The Puffer Forum

ok, so ever since my male DP romeo got attacked by his female counter part Juliet, he's been very thin. it looks like he has IPs, but i've treated him several times before, and treated him for them again just after teh attack, but he's not getting fat. he's actually been very thin for over a month now, but still eats regularly, to the point his tummy is round, but is then skinny again by morning. he looks like he has IPs, but as i said i've treated him. his vent isn't red, his poo is fine, and he's got an appetite. the only other weird thing is he's been swimming a little oddly too. ever since his attack he's been swimming on a slight angle. if you were looking at him head on his body is tilted like this / with his good eye pointed slightly to the ground. and he tends to spin around alot, but i figured that was because he only has one good eye now. any idea what could be wrong? i want to try over feeding him to fatten him up but juliet doesn't need the extra food and he won't fight for his food. any ideas what it could be? i'll blow up a picture i just took of him an hour ago and post it.

here are two pics of him.

side with the bad eye


side with good eye


sorry the pics aren't the best. i can never seem to get any good pics.

He does look really thin. I'm not sure about that.

Is it possible that Juliet damaged his swim bladder when she attacked him? That would account for his trouble swimming.

its possible, but he really doesn't have an issue with moving around, he can control himself and attack the bloodworms again with perfect accuracy, he's just always tilted to one side, and seems to always want to turn to the side with his good eye is he's turning around (he can go the other way, he just doesn't do it much). i'm more worried about the fact he's so thin than anything. he was always on the small side, but not this thin.

I completely missed that about his eye getting hurt.

Could you possibly remove him and let him have his own space so that he's not intimidated when it's feeding time? I had 2 Congo puffers once and the male severely intimidated the female and she would not eat. Just a thought.

I'm thinking either he swims on an angle so that his good eye can see better, or that maybe, as LGP says, his swim bladder may have been affected in some way.

I think it would probably be kinder to put him in a tank on his own, let him recover from being attacked and see what happens in that situation.

I wish you all the luck with your little guy.

thanks. giving him his own tank is out of the question, i can't have anymore here at school, and my parents refuse to let me get more at home. i do have a floating baby tank that i can get up here for him to recover in, but by no means would that be a permanent fix. do you think if i isolated him until he fattened up again he would be ok to release back with the female? like i said he's getting plenty of food to make his stomach round, he's just still is so thin.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of that, because as you said, it sounds as if he may have IP's, but with you having done treatments for those, I'm not sure what to think. I suppose you could always try to isolate him and see if he eats more that way .... it's something to try.

ok so i'm so confused now. i just feed them and i noticed something weird. he's moving his injured eye! this is the first time he's done it since the attack, and whats even mroe odd, it seems like he can see out of it again! his bad eye was facing me adn he couldn't see me with the good eye at all, and i moved my hand and he darted away from my hand. his eye still has some blood pooled at the bottom, and is a little cloudy, but it looks like he's starting to get his vision in that eye back. is it a miracle?

That's fantastic!!! Glad to hear it. Well you never know how things are going to go sometimes, but that's excellent.

We wont know if its a mircale until corvus chimes in with his direct line to god.

Bluntokian wrote:We wont know if its a mircale until corvus chimes in with his direct line to god.

haha, of course.

Yup, that good ol' direct line to God!

He is very, very thin. What have you treated him with for the IP's, sometimes you need to try a different type of anti-parasitic for different types of parasites (tapeworms for example will only be killed by certain types, not your standard IP med).

I would separate him with the breeding net while you try to get some weight on him, if it was me, personally.

That's good news about his eye though! A comment on the swimming crooked.. I've known a few horses who were blind in one eye and you could always tell from a distance, they held their head at a funny angle. Don't ask me why, but they did. For some reason I'm thinking that puffers don't really have a swim bladder.. I could be wrong on that...?