The Puffer Forum

My 4-5 inch Fahaka has pencil tip size red spots on his belly and tail. I think they might be bite marks, but I'm not sure. I always see them in the morning when I turn his light on. The red spots do fade away, but new ones show up. It's been four days since I have started seeing them. I have seen tiny worms in his tank when I first turn his light on, but then they go hide in the dirt. They are 3/4 of an inch and smaller, and very thin. They look like little white strings. They don't crawl across the glass, they seem to glide. I put some PraziPro in two days ago to try to kill the worms, but it hasn't seemed to do much yet. My Fahaka doesn't seem to be bothered by them, but something must be biting him at night. There are no other fish in his tank. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Tank size 46 gallon (He will be in a 150 gal soon)
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrates 5.0
Ph 7.8
Weekly water changes with gravel vac
Tank has been set up for 4-5 months

The worms are more than likely planaria, and harmless, although they are a sign that you are overfeeding (they reproduce to meet their food source).

Can you get a picture of the red dots? Many fahakas have red in their markings, mainly in the dark lines, but this sounds different?

are the dots just scattered at random, or more uniform (not really a good word, but you know what I mean?)
If they were bites, I wouldn't think they'd just fade out...

Tried to take a picture but the dots are too small for my camera. They are not in his stripes they are on his belly and lower part of his tail fin. The dots are scattered at random and do heal after a few days but more appear at night when he is on the bottom.

the reason I think the worms are biting him is that they hide in the gravel when the light is on and come out when the light is off when he is resting on the bottom

Hmm.

Well, I would do an extremely good gravel vacuum to pick up any uneaten food, do a huge water change, fast your puffer for a few days, do another extremely good gravel vacuum/water change (to remove the worms that have starved to death) and then feed lightly for a few days, see if that helps.

Here's a page with some photos of planaria, the little white worms, and some info on them:
http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/ ... ite_worms/

I have in the past seen something similar to this with my turgidus, who likes to spend a lot of time laying on the substrate. It almost looked like pimples on his white belly. I know for a fact there was planaria in the tank, I have pictures of them, but everyone assured me there was no way they were biting him. Since I've moved, I haven't seen it happen again. When I reset up his tank, I did use different substrate, and I'm also on a much better water source. So I don't know if it was due to the lower quality water or the worms in the substrate. My planaria was brown though, not white, and larger than your 'normal' planaria.