The Puffer Forum

Hello,

This is my first time posting. I currently have a 7" porcupine puffer in a 75 gallon tank (I'll soon be upgrading to 125 gallons). We've had the puffer for over a year and he's always been an excellent eater with no real health issues (he once burned himself against the heater but healed very quickly and we moved the heater). Ammonia is 0, nitrites are 0, and nitrates tend to hover between 40-80, a problem we try to remedy with water changes. About a month ago we noticed his 'nose' was swollen. We assumed he had maybe smacked his nose into the glass. However, we went on vacation two weeks ago and when we came back his nose is now lumpy with 4-5 large well defined bumps on it, it is also still very swollen. He was continuing to rub his nose on the glass in his usual begging for food manner but he began to refuse food ..taking it in, chewing it then spitting it out and swimming away. We quarantined him and began treating him with erythromycin but really I'm not even sure if its a bacterial infection. It looks like it PROBABLY is., but has anyone else ever experienced something like this before? Sorry this is so long, any help would truly be appreciated.

What do you usually feed him?

Well, I try to feed him a varying diet of mussel, squid, shrimp (with or without the shell intact from the seafood market at the grocery store) and peas but to be honest for probably 2 months now he was only eating shrimp since it seemed to be his favorite. I recently (2 days ago) bought a vitamin supplement and some garlic and wanted to try using that although today he refused to eat anything.

Should I try treating with antibiotics and vitamin supplementation? I have another porcupine puffer in a separate tank who eats the same food and he is doing well. Since the bumps on my sick puffers nose aren't open sores I don't know if treating the water with antibiotics will help. Maybe I should try soaking the food in antibiotics too?

Thanks for any help

Try feeding the sick porc with vitamin enriched mussel flesh if possible. Mussel is sometimes that much preferred he might eat it.

Shrimp only diet can be the source of his problem. You should feed your other porc with the more varied diet you fed in the past, too. Occasional vitamin addition is a good idea.

The bumps may be bacterial secondary infections due to a generally weak immune system. In that case antibiotics could work. If they are a viral infection such as lymphocystis they would not help, but the bumps would go away by themselves.

Your priority should be to get the puffer to eat again. If he does not eat you may have to try force feeding him. I have never done that so someone else would have to tell you how to do that. Antibiotics in the food are better than just adding them to the tank.

Try a forum search on lockjaw or search for porc in the hospital forum to get more information.

Good luck. I hope he gets well again.

Hi again,

I wanted to put some pictures in here showing Tiki's (my puffer) bumps. I'm having some trouble uploading pictures though. I did post two pictures I took in the gallery though. Please take a look.

Thank you!

Some kind of tumors.

I would definitely start antibiotics - usually tumors are not that fast growing.

Erthyromycin is for gram positive infections - usually associated with freshwater fish. You need an antibiotic that treats gram negative infection.

Since the puffer is not eating - I would opt for performing one hour baths with the antibiotics. My choice in order of preference for this case:
Nitrofurazone containing product.
Kanamycin
Mardel's maracyn-2.

For the bath - add the amount recommended for 10 gallons to just one gallon. Aerate well.

Besides adding vitamins to the food, beta glucan is also recommended.

Best of luck.

Puffer Queen,

Do you think that we should do a one hour bath twice a day (morning & night)?

Thanks

What antibiotic are you going to use?

well, we went to our preferred fish store and out of the three recommended they only had kanamycin. So we will start with that for now.

I would do once daily baths for a minimum of 7 days - up to 10 days.

Puffer Queen to the rescue--again! I'm sure glad I'm not the only one trying to answer SW Hospital Qs there... I just have no idea!

I try to help out when I can.....

....this goes without saying but you really do need to get the nitrates lower. My guess is that its a result of overfeeding and that leftover food it laying around in the tank.

Either you feed less, find something to eat the scraps, or continue to do large water changes.

If you can find them add in some large hermit crabs .... my lFS sells large atlantic hermit crabs (not for a reef!) that would work great to eat any extra food. I had a porc for a while and he left them alone after a day or so of not being able to eat them or crush their shells. This may not work for everyone.


MP

Hi again, I hope someone is still reading this post and can possibly offer some more help. So we've been treating Tiki for 5 days now with Kanamycin as Puffer Queen described. Unfortunately the bumps on his nose haven't seemed to responded to the treatment. He is still not very interested in food but we were able to successfully force feed him mussels soaked in garlic and vitamins. We've also been adding vitamins and trace elements (iodine) to the water. In the past few days we've noticed Tiki has been breathing a little harder and when we look at his gills they are red and covered in small white spots which look almost like bacterial colonies but we're not sure. Could this be the beginning of an ich outbreak? or possibly bacterial gill disease?? I added two pictures to my user gallery page of the spots on his gills. There are no other spots on his body and he has not been scratching or rubbing against anything that we have seen. Only breathing heavily. We started doing freshwater dips (in case it's ich) and also bought some Triple-sulfa drugs in case its bacterial gill disease. If anyone has any ideas it would really help. We're kinda stumped as to how we should proceed now. Thanks [/i]