The Puffer Forum

Hello,

Our large porcupine puffer Tiki is currently having eye problems. He was previously very sick, had lumps on his nose, was breathing hard, and stopped eating for probably a month. After quarantining for several weeks, the bumps on his nose have, for the most part subsided and he has been eating regularly for approximately two months. However, one of his eyes is completely white. At first we thought it was just from physical trauma since it was only one eye and so we just watched it, hoping it would get better. Unfortunately it's gotten worse. At first we noticed small kind of squiggles on that eye and then it became cloudy, and is now completely white and slightly bulging. The eye still responds to light, but he cannot really see out of it (I've seen him bump that eye into live rock since it became cloudy-like he couldn't see the rock there, and thats another reason I suspected it might just be physical trauma). We tried epsom salt baths for several days and even hydrogen peroxide baths but we didn't see any effect. He acts fine, except that he has a hard time finding food unless its put into the tank on his good eye's side. We just noticed a small squiggle on his good eye as of today though. Could this be a parasite? And if so, is it possible to treat him at all? I thought I had read previously that if the worms (if it is a worm) are internal, treatment can kill them and may then kill the fish. Is that true? I don't think his bad eye will ever recover, and I would hate for him to lose his good eye as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. As for the tank: he's in a 75G with a 20G sump. Ammonia is 0, nitrites are 0, nitrate is 20ppm...we did have a problem with high nitrates for awhile, and I have read that cloudy eyes can be due to poor water quality, but it's been around 20ppm for several months now so I don't know if that might contribute to the problem.
Thanks guys

I have seen worms that have become embedded/lodged in the lense of the eye. You might try a series of praziquantel and/or fenbendazole baths.

Should also consider secondary bacterial infection of that eye. What antibiotics did you use in the past and for how long?

Hi PufferQueen,

In terms of antibiotics we've tried a whole range of things:

Kanamycin- administered as a 1hr bath @ 10x recommended dose
Triple Sulfa- administered as a 1 hr bath @ 10x recommended dose
Erythromycin- administered as a 1hr bath @ 10x recommended dose

These were administered seperately after no improvement was seen with the previous drug for 7-10 days (ie. Kanamycin was given to Tiki in a bucket for 1hr baths once a day for 7-10 days. When no improvement was seen we tried triple sulfa. When no improvement was seen with Triple sulfa after 7-10 days we tried erythromycin)

Tiki was then moved into his own hospital tank where he was treated with each of these drugs again, but with continuous treatment. We also treated with isoniazid since an aquatic vet we took him to was worried it might be TB...eventually the tests came back as being negative for TB but positive for small numbers of gram positive bacterium. So we stopped isoniazid treatment, he was on that for about 2 weeks I think, and he actually started to get better in that he started looking to be fed, swimming over to us, and we didn't have to force feed him anymore. Most recently we tried a Gentamycin bath. However unfortunately we had to go away last weekend so he was only treated with Gentamycin for 4 days.

As you can see...we've thrown a lot of different antibiotics at him in the last 5 months or so. Once we started to get the bumps on his nose under control, his eye started to get bad (although I'm not sure that any of the antibiotics we gave him helped with his nose, it seemed more like that kind of resolved on its own).

We'll go out today and try to buy some of the anti-parasitic drugs you mentioned. If there really are worms in his eye, and they're killed by the drug, could that make him more sick? I thought I had read on wetwebmedia that if the worms are killed and they're embedded in the fish's tissue, they'll rot there and eventually kill the fish? maybe I misread

Thanks for your help and advice

Those worms mentioned are nematodes. This might be different. Go with whatever PQ tells you--she's the best in the business!