The Puffer Forum

Hi, as I also mentioned in the welcome section I recently acquired 3 figure 8's and 2 GSps, all of them have fat bellies and healthy appetites except one. The one GSP looks like a skull with a tiny bit of flesh trailing behind (his shriveled body). He really tries to eat though, sometimes even stealing food from the other GSP. The problem seems to be that he can't ingest the food, he can open and close his mouth, so no lock jaw and his teeth are fine, so I'm thinking it might be parasites?

The two 1inch GSPs are living peacefully together in their fully cycled 60 gallon tank, whith water conditions Amm = 0 Nitrite = 0 Nitrate < 20. The aqurium was set up for a few months before with african chiclids. When I acquired the puffers thet were in fresh water so I'm slowly pushing the salinity up to BW.

I'm feeding blood worms, krill and ghost shrimp. I'm still trying to find a good source of snails or other molluscs.

[edit] If you have any suggestions for meds I should use, please mention the active ingredient instead of the product name, as I probably don't have the same brands available, thanks.

Levamisole is a good IP medicine, if you can find it. So is flubendazole, from what I've read. Metronidazole and praziquantel are pretty easy to find and are very often used together, as metronidazole covers protozoan wasting disease, which masquerades as an internal parasite infestation, whereas praziquantel treats the actual worms. Gel-Tek makes a med that you can soak the fish's food in, however if he's not able to eat, that's not going to do you a whole lot of good. You'll want to treat the whole tank, anyway, since it seems like he may not be alone in the tank. Act as soon as possible - your fish sounds like it's in pretty bad shape. Good luck!

Great article on treating IPs in our Library. Also good ones on feeding your puffs.

A quick update:

I read all the articles in the library, and now I'm thinking it might not be parasites.
I actually managed to get him to eat by holding the food in my hand just below the water surface, it seems to help him and he tears little bits off. He ate very little compared to the others but he is showing a tiny paunch It kind of looks like he swallowed a pea.

I'll keep up the hand feeding to try and see if he starts looking better. I think he might simply have been bullied at the LFS as they had many puffers in a 3 gallon fresh water tank.

Another question: Is it okay to feed crickets? Our local pet shop sells different captive bred sizes intended for reptiles. I know they can be fed but is it okay on a regular basis and does it help wear down their teeth?

Crickets are a very good food, and even better if you feed the crickets some green vegetables like lettuce before you feed them to the puffers (gets them to eat both meat and veggie).

I like to feed my crickets oranges. They get Vit C & liquid refreshment.

Great to know, I'll try them and see if my puffs like them, they havent turned down anything I have fed them though

Oranges, I never thought of that!

I used to catch grasshoppers for my guys when I lived next to a big field. They loved them.

Wow, I never thought of feeding crickets to a puffer, but I think I'll try a few and see if my puffs like them.

ugh I saw the words skinny puffer and was gonna say feed it mussels or summin! But IPs I have no input on im afraid Good Luck to you, these ^^^^^ Guys know everything!

Or get it to the gym for some muscles!

He seemed to be getting better, after a few days he started eating very heartily However my LFS recenly received a new batch of beautiful spotted greens, so I decided to take him back and get a healthier one instead. Now before you start thinking how mean I am, I have managed to convince my LFS to keep their puffers in a bigger, BRACKISH tank and they have set up a sick tank especially for him, so he will be well cared for and should go to a reasonably well informed buyer when he has made a recovery

Hopefully, your puffers do well. I would, however, encourage you to continue to treat for internal parasites and protozoans as the puffers you got may have been infected as well since they were in the same tanks as the sick one. In any case, I prefer to treat my puffers for IPs right when I get them since they come from the wild (yes, I know some aren't, but those are fairly rare and I've only had Figure 8s anyway). Puffers are kind of prone to get IPs, so I think it's worth the risk of treating with meds since if you wait until you see signs it might be too late if they stop eating.

One of my earlier acquisitions seemed fairly healthy but somewhat thin (not terribly just not nicely rounded) which I thought was just because the LFS only feeds them brine shrimp and flake food. He did eat okay, but within a couple weeks, he was very listless and would not eat or move. Unfortunately, I did not know to treat him, and so I didn't think to treat him until he was too sick to eat. By that time, I had gotten advice from here and read articles, so I did treat Grun (the living puffer) right away and treated the next as soon as I got him.