The Puffer Forum

I just bought several new Diodon holocanthus on Wed and didn't notice that one of them had a dropsy-ish looking left eye, which has since gotten worse. I got them from a warehouse dealer and they didn't really let me inspect the fish for disease. Anyway, the poor fellows have been dealing with being in new tanks, so they've swum away from me until recently. On Thurs a friend pointed out that this fish's left eye was bigger than the right, and at first it looked like it was a case of dropsy. A few hours later it began to cloud up. That ain't dropsy! I'm not familiar w/ cloudy eye, and I took some pictures up close so you guys can take a better look. The cornea of the eye has a thin film on it, but in the eye, right above the pupil (I'm guessing) there are small white tendrils that appear to drape from the top of the eye over the pupil. They look like they even might be parasites, like a copepod or something. But the eye looks undamaged, though enlarged, and the skin around it is swollen too. No redness. I got ahold of my dealer and he told me to give it FW dips, 5-7 min 1x a day for 2 days. This is the second day and I'm not sure there's any improvement, but I'll keep doing it b/c it's worked for ick before. In addition to this, I also moved the poor puffer to a quaratine tank (which has cycled SW) and added Maracyn-Two (erythromycin). Today I put in some CopperSafe to get off any inverts. I do a 80% partial water change daily b/c the Maracyn causes the water to get really yellow and it doesn't smell right, but I do treat the new water w/ meds. I lowered the salinity to 20 ppt instead of 25-30, and the temp is ~27 C. I warmed it up a bit b/c he looked uncomfortable and I tend to keep my puffers on the cool side. His eye infection isn't from my water, he came in with it. Does anyone have a clue to what it is and how to treat it? And I can't figure out how to get the picts on here

SW system: It's a 500 gallon flow-through system w/ bioballs and crushed coral. It's been cycled for more than a year, thanks to previous inhabitants and my 2 starter puffers. Each fish gets their own separate tank but share the water b/c of the flow-through.

Water parameters in short, of flow-through system: pH 8.1, alkalinity 3.5 meq/L, nitrites 0.1 mg/L (due to addition of several fish in a system recently maintained by 2 puffers), nitrates 50 mg/L (which has been lower/higher a lot for a long time, but the older puffers are doing well), 0 free and total ammonia. I use SeaChem Marine Basic, so the tests and units are probably different than most people use.

QT tank: same water parameters as above except it's 20 ppt and 30 C.

I have had good sucess with Melafix & if severe, Hydrogen peroxide dips. Now if I could only find the info on that... Anyone remember how much, for how long, how often? Duh.. why didn't I write that down!

Do you think dropping diluted hydrogen peroxide on its eye would be ok rather than giving it a full-body dip? What about medicated eye "neosporin" for humans? I got some of that for myself and I was debating using it on the puff. Thanks for your help!

Boy, I'm tired-- I meant to say that I thought the puffer had pop-eye, not dropsy...

Pufferpunk wrote:I have had good sucess with Melafix & if severe, Hydrogen peroxide dips. Now if I could only find the info on that... Anyone remember how much, for how long, how often? Duh.. why didn't I write that down!

I searched Google's cache and found one of your old posts from 19 Aug 2004:

I have a friend who has been using 7cc of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide in 1 liter of clean tank water for an 11 minute dip. He swears by it and has been using it for 25 years.

Is that what you are looking for?

Bravo!

I added Melafix last night but this morning his eye is half-filled with white, creamy pus. I'll try the hydrogen peroxide today too. I decided not to use the Bacitracin ointment b/c it might form too much of a water barrier.

Do you guys think the hydrogen peroxide will dry up the pus in its eye? I think I'm going to have to take him to a vet 50 mi away to have it drained! UCLA has its own vets but they don't know fish. Losers!

ybenormal wrote:

Pufferpunk wrote:I have had good sucess with Melafix & if severe, Hydrogen peroxide dips. Now if I could only find the info on that... Anyone remember how much, for how long, how often? Duh.. why didn't I write that down!

I searched Google's cache and found one of your old posts from 19 Aug 2004:

I have a friend who has been using 7cc of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide in 1 liter of clean tank water for an 11 minute dip. He swears by it and has been using it for 25 years.

Is that what you are looking for?

Do I do this 1x a day?

I only dug up the information that had been posted on the old board. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) I have never had to use this remedy. Hopefully PP or someone with experience in this area will log in soon and can answer your questions.

1x only.

get you some epsom salts and add a tsp (teaspoon) per 5 gallnos of water that will relieve water pressure behind the eye and should help get the pus out too before the eye bulges and either blocks the optic nerve or actually forces the eye out of the socket entirely.

get some tetracyline or eryromyacin both basic antibiotics and add then to the q/t tank the puffer is in alone according to dosages in the packages and and simply wait.

Jager wrote:get you some epsom salts and add a tsp (teaspoon) per 5 gallnos of water that will relieve water pressure behind the eye and should help get the pus out too before the eye bulges and either blocks the optic nerve or actually forces the eye out of the socket entirely.

get some tetracyline or eryromyacin both basic antibiotics and add then to the q/t tank the puffer is in alone according to dosages in the packages and and simply wait.

Hi all, thanks for your help. Yeah, I'm afraid it'll go blind. The swelling has gone down, but I need to get the pus out. The fish is already in SW, so how will the epsom salts help? Do I add the salts to FW then?

The puffer's been in his own tank since last Friday. I did try erythromycin for 2 days and the infection got worse too fast. I realize meds take a while to kick in, but I haven't had a lot of luck with erythomycin in the past with SW fish, so I decided to try something new, like Melafix. (Puffer Punk had good results with that) I wonder if I can use both erthromycin and Melafix w/o making a nasty slew. But good news, I got him to eat for the first time since he arrived!

You can mix Melafix w/other antibiotics. Epsom salt is completely different that marine salt & can be added to SW. 1tbsp/5g.

The pus will get reabsorbed by the tissues...if the swelling's going down, that's great...eventually the pus will disappear.
Poor guy..glad he looks to be getting better.
Pami.

Yay, thanks you guys. This is a really helpful forum. Still nothing from people who get paid to diagnose. It's too early to tell, but its eye is looking a little better. I did add erythromycin today just to help out the Melafix. We'll find out tomorrow....