The Puffer Forum

My beloved Lil has a badly wounded tummy. It appears to be a puncture, which I suspect she got from the fake branchy driftwood thing she loves to hide in. I think she got too rotund for it and hurt herself inside it. Its very hard to get a good look since she's almost always laying around, but when I tried to get a good look at it today, it appears that its a puncture that has gotten a infection - its looking white and slightly fuzzy - but doesn't seem to have gone really deep. Hopefully I caught it in time.

I've removed the thing from the tank, given her a rock cave instead, and am dosing the tank daily with Melafix and Pimafix. Does anyone have any other suggestions for treatment or should I just keep up with the M & P and see how she does?

Lots of water changes. Bubba seems to "scratch" himself on the lava rock I have in his tank ocassionally with the same results, a little fuzzy white around the edges. I'd take the rock out, but he really likes hiding behind it and peeking through the holes.

I just stick to Melafix and more than the usual water changes and it clears right up.

Ok, that's what I'm doing. I also picked up some Kent Zoe vitamins. Instead of feeding one bigger meal every 4-5 days, I plan on feeding her a small amount every day soaked in the vitamins.

Good treatment plan. If it gets worse, try Maracyn. It states that it won't hurt the biological filtration. You should move this to the Hosp forum. Nothing wrong with the others knowing our puffs get hurt too & they can learn from your treatment & maybe not to have them around objects they can get injured on.

My baileyi had a real nasty heater burn. Just changed plenty of water. Thought about melafix but with the freqeuncy of water changes I thought it wasn't necessary.

Moved to hospital.

She isn't looking any worse right now, and is acting fine, so hopefully the treatment will improve her condition. She's taken to laying on top of the larger leaves of the silk plants rather than on the substrate or in the cave, so I suspect it may be sensitive to touch.

With their thick "hide" they are pretty resilient & heal fast.

I just saw this Tina, poor Lil.

It sounds like you've got a good treatment plan already underway, and you seem to be observing her enough that if anything changes in her condition you can catch it in time. This makes me wonder how sharp some of the fake decorations in my puffer tanks are.

that is awful, I hope she gets better soon The treatment plan sounds good, I like the idea of little feeds with the vitamin supplements 8D

Shame, i share your concern.... Shermy still has not shown any signs of healing ... been about 2 months if not longer ... i am going to try the vitamin thing... good idea

Was just wondering how Lil has healed? Shermy still has not healed

She has not healed, unfortunately. Still red in the middle of the wound, very slightly bigger than it was. Melafix and Pimafix do not appear to have been working to fix her, but may have helped prevent it from getting a lot worse. She's still acting normal, eating normally, etc.

Last night, I moved her into the hospital tank and began treatment with Maracyn Plus. I plan on treating her for a week according to instructions (every other day) and will do a water change on between days. Hopefully this will do the trick.

Perhaps removing the wound only from the water briefly and treating directly with melafix would help... an ADF of my GFs once removed her foot in an internal tank filter impeller(last one of those choppers we ever owned) and pimafix and melafix in the water were not letting the wound heal... however, eventually I tried daily direct applications of melafix to the wound undiluted, and this seemed to kill whatever microbes were keeping it open. The frog is still currently in good health, though short a foot.

She was laying against the side glass of the hospital tank so I was finally able to get a picture of the wound. Looks like she's in a weird position but she's actually laying with her tail down and her nose pointed up, I just turned the picture so it would fit better. The white spot on her lower end isn't another wound or infected spot, its where she had scratched herself before and healed up.

OH poor little pumpkin I hope that you can get it to heal Boxer. I take it you are dosing the vitamins in her food too, I can' think of much esle other than the advice given