The Puffer Forum

[img]Hello! One of my dwarf puffers has had what seems to be a case of hexamita. She has what seems to be discoloration (it could be a crater but honestly it is hard to tell just from looking at it) where her “nostrils” are supposed to be. Pictures will be attached. Also, she tends to be very pale in general. She is adult size (about an inch and a quarter) but ever since i got her, she has been a ghostly white color. Sometimes she will turn darker brown/olive green but for the most part, she is pale. However, she behaves normally for the most part. She eats great, is active, and gets along well with the rest of the shoal (i have 3 others in there). When i first got her, she did not have any visible symptoms of hexamita. however, she slowly developed the discoloration on her face. It started out as a small rectangular line of discoloration and now it seems to be more of a circle. The other 3 puffers are fine and are all well, i am just extremely worried about this whole thing in general. I have posted about this on a few different subreddits, where everyone told me i would be fine. My gut tells me other wise though.I have them in a 17.5 gallon heavily planted tank. Parameters are all good as well (besides dkh, i have no real experience with how to test for that). Is this something that i should medicate for? If so, can anyone please give some thoughts on what they might do? Thank you!!! (The pictures are lacking color due to the photo compression that i had to do, files were too large to attach without compression)

Their nostrils do appear as skin flaps, are you sure this isn't what you are seeing?

Yes i am sure, I see the skin flaps but the spots i am talking about are behind those skin flaps. The discoloration/craters are on the skin that those flaps sit on top of. The flaps are still there, its just the skin that the flap sits ontop of that is basically white. It looks like the topmost layer of the skin was peeled off. It is a little hard to tell from the pictures but you can see how discolored (white) the skin is where those flaps are supposed to be.

Is it spreading?

When i first got the puffer it was perfectly fine. After some time i noticed the discoloration appear. It started our as a small spot and now the spot is much bigger than it was before (this was over the course of probably a few months). I do not think it is continuing to spread anymore.