

The LFS currently has all of my fish in an isolation tank at the store, no idea what the water conditions are but I trust him and he treats me well.Tiger, and my Passer Angel, Maroon Clown, Soldier Fish, Magnificent Foxface, Dwarf GSP ( 2+ years old and he is thumb size), Dwarf Black Angel, and were in a 60" x 30" x 30" aquarium that I had just moved them all into as I just upgraded from a 90 gallon about a month ago. I think the infection came in on the live rock I bought for the new tank as all the fish were fine in seperate tanks until the merger into the new larger set up.

I am praying for Tiger to come back but need some advice for puffer eyes if anybody knows some tricks.

Big thank you to PufferPunk for getting in touch with me so quickly. Very classy lady, I owe you one. Or two.

The Forums at marinedepot.com http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic84451 ... loudy+eyes that you recomended were helpful, but only to reassure me we were on the right course. The treament of cupramine and furan-2 seems to be the recomended course of action. I will monitor Tiger's eating and ensure the cloudiness isn't so bad that he can't see to eat. He was eating heartily, as always, before he fell sick beyond the spots-on-his-skin phase into the white-eyes-one-side-of-his-gills-wasn't-working phase that made me choke up and nearly faint.

I did learn a few things, like the proper length of FW dips for external parasites, and am curious to read more about the possible correlation between lockjaw and krill in puffers. Good resource.

Hold on Tiger!

Update on my Ceylon, Tiger. He is now spot free and although he is pale he looks like he will make it. His eyes were completely grown over with white skuzz (not the technical term I'm sure but..) for over a week but he finally regained his vision yesterday and has started eating again. HURRAY!

Seriously, if you saw him last week you would have cried. I nearly fainted. His eyes were so sunken and covered that we were all positive he would go blind. What tough little creatures puffers are!!

He does have some growth on his tail that started out as a white "ridge" on the top and bottom and has now developed a red spot that looks swollen. If there a polysporin for puffers that I can use?

LFS guy, where Tiger still is, thinks it is a parasite but it looks like a fish-zit to me. I can try and take pictures tomorrow but they were cleaning the water and it was cloudy while I was there today. Any ideas?

great. Glad things are looking up. Lucky you having a caring LFS near you. They are very few and far between!

Gold's aquarium has been great to me, they hold fish for months until they are sure it is healthy and eating well. They have gone above and beyond for me and I am truly grateful.

I just took the fish back home today and I am still concerned over Tiger's fins, especially the tail fin.
It is white edged and the very top is pink and was red and almost bleeding when I first put him back in the tank.

He has been getting treated by Furan-2 and that was able to bring back his eyes, he even ate a couple of krill about an hour after I put him in!! I swear I did a TD dance when he ate!

Anyone have any advice for that reddened fin?
He is the only fish in the tank showing any remnants of the infection so I may move him to a 90 gallon quarantine tank, but I don't now what is best for him at this point.

I will get some readings on my tank water ASAP, the chromis that have been in there from the start and tasseled filefish that has been in there for the last week (I had to move him from the seahorse tank after he started nipping at everybody) are doing great and have been eating well. The snails, slugs, crabs, sand-sifting starfish, that have been in their for months are all healthy too.

Just Tiger, who is my fave by far, is hurting.

I love the Tasseled filefish! If you don't have a skimmer on there you could try Melafix but I'm not sure how well it'll do in SW. It really bubbles. How's he doing now?