The Puffer Forum

My littlest baby, Cobra, is not looking good. He's very skinny and I have yet to see him eat anything. Tonight as I was watching them after feeding, I noticed Apache pecking at him and chasing him away from the pile of bloodworms. Not sure if that's been the problem all along or not, but I've removed Cobra from the DP tank and put him in my other tank with Oscar the betta. He's swimming around and seems to be okay but still hasn't eaten. Oscar is mostly ignoring him and periodically goes to take a look at him but is pretty much leaving him alone. So far anyway.

Cobra is still so tiny, about a half inch long, but I fear he's not long for the world if he doesn't start eating something. I've tried live blackworms (they're too big), frozen bloodworms, frozen mysis shrimp and frozen daphnia, each alone and soaked in garlic. Nothing so far. I don't know what else to do.

Just keep trying

Have you tried live fish fry or live brine shrimp? If either of those fail to work, as Phaedrus suggested, just keep trying. Your DP will eventually get hungry enough to eat. I had a few DPs take a couple of weeks before they would eat. I was always very successful in the end with just plain frozen bloodworms, de-thawed and pre-rinsed.

Yup, tried both fry and brine shrimp. No go. My other ones took a few weeks to start eating but are sucking down the food now. I got Cobra at the same time and he's not doing as well, and its been months now. I'll keep throwing frozen bloodworms and frozen mysis shrimp in there and hope that he will eventually eat something.

Perhaps you could add some dither fish, like guppies or something to get him motivated to eat, but won't pester him.

I was thinking about putting him in my community tank but am not sure how to make sure he gets food then. Right now he's in with a betta and baby long-finned bristlenose pleco and seems to be acting okay but I haven't seen him eat anything yet. I'm going to try putting some flakes in the tank and see if he'll at least try them. Long shot I know but I'm getting desperate.

Ok, after spending some time sitting and watching him tonight, I suspect he's starving to death because he's got lockjaw. At least that's what it looks like. He keeps hovering over the pile of bloodworms but his mouth doesn't move. Its like he wants to eat but can't. He's extremely skinny, too, no body at all to speak of. So now the question becomes do I euthanize him or what? Its heartbreaking to watch him though.

That's a tough call. I would probably euthanize. If you're sure he cannot physically eat, then he will eventually waste away and die.

I'm almost positive he can't eat. I've seen him do the same thing in the DP tank but didn't really think anything of it. Figured he just wasn't hungry at the time. But now I'm sure its much more serious. He seems to want to eat, at least that's what I'm interpreting his hovering around the food as meaning. But his mouth just doesn't move. The other DPs mouths move even when they aren't eating but not his. And he's too tiny to try to force-feed, even if I could figure out how without breaking him in half. His body shape is like a tadpole, though. Round head but right behind his pecs, he narrows down and is almost completely flat top-to-bottom. Looks like a sperm.

Poor guy. It really sounds like he's a goner sorry to say.

I dunno how you could force feed either.

Clove oil may be the most humane thing to do at this point. Sorry

Lock jaw is such an awful disease, because they TRY to eat, but can't. It's just awful, because you know they want to live and are trying to fight it, but just can't do it. I've had a few fish die from lockjaw over the years. The first time I didn't euthanize because I didn't know any better. It was heart breaking to watch em waste away slowly and painfully. After that I did everyone a favour and put them down.

He was PTS last night. I couldn't do it, hubby did it for me after I went to bed and cried. I'm really surprised at how attached I got to him. If you had told me before that I could get attached to a fish, i would have said you were crazy. Little guy meant a lot to me though.

Sorry to hear that .

im very sorry to hear that you lost cobra , what a sucky way to hit 1000 posts.

please do try and get another dp though, dont let this make you think your not able to keep them. your very competent, sometimes we just cant fix whats wrong

I have two others that I got at the same time, Huey and Apache, and they are doing very well. They're both eating frozen bloodworms and live blackworms and appear to be thriving. I'll probably get another one eventually, but first I have to get some fish for my new 38 gal. Probably a bunch of tiger barbs.