The Puffer Forum

Some of you may recall our nematode infected fish. he is still doing great, has had no signs of any more spreading or sores, but theres a small problem now. we're moving to a new place, and there simply is not enough electricity to run this tank. its a very old house, with poor wiring and we had to fight to keep 4 of the 6 tanks we own.

so, the question is:

do we risk housing him back in with the other 2 F8's for the next year, while we live at this new place?

find someone baby sit him for a year, with the possibility that they wont care for him as well as we have, not to mention the stress of a new home/owner?

sell him to someone, as a sick stand alone fish?

or most unfavorably, put him down...


what do you all think??


i took this pic of him a few days ago... you'd never even know he was sick these days.

Personally i'd take him with me, move all the tank decor round when you set it back up and try and rehouse him with the other fish. If that didnt work then i think I would sell him on.

He looks very healthy it would be a shame to get rid of him.

Vuphy, if you can't find a solution, I can babysit him for you for a while if you need, or give him a new home if it comes to that. I could shuffle some fish around so he'd have a 20H to himself and be careful to use specific equipment just for his tank.

I'm not familiar with nematodes, so I have no idea how risky it would be to put him with the others (unless its an aggression issue).

But anyways, if you can't work something out, let me know. I'm in the Oconomowoc area so its not a huge trip to come and get him.

As a side note, rewiring a house really isn't all that difficult, if you are organized. I would never have felt comfortable tackling it when my ex bought his house, but it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I expected. Not easy, but certianly not the horrible experience I thought it would be.

Myaj: it would great if you could take him for the year. im sure he'd be fine in a 20g, but if you would like to use the 29g we have now, you could take that too. we would even bring him to you, if you would prefer.

the location we're moving to isnt our own, and i believe it has something to do with the amount of amps available and not the wiring so much itself.

Hilly: we would love to be able to just put him back into the 55g that we originally got him for, but after we found out what was wrong with him, we didnt want to risk the other fish. we didnt mind having him in his own tank, i think he misses the other fish personally, but hes obviously doing well on his own. i also dont know much about nematodes, which is why i wanted to get some other opinions on what we should do.

My largest Figure Eight has nematodes as well, but I have been keeping him with my other Figure Eight for about a year. I've been debating whether or not I should risky surgery, and was scared off of the idea after someone brought up that one puff after the surgery could rip him open.

If you already isolated him from the other puffs it would probably be best to keep him isolated and find him a new home. Amy would be a great puffer-keeper for him!

Whichever way works for you Vuphy. I have the tanks or he could just stay in his current one. Plenty of room here either way.

Let me know when the time comes and we can work something out.

great, thx alot. we were hoping someone could watch him. the though of putting him down was making us sick. sometime in the next 2weeks ill leave you a message and see what works best for you.

OraLacerta wrote:My largest Figure Eight has nematodes as well, but I have been keeping him with my other Figure Eight for about a year. I've been debating whether or not I should risky surgery

Has anyone on here tried to treat with Levamisole? I know that people will commonly treat nematodes on Plecofanatics with it. I don't know if it's a different species of nematodes that is resistant..? I know the way it's identified in plecos is a red worm that sometimes comes out of their bum.

Here is a good article:
http://www.loaches.com/Members/shari2/l ... chloride-1

Here is a thread of dosing:
http://www.plecofanatics.com/forum/show ... hp?t=24475

Sounds good. I'll be up in Rhinelander for the Dr's Frag Swap the weekend of the 28th-1st, but otherwise should be around.

I know flubenol-15 will eradicate nematodes, and absorbs well directly through the gills into the bloodstream, as it's made specifically for the fish. I don't see how your worms could survive this treatment if repeated weekly or every other week for 6 weeks.

From my reading (while trying to figure out what worms I have in my tank at the moment), its not killing the nematodes that's hard. Its killing them without also killing the fish that's nearly impossible.

As they die, they rot inside the fish and poison them.

Interesting, I guess that the fish surviving depends on the mass of worms? Wont' they kill him eventually like intestinal parasites will? And if so, won't waiting longer only mean more worms and the fish more likely to die from treatment?

I guess nematodes go into hibernation stages, where they only become active if the fish is stressed. Many fish live a long time with nematodes visable under the skin.

Intestinal parasites you can treat for, because the fish will purge them as they die. Since nematodes are not in the digestive system, there is no place to go.