The Puffer Forum

Hi Folks - not been around for ages I know. Long story.

Anyway, I am in need of some help...

Can anyone diagnose what's going on with this goby? I noticed this "hole" or "bite" on his back and am worried as to what the cause could be.

I pay close attention to my fish and haven't seen this develop - so I do not think it's an infection (although I do not know how quickly these can develop) - my other thought is that it could be a bite from my Figure 8?


http://photocast.mac.com/mrbluefox/iPho ... /index.rss (sorry - I'm learning how to use a mac and am having to use my .mac account in order to host pics)

I recently did a water change (ie in the last three days) and all of the parameters are as follows:

SG 1.008
NH3 0
NitrIte 0
Natrate ~10

He seems to be active enough (as in he's not hiding in a corner etc) and is still eating when I fed them all today


Any ideas folks?

Cheers
N

The link doesn't work for me.

It does resemble some of the bites I've seen...

It is likely for your Figure 8 to have taken a bite out of your goby if he isn't fed enough. Though, IME Figure 8's have a relatively nice personality, but you never really know. At my LFS it is not recommended to put Bumble Bee's with Figure 8's.

Looks like a puffer bite to me.

I'd start adding melafix and pimafix to help prevent bacterial or fungal infection.

Do you have a hospital tank setup?

If not, keep up with water changes.

Thanks for all your input, I've not got a hospital tank though and cos I'm in the UK those treatments are very hard to come by (well in Leicestershire anyway!!).

For the time being, I'm just making sure the water is clean as poss and making sure that he's still active and eating...*crosses fingers*

Thanks again!

In your case, you should check with your local pharmacist/chemist for some tea tree oil. That's the main ingredient in melafix, and is likely to be easily obtainable.

It'll definately help with the healing of that wound.

Wicked! Thanks for the info folks.

Just a quick qu or two if I may:

1) what's the dosage for teatree oil? (and concentrations - as I believe it comes in different concentrations)

2) also, is it going to have any adverse effects on the rest of my tank?

Cheers!

Someone put a recipe for homemade Melafix here a while back. Try a search.

UPDATE:

Now I know a lot of people post updates to say "looks like i was too late" etc...but I'm happy to announce that this goby is living to fight another day!!!

He's well on the mend and thankfully not got any kind of infection. He's always hungry and is defending his territory just like a 100% fit goby would!!

thanks again for your help folks - these are cheap fish that could have been lost due to "ah well it's not expensive to replace" mentalities - but I've hung in there and things are looking good.

Thanks!

Sweet! Glad to hear it...

P)0

Awesome. What fierce little buggers these guys are!