The Puffer Forum

so i just bought an about 1.5 inch (nose to where the 'clear' caudal fin begins) F8. i've had my eye on s/he and the tankmates for over a month! but it took time to get and cycle a(nother) tank (went w/a 20g long). also this will be my first brackish tank once i bring it up to -i think- .004-.006 using instant ocean. puff was in fresh at the store, i'm going to go get a SG reading from them later today.

in my first post i said my hydrometer was testing 0.004 out of the tap. this was true -and i was thinking was from the dissolved solids of our hardwater from a limestone aquifer in general? but i've just set it to "re-season" in a true salty solution (i only used brackish before). so after it truly "seasons" the needle i will also calibrate it with distilled or RO water. i think there is a whole thread on this, so i'll look for details there and retest everything.

is there some "general standard" to guessing F8 age based on their body length (or any other method)? and if we do use body length to "guesstimate" i'd assume it's not-including-the-caudal-fin, unless y'all advise differently.

when observing the body length (and general body shape or any other maybe helpful thing) is there a "basically agreed-upon" way to guess the age of a LFS F8 specimen?

and.... i'm still brand new, here and to puffer keeping, but i understand that pretty much all F8s in the fish trade are wild caught and thus many enter the trade with common-in-the-wild parasites, and internal ones seem to be most mentioned online.

i also understand that for all known species -including us humans and everything else- some degree of "parasites", particularly intestinal organisms, may in actuality be symbiotic and either help their host produce specific nutrients from ingested foodstuffs or enhance the host's immune system. granted, this is only just beginning to find scientific confirmation.

but i also know that certain parasites will always lead to the ill-health, stressed immune systems, and direct-or-indirect eventual death of the host.....

so, what kind are those that occur in F8s (if we know at all about this)? and it seems much more importantly how -in some detail please- can a pet/hobbyist owner visually detect these parasites? many of us don't have access to lab-grade equipment and tests, but still care about our wet pets.

oh, and i understand that any wild caught fish may harbor some "parasites" that may have either been true parasites in their home ecosystem environment, or perhaps symbiotic there, but that function may change fully and they may become harmful in the wildly different environment that is captivity.....

and thanks to all for the welcome and answer to my first question (i'm honored to have gotten both PP -queen and RTR responses! you both are clearly experts by-way-of-vast-experience on puffs!)

and i'm having one more thought: all this talk of internal parasites -can anyone describe what "normal" F8 poops/belly vs. afflicted w/IP F8 poops/belly might look like?

is it necessary to "deworm" any and all F8s newly bought from the general pet market?

the lill one i just bought was at the store about one month, went thru several whole pet-store-fish-system ich treatments, and has a visually smooth all-white belly. i did ask the LFS fish-ordering manager about puffer IPs when she mentioned that the system had just (like the day before) had an ich treatment, but she said she'd never heard of such a thing....

so, should i jungle tab or treat food "just in case" (i hate to medicate if no one is actually ill), or just go with the fact that the F8 "seems" healthy, but i have no IRL way to know if s/he actually has IPs?....everyone seems to mention how IPs are ever-present here, but i've been unable to find a direct, literal, and quite specific description of the visible symptoms other than vague things like "lumpy" belly.

any thoughts would be appreciated. and yes, i've checked the library and 'pedia, but maybe i missed the descriptions of symptoms.

thanks, laura

There is no possibility of guessing the age of a fish in the LFS. It may be very young or it may have been stunted in some tank previously, or may be stunted from parasites in the wild or in captivity.

If you buy very small fish relative to adult size, your guess that they are quite young (months at the most). beyond that you can only guess wildly. When i talk about captive fish life-spans I refer to years in my care. I do not include any fudge factor for prior time. But I do generally by the smallest fish I cam get so I know that are likely to really be fry.

SDAIK, intestinal parasites in fish are never symbiotes or in any way beneficial. They are parasites and detrimental, period. Somatic parasites are likely to be the same, but are extremely dangerous to treat - killing the parasite may well kill the host also from toxicity. Somatic nematodes are not rare in wild-caught puffers.

I bought a fahaka puffer that was starving with IPs & only an inch long, after living in the LFS for 6 months. It should have been close to 6" by then!