The Puffer Forum

My male irrubesco was in an attacking mood today and decided to madly attack my female, resulting in a bleeding tail. She already had abit of a nipped tail, but after that he didn't really attack her that much for the past few weeks, and the tank had plenty of hiding space, so I figured they were ok. WRONG.

Was told by my mom that he bit her tail, and it was bleeding badly. He shamefully hid in his log home after that. When I came home, the female was still swimming about, but her tail looked bad. The centre part of the tail was hanging, and there was still a patch of blood. She was still swimming around fairly normally, but to play safe, I've since separated her out into a 1-ft quarantine tank.

Quarantine tank is empty except for a cycled filter. Any suggestions on any other preventive measures I should take? Should I add any medicine to the water? Right now I'm just going to add a small dose of vitamins into the water.

Thanks!

Melafix, and IMO I'd use Maracyn to help prevent any infection.

If she doesn't currently have any problems I'd use melafix and pimafix preventatively.

I personally avoid stronger medicines unless there is an obvious problem, so that there isn't a chance of tolerance, YMMV.

Thanks fellas. Actually, I didn't even add melafix cos I couldn't get my hands on it. And I didn't want to pour some unknown medicine down the tank. So I just did water changes, and tried to keep the water as clean as I can.

Till now she's doing very well. Swimming around as usual. Has as big an appetite as usual. Her tail looks as if its recovering, no signs of infection whatsoever.

Next question is, how long should I keep her in the quarantine tank? And is it ever safe to lump the female back with the male again? Or should I separate out the male first so that the female can re-establish her territory in the tank?