The Puffer Forum

Okay I got 6 dwarf puffers from the petstore. They came to me as pretty small babies. Anyway, besides that, when I first got them a few look like they got IPs so I treated the tank. My dosage was like this:

40 gallon tank, I used jungle fizz tabs you find commonly at your local fish stores. 4 tabs since each tab is for 10 gallons. I premix in water. 2 days later I did a 50% water change and dosed again. I'm on my second dose already.

Problem is, I have one dwarf puffer that seems to still have a sunken stomach while the other 5 look great, out of the 6 puffers, 2 to 3 looked like they had IPs when I first got them. I tried feeding them medicated foods but one nibble and they run for cover, I understand because I treat cough medicine like the plague. So I talked to a member and she said rub it with garlic to take out the bad taste. However, no more tabs since all 8 tabs have been used.

So, what should I do now? Wait a few days to see if that one puffer still has a sunken stomach or should I seperate him and treat him by himself?

I can maybe wait 5 days or so and try to medicate again, but should I dose the tank all over again or should I just medicate their food and feed them it instead? I also thought that I should dose the tank since the parasite might still be lurking in the water and also feed as well.

well i heard u can use the Jungle Fizz and soak it in there food
but unless ur ammonia is really high i am guessing thats the problem since my friend is having this also
if it is u should use ammonia lock or do alot of water changes till ur ammonia is down

Ammonia Lock is not a good product to use. It starves the bacteria, which just makes things worse. Instead, you should use a product like Prime or Amquel, which detoxifies ammonia while leaving it for the bacteria to consume.

About the IPs - is the skinny one pooping white stringy stuff, or does it look normal?

It's a sad fact that treating for IPs is not always successful. In some cases, the parasites have done so much damage that even once they're dead, the poor fish's intestines are so damaged that it's unable to recover. This could be the case with your one fish.

Another possibility is that your skinny puffer just needs a week of really good meals. I'm sure I've read on this site that it's OK to overfeed your puffers after treating for IPs, so I'd take this approach rather than trying to medicate again. However, as the instructions say, you can dose for up to three total times if you think you need to.

Ideally, you treat both their food and the water they're in. As you've noticed, sometimes they don't accept the treated food, but it's still good to try it. I've had good luck soaking freeze dried krill in a concentrated solution of anti-parasite meds for several hours and feeding them to the puffers I'm treating.

SharkBait wrote:well i heard u can use the Jungle Fizz and soak it in there food
but unless ur ammonia is really high i am guessing thats the problem since my friend is having this also
if it is u should use ammonia lock or do alot of water changes till ur ammonia is down

I'm a bit confused why you brought up ammonia?

LilGreenPuffer wrote:About the IPs - is the skinny one pooping white stringy stuff, or does it look normal?

I'm not sure since I don't follow him around waiting for him to take a dump, but I'll try to seperate him into a container and examine.





So, I guess I should wait 5 days and do the treatment all over? I'm gonna seperate that one fish and see. So if his poop isn't white and stringy that means he doesn't have IPs?

Natty wrote:

SharkBait wrote:well i heard u can use the Jungle Fizz and soak it in there food
but unless ur ammonia is really high i am guessing thats the problem since my friend is having this also
if it is u should use ammonia lock or do alot of water changes till ur ammonia is down

I'm a bit confused why you brought up ammonia?

Me, too. I don't think that this is an issue. I don't think you need to be worried about it.

well if u have High ammonia sometimes it stops the fish from eatting
Edit"since this happen to me before+

Actually, the reason these guys aren't eating is that the food has been medicated, which doesn't taste good.

Natty, if his poop is not white and stringy, then he probably doesn't have IPs anymore.

Okay, but if it does should I medicate the whole tank all over again and try feeding them medicated food or should I just seperate that one puffer and medicate him?

If it truly is IPs you need to treat all the inhabitants. Have you read the article on this in the Library?

His poop that I checked today were black. Do they have to look both stringy and white? His poop sorta looks like warped potatoes, is that cool? I think thats normal right? He still has a skinny stomach so I'm gonna go buy more meds and start feeding frozen bloodworms dipped in garlic and meds just for the heck of it.




Update
I just found one dead. It was one of the fat ones too......no reason why. Can dwarf puffers die from overeating?

Well, yeah, they can literally burst themselves open, but my guess is that there was something else going on. Did you check water parameters? Poor guy, sorry about that.

Warped potatoes are fine. Your skinny guy probably just needs to get fattened up.

Natty wrote:His poop that I checked today were black. Do they have to look both stringy and white? His poop sorta looks like warped potatoes, is that cool? I think thats normal right? He still has a skinny stomach so I'm gonna go buy more meds and start feeding frozen bloodworms dipped in garlic and meds just for the heck of it.




Update
I just found one dead. It was one of the fat ones too......no reason why. Can dwarf puffers die from overeating?

Markrush is correct about the treatment. You will need to treat the tank and the fish themselves with soaked food. The white stingy poop is a later sign of infestation, the IP's are robbing every bit of nutrient from the food the puffer is able to take in and the puffers body is trying to extract as much as it can from what is in the digestive tract. The dark poop isn't necessarily a sign of being in the clear, just that the infestation hasn't started robbing the body yet. The one that dies very well could have been a successful treatment but the IP's just decayed in the intestines and poisoned the fish. When I treat for IP's I add Epsom salt, 1 tbsp Epsom salt/5gallon, to the water to help expel the parasites.