The Puffer Forum

I went to the fish store to get a couple of Dwarf Puffers and they didn’t have any. What they did have was an incredibly sick, skin and bones GSP. He was dark black from head to tail; seriously the only white on him was his lips. I felt sorry for the little guy, so I took him home. I realize considering his condition he may die, but I’m willing to try at least.
Right now his is by himself in a 10 gallon hospital tank (yes, I know it’s too small, but it’s the only quarantine tank I have, so it will have to do for now.) I am doing 20% water changes, twice a day.
Parameters are:
PH: 6.8 (how can I change this?)
SG: 1.0001 (will work on slowly raising it to 1.004 eventually)
Nitrates:<20 ppm (lowest reading on the chart)
Nitrites:0
Ammonia:0
Temp: 79 F
I use Aquasafe dechorinator(I read in some of the hospital posts that all the extra slime coating stuff in this might be bad?).
Substrate is amazon soil mixed with fine gravel. (I have a baggie of Aragonite in there hoping it will soften the water)
He is about 1.5 inches long. He has a sunken belly and sunken eyes. He doesn’t seem to have a lot of energy.
After 2 days of feeding crushed snails and various mushed up frozen foods (bloodworms, daphnia, krill) he has finally found the energy to hunt and eat snails on his own. He has filled out a little, but is still very skinny. When he is up and hunting, his top color lightens considerably (although he still looks a little grey compared to my healthy GSP), but his belly turns white. After a hunting spree he will lay down on the bottom of the tank, and acts like his breathing is heavy. When he’s laying on the bottom of the tank his color turns dark all over again. After about 10 minutes of resting, he changes color and gets up to hunt again. He doesn’t appear itchy or have any white spots on him, and other than the heavy breathing after hunting, his gills look fine.
Where should I go from here? What else should I do to get him better? What signs should I be looking for?
I will be putting him in a bigger tank, but it has to cycle, so that will come later.
Any advice on what to expect would be helpful.
Thanks,
Heather

First of all, welcome to the forum! Sorry it had to be due to such unfortunate circumstances. It's good that you are prepared for a less than desirable outcome, because all too often "rescue" cases don't turn out very well.

The pH of your quarantine tank can be raised by adding a few rinsed handfuls of crushed coral, or by simply using it as the substrate. You can also buy something like API's pH Up, but I don't know whether to trust chemicals like that. The advantage of using crushed coral is that the pH would be raised slowly and gently, which is what you want, as a rapid change in pH can kill a fish. You mentioned you're using some aragonite, which will do the same thing - so that's good.

Feed him as much as he'll eat, for now. He very possibly has internal parasites, so get all the info you can from here library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/ and go from there. And actually if you'll search the forum, there's an absolute mountain of info on this subject, as it's a phenomenally common problem with puffers that most of us have had to suffer through. Keep us posted!

Don't know much about GSP's apart from they need very good quality water and that they will require mid to high brackish conditions.

Your PH suggests your water is already a bit on the soft side so you may want to increase your PH instead. The marine salt that you are using should increase the water hardness nicely but if you require it harder then you could put crushed coral in a filter compartment.

A lot of people on here worm there puffers if they are skinny and a meal doesn't fill them up, but I also wouldn't know about how you go about doing that either.

If he is struggling to breathe then you could add an airstone.

Well it's always preferable to read for yourself the articles we have on this subject, and search the forum for the issue you're having, but treating IPs goes basically like this:
1) Get a medicine made for treating IP infestations. Some people are able to find levamisole, and while I don't have any experience using it, it seems like this is almost the preferred, fastest, and most successful medication - so if you can find it, buy it and then come back and post and someone who has used it will tell you how to proceed. Another choice is to use a medication containing both metronidazole and praziquantel, and sometimes flubendazole as well. These normally have real good success rates, too, and are fairly easy to find in most places. Look for Metro+ and PraziPro (these two have to be used together), and/or Gel-Tek Ultra Cure PX, or Jungle Labs Parasite Clear. Jungle also makes pretty much the same thing in crystalline form, and it's called Parasite Guard.
2) With both the above approaches, you usually treat both their food and the tank. In my opinion, if you decide that a fish has IPs, the absolute safest thing to do is assume that the tank is infected as well, so that you can rest more or less assured that the IPs are done for. And of course you treat the puffer's food so that you are getting the meds right into the heart (or gut?) of the problem.
3) Follow the directions on the label. Do not under-dose. Some meds suggest that one treatment may be enough, but that up to three treatments total are OK if you wish...from what I read here, it seems like most people go ahead and do the whole three treatments. I'm not sure, but I'm under the impression that levamisole is a one-time treatment, where you mix up a bath for the puffer and put him in there for a bit, which works because it's absorbed through the gills. Food is normally treated every day, but when using the metronidazole and praziquantel medicines, you treat the tank every other day for a total of three dosings, with a 25%-50% water change prior to adding the medicine to the tank.

If you think your GSP has IPs - and it's a safe bet it does if it's lethargic, dark, has a pinched-in black belly that never stays full for more than an hour or so - do not delay in taking action! You need to get him in treatment immediately if he has as bad an infestation as it sounds. Good luck, and keep us posted!

It's a miraccle you got him eating! That's a great start. If he continues to eat, I'd treat him for IPs, according to our article in the Library here. Check out the GSP aarticle in there too.

Good job, I'm glad to hear the little guy is coming around.

As far as your water hardness/pH, adding marine salt will help buffer it as you go along anyways.. adding the argonite will harden it up nicely as well. But don't worry about it too much, most fish adapt just fine to their water conditions as long as they stay stable. As I said, the salt will buffer it quite a bit, and you'll be adding that slow and easy, so it will be a nice gradual change.

I'd keep up what you are doing right now, get some weight on him, lots of water changes to keep the water clean, and in a week or two start thinking about treating for internal parasites.

Well, unfortunately, the little guy took a turn for the worse. When I woke up this morning he had died. How sad, I was really hoping he'd get better. I guess the next one I get I will make sure he is the healthiest looking, pudgiest one in the group.

Thanks for all the advice.

Heather

sorry for your loss

Sorry to hear it.