The Puffer Forum

Hi folks, want to know your advice about deworming this puffers, I'm sure they have internal parasites, because i´ve seen whitish excrement, and a notably sunk belly in 6 of the puffers, all of them eat and behaves according to a healthy puffer.
So here are de Answers:

1.-pH: 6.8, Ammonia 0; Nitrite:0.3mg/L, Nitrates:0; salinity:0; Tº:24º
2.- 64 Gal with 20 Red cHERRYS & 35 Carinotetraodon Travancoricus (8mm), and lots of snails.
3.- i do WC of 50% every week, i add some aquarium plants fertilizer every day (4 drops) and 20g of salt every 15 days.
4.- 50% past saturday.
5.- Aquarium has a 30 days substrate-only cycle at day light and 30 days more with plants, 8 months working.

i think everything is ok (isn´t it? )

My concern would be the meds harming the shrimp. Anyone know about this?

Are the nitrites and nitrates mixed up? I'm especially curious about this because your tank is overstocked.

You don't need to be adding salt to this tank. It's not going to benefit anything in the tank unless they have ich.

Jeni's right - most worm meds will kill shrimp. I like to treat both the tank water and fishes' food when I'm on the worm-prowl, and in my experience, fenbendezole is safe for cherry shrimp and snails (though some people have reported more sensitivity in nerite snails). I think I used 1/10 of a packet of Panacur (a brand of dog dewormer containing fenbendezole) to treat the water in my 10g tank - I can double-check the dosage. You will probably want to treat their food with something more powerful, like praziquantel.

Based on comments:

1.- I will move the 6 wormed puffers to a 20gal tank to treat them directly on the food with praziquantel (¿how much?).
2.- Both tank water will be treated with Panacur 1ml/2L.

i´m working on the overstock problem, if it can be considered as it (puffers are too small, but puffers anyway lol).
I don't know what you mean with: "nitrites and nitrates mixed up"
The salt in topic is perfect ocean, i add it to provide Mg & Ca for the plants, i´ve never had a puffer with Ich.
I can't stop medication because the cherries can get harmed, if that happens... so be it, puffers are the first concern (but anyway i will told you what happen with the cherries after medication )

Thanks a lot!

RVS wrote:Based on comments:

1.- I will move the 6 wormed puffers to a 20gal tank to treat them directly on the food with praziquantel (¿how much?).
2.- Both tank water will be treated with Panacur 1ml/2L.

i´m working on the overstock problem, if it can be considered as it (puffers are too small, but puffers anyway lol).
I don't know what you mean with: "nitrites and nitrates mixed up"
The salt in topic is perfect ocean, i add it to provide Mg & Ca for the plants, i´ve never had a puffer with Ich.
I can't stop medication because the cherries can get harmed, if that happens... so be it, puffers are the first concern (but anyway i will told you what happen with the cherries after medication )

Thanks a lot!

Well, DPs are strictly FW fish, so even though your plants may enjoy the salt, you might want to consider the puffers first and find an alternate way of adding the Mg and Ca. Perfect Ocean sounds more like salt made for a SW aquarium and not something like espom or table salt (both of which I have been told do NOT affect the sg of the tank).

As for your overstock problem, as the DPs get an inch big full grown, yes, overstock is a problem you have. Rule of thumb is 5 gallons per dp because of territory, so 35 reqire ideally 175 gallons. Some places say 3, others say two, but peeps told me here that it was 5, and that is what I go by. You don't want aggression problems as they get older.

Maybe you should catch all your RCS before you medicate, because they are sentient beings as well, and even though we all adore our puffers, any living creature in our care should be treated the same no matter if it's a worm, fish, puffer or shrimp. Just my two cents, but I would move them to a quaratine tank.

I don't know what you mean with: "nitrites and nitrates mixed up"

You said that you got a nitrite reading of 0.3mg/l and no nitrates. You shouldn't be getting any nitrites at all in a healthy tank, but you should get a nitrate reading over 0 (unless the tank is very heavily planted and you JUST did a HUGE water change).

Do keep in mind that if your shrimp die, they will rot and cause a massive ammonia/nitrite spike. If you don't find every single one, you'll have a mess.

THIRTY FIVE DPS?!? id love to see that in real life!!!! must be fun to watch! sorry i cant help with the deworming thing... although I do have a bottle of geltek if you wanna buy it from me if the dps are still eating.

edit: hmm dont know if it would be ok going over the border though, cant remember what site i bought it from, but heres a pic: http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/review/ ... 1229928233

Lil, i just did a 50% WC past saturday, i don't know if that causes that nitrite readings, anyway it may be also caused by the NKP fertilizer.
Overstock problem is solved, I'm waiting for a home made aquarium series, inspired in this:
http://luby-china.com/upload/201189215391632.jpg
6 20g tanks just for the Dp (1 month more!)

Goldielocke76... you got me, i just removed as many RCS as i could, only puffers and a few snails are in the tank now (not medicated yet)

Hadla, yes it is funny and amazing... can't understand how nature make this super little puffers....i´ll make a special video to show you the dwarfs, there are also some pictures in a post on FW puffers forum, if you want to see them
i would buy that bottle from you if there were not this huge distance hehehe but thanks anyway... i see this "geltek" has metronidazole, (metronidazol or flagyl here in mexico) i can't get those meds for tomorrow morning if you folks think it work better than Panacur.

Water changes shouldn't cause nitrites, unless there's nitrites in your tap water...

If your fertilizer has that much nitrite in it, then you should probably switch brands. That's not safe.

RVS wrote:Hadla, yes it is funny and amazing... can't understand how nature make this super little puffers....i´ll make a special video to show you the dwarfs, there are also some pictures in a post on FW puffers forum, if you want to see them
i would buy that bottle from you if there were not this huge distance hehehe but thanks anyway... i see this "geltek" has metronidazole, (metronidazol or flagyl here in mexico) i can't get those meds for tomorrow morning if you folks think it work better than Panacur.

with how interesting it is watching just my 5, i can only imagine watching a group of 10 or more! you posted a pic of the tank? i looked at the list of your posts, but didnt see anything.

now i know why i missed having dps so much!

RVS wrote:i see this "geltek" has metronidazole, (metronidazol or flagyl here in mexico) i can't get those meds for tomorrow morning if you folks think it work better than Panacur.

Metronidazole works just as well as Panacur, prazi and other meds out there. We used to use it all the time at the vets for deworming, and I bought some myself for my puffs.

hadla, this is the topic i talked to: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29631, i have no pics of the tank but there will be soon

so, Metronidazole will be Thanks a lot goldielocke76!
This is the way i´ve use metronidazole (in my friends Tilapia Buttikoferi with amoeba problems):
250mg(compressed metronidazole) dissolved in a litter of distilled water (solution).

1.- i soak the fish food on this solution and goes directly to them.
2.- i add one solution for each 10 gal.
3.- wait 3 days then 50% WC and repeat treatment until healing.

¿could it work?

Back to the No2 topic, i didn't have any trouble in 8 months with a constant rhythm of 0 to 0.3mg/l ¿it is really dangerous?

RVS wrote:hadla, this is the topic i talked to: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29631, i have no pics of the tank but there will be soon

oh ok, cant wait to see it! hope your dps get better.

RVS wrote:Back to the No2 topic, i didn't have any trouble in 8 months with a constant rhythm of 0 to 0.3mg/l ¿it is really dangerous?

Yes, ANY nitrite at all is VERY dangerous. If you haven't had any symptoms, then there's probably something wrong with your test kit.

I use tetra test laborett, someone has a testimony of how accurate is it?