The Puffer Forum

Last night I saw my 1.75" GSP that I've had for two weeks poo a white lump that kind of stuck with him for several minutes before coming off because it was attached to his anus with a very thin, very short, white mucus thread. This is the first I've seen white poo from this little guy, but then that same day I fed him his first fresh clam, so I thought possibly it was due to that. But I'm a worrier and I thought, oh no, he's got IPs, because I've had a problem in this tank before with IPs, or at least that's what I assume this is: other fish I've bought and put in this tank tend, after a couple of weeks or so, to get full-looking bellies even though they've lost their appetite and have stopped eating, and start pooing long thin white mucusy stuff. The fish last for a long time afterwards, but are listless, show perhaps a little interest in food but don't eat, bellies get bigger, then eventually they end up dying.

Anyway, so I started to worry and this morning went to the LFS to get some Jungle Internal Parasite Guard. (I also got the treated food pellets, but I knew he wouldn't eat them and, sure enough, he didn't.) I made a concentrated solution of it with some tank water, and soaked a shrimp in it, fed it to him, and he ate it fairly well. (It bothers, me, though, that he's not "pigging out" like it seems a healthy GSP is supposed to do, at least according to what I'm reading here and elsewhere.) I also dosed the tank according to the directions. At first he seemed fine, but now he's developed dark spots under his eyes, in between his eyes and his mouth. Also he looks gray in a horizontal band from front to back. Belly is still white, last I looked, and he doesn't really act too strange, but I'm not liking his looks overall. I assume this is a reaction to the medicine, right? And now I'm not sure at all about IPs, because he just pooped and it was dark and chunky like it should be. Should I abort this IP treatment regimen and do a massive water change?

Sorry, here's the details: pH 7.2, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20, SG 1.002. 55 Gallon, no other tank inhabitants except several ghost shrimp. Feed once a day, sometimes in two shifts, never to the point where he's stuffed, just until he's got a nice fat little belly. Snails, shrimp, clams, some brine shrimp is what he gets. Water is now being changed at least 50% per week. Aquarium has been up for years, however it was neglected for a long time before I started resurrecting it about two months ago.

He just turned down some brine shrimp soaked in Internal Parasite Guard and garlic, but then I made the solution a little more concentrated this time and so he could've been put off by that. Or he's being picky, I don't know. This little guy is driving me crazy with worry, but I sure do like him.

Yeah, the colour change might be from the medication. If you've already started the medication, you might as well finish the treatment. If he *does* have IPs and you stop treating, they'll just become immune to it in the future and cause much more problems.

To me, it doesn't sound like IPs, and IPs tend to cause them to die from starvation, not from having too much food. If you're worried about bowel movements, try adding some Epsom salt (1 tablespoon per 5 gallons) into the tank.

Also, at a size of close to 2 inches, you should probably consider increasing the salinity by about 0.001 SG each week until you hit 1.008 - 1.010 SG. GSPs and Ceylons that are close to two inches should be in that range of salinity (roughly). Yes it's a lot more salt, but as many of us have found, they REALLY prefer the higher salinities. My Ceylons were extremely pale and shy all of the time until I moved them into my marine tank. Now their colours almost-never fade and they're noticeably more vibrant than they used to be. As such, I would definitely encourage increasing the salinity to around the range I mentioned above.

Thanks tons, Agnate. Very good point about continuing the medication to avoid allowing any parasites to become immune to it; I'll do as you suggest. He's really not acting like he feels too bad, unless hiding in his little cave like he often does means something negative, so that's encouraging. I mean I'd probably worry more if he were pacing the glass frantically.

He just had another little poo, and it was a perfectly normal brown chunk like it should be. I probably jumped to conclusions, but given the history I've had with this tank, I don't feel too bad about going ahead and treating it. I am determined that this little guy is going to have the best home any puffer could ever hope to have, so maybe that's why I'm being a little obsessive with him.

I'm doing exactly as you suggest regarding upping the salinity. That's pretty much the pace I'd planned on...I tried pushing it a little faster on him early on, but he didn't like it, so we'll go nice and easy up to target SG.

BTW I started a channel on irc.freenode.net called #puffers. I definitely don't mean it to compete with the forum's chat, and if no one ever joins, it'll be fine with me, just kind of wanted to see if I could register and run a channel and puffers seemed like a good subject to base a channel around.

This morning the little guy seems fine (after being a little dark and gray last night) and even ate a bunch of frozen brine shrimp that had been dethawed and soaked for an hour or so in some tank water treated heavily with Jungle Internal Parasite Guard. His color is nice, although he's still got light grayish bags under his eyes. He doesn't seem to be distressed, however, as he's just kind of poking around the tank and hanging out in his little cave like he usually does, with only a little bit of glass surfing. The directions on the bottle say you *can* do 3 total treatments, but it isn't supposed to be necessary. I'm tempted to leave things as they are and not do the two additional dosings. What do you guys think, would you stop now also?

BTW this Jungle Internal Parasite Guard has as its active ingredients metronidazole and praziquantel.

Oh, and I decided on a name: Baby Doll. The song "Baby Doll" by Laurie Anderson was going through my head all this morning, and after a short while I thought, "That's my puffer's name!" so that's what I named him/her.

I've been meaning to ask this question for a while now: how fast do GSPs grow?

If you completed a treatment, you should be fine. As for the growth, they grow VERY slowly. I bought my Ceylons about 10 months ago and they were about 1.5 inches. They're now about 1.7 inches.

Wow, that is a slow growth rate! I've had the measuring tape out by his tank, thinking he was going to grow like a weed since he's been getting good quality food.

I found some smallish red clawed crabs today at a LFS and bought some. They're way too big for Baby Doll now, but I thought I'd better grab some while they were available and see if I can get them to breed, and then my puffer can eat the babies. I put them into the snail tank, and one immediately ate a snail so back it was to the LFS for yet another 10 gallon tank setup for the crabs. You know I must love my little Baby Doll or else I wouldn't have already spent about $150 on his little $4 self.

Yeah, it only gets crazier as time goes by. Remember to keep a tight lid on the crab tank. My roommate has had many of them escape from the smallest crevices in the lid.

Boy tell me about it - I can tell they're climbers already. I have a hood for their tank, and I've closed off the open areas around the filter with hardware cloth (wire mesh), so hopefully that'll keep them contained. I'm making it brackish as well, since the crabs prefer that environment - and that's just fine, because that means they'll live for a while in Baby Doll's tank when he gets old enough to feed them to him. Although I guess I could sacrifice one, crunch it up a little and open it up, and give it to Baby Doll...that way he could get a taste for them. I can see him now, tearing into it like a little bulldog.

My Ceylons tried to attack a dead one, but they couldn't even bite through the skin, haha!

Here's a good breeding article for Red Clawed Crabs. Seems like it's an extremely difficult task.

http://www.aquahoito.info/sesarma/index.html

Yikes, you're right: it looks really difficult and I'll probably just end up giving them to Baby Doll for supper.

bet if you keep the crabs long enough you'll get attached and won't be to feed them to puff.

Yeah, the red clawed crabs are actually pretty awesome.