The Puffer Forum

I think one of my dwarf puffers is sick

I have a 29g, planted, 3 dwarf puffers, 5 dwarf gourami's, plus a small pleco and 3 otto cats. 2 of the puffers and the other fish seem fine, however the third puffer doesnt look so well. dont know if the 3 are male or female. the sick one seems to swim with a slight "list" to one side, hangs near the top and doesnt seem to want to go deep in the tank tho I have seen it is capable of going deep still (possible swim bladder issue??). also the back seems to be overly arched and the tail sticking higher up than normal. the three are fed well and each have little pot-bellies (frozen and freez-dried blood worms, frozen mysis, mostly, with occasion ramshorn snails)

Patrick

Well, first of all, what are your water parameters? The first thing to check is always your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings, those will tell you if there is something in your water causing the fish stress.

Second thing to do is a water change. Clean water will always help.

Are the other puffers picking on it that you can tell? Or even the gouramis? If anyone is picking on it I would get it into a hospital tank ASAP before they stress it out or injure it further.

Hopefully someone else can help you with diagnosis of the body shape/swimming behavior, but if you do the above that will help in the mean time. If you can get a picture of the puffer in question that would be great, but definately get the readings on your water.

Not probable, but possible, did he puff up lately? If so, if he swallowed air, that could be a cause? Check out this article about burping if you think that could be the issue.

Burp Teh Puff

There's some anecdotal evidence that constipation in fish causes swim bladder problems. Feeding them frozen peas can clear out their "plumbing" nicely. Some puffers seem to take frozen peas quite readily (one of my SAPs does, for example) so if you have some in your freezer, it's certainly worth a shot.

I wouldn't keep puffers with dwarf gouramis. Dwarf gouramis are little time-bombs of bacteria. If I could, I'd ban them commercially bred ones from the trade altogether!

Cheers,

Neale

Dwarf gouramis are little time-bombs of bacteria.

Interesting! Can you comment further on that?


1tbsp Epsom salt/10g also works well for constipation. Can increase to 1tbsp/5g after 2 days, if no improvement (or a BW/SW fish).

Sure. Here's a topic I wrote for another forum on fish to avoid. Dwarf gouramis are at the top of the list.

If you spend any time on an general aquarium forum, you'll see dozens of messages about sick dwarf gouramis. Symptoms are always the same: loss of appetite, blisters and sores, lethargy, then death. There are no cures that I have heard of.

Really, dwarf gouramis should be 100% quarantined by the aquarist before mixing with anything else, and keeping them in anything less than very warm, slightly soft and acidic water is pointless. For generic community tanks, even honey gouramis are probably more reliable.

I'd worry about mixing dwarf gouramis with anything susceptible to opportunistic bacteria: spiny eels, discus, mormyrids, etc. Maybe even puffers.

Cheers,

Neale

*looks over at the two DGs in her tank*

Ooops.

Norvin I've had for at least six months no problem, but I just got Luella a week ago and didn't quarantine her. The rest of the girls in her tank at the lfs seemed healthy, though, so I guess I can hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Got the warm, soft, slightly acid water covered, though! My neons love it too.

I love DGs, though...they've got personality once they get settled in. Norvin likes to come over and try to "taste" my finger with his thread-like pelvic fins (they've got taste cells on the ends). Very cute fish.