treating for internal parasites..

[supermatelot]

Im currently treating my water because my figure 8 puffer has internal parasites,i assume that is whats wrong as it has a sunken in belly,does not eat at all and rarely swims about.How long should i expect to wait before i see an improvement?Do fish generally recover well from this?Ive had the puffer 3 days and it has not eaten a thing,ive tried every type of food associated with puffers but to no avail.Will it starve before recovery??

thanks

 

[BrianNY]

That's really too bad . I don't know that you've got enough info to make a diagnosis like that. 3 days means that either the fish had a problem when you got it, or it is extremely stressed.

Did you see the fish eat before you bought it? What are your water parameters? You do know that puffers are brackish water fish right? Let's try and figure this out.

 

[supermatelot]

I have researched puffers on pufferkings forum,My water is not yet brackish as my lfs kept him in FW(unheated!!)im slowly adding marine salt but not too much as i dont yet own a hygrometer.Params are 78F ammonia 0ppm nitrite 0ppm GH7 pH 7.3 nitrate???.
I understand most puffers are wild caught and carry lots of internal nasties.My lfs is normally very good but on this occasion i'd say they are very in the dark about puffers.

 

[grimlock3000]

If you can get your Puffer to eat, you may want to try Pepso Food. Jungle Labs makes the stuff, it is medicated food that treats internal parasites. Your fish eat the stuff just like regular food, and they end up with a belly full of parasite killing medicine. Since it literally goes right to the source, it typically works better than medicines that are in the water stream. It may not be very appetizing to a Puffer though.

The last time I got new fish, I fed all the fish in the tank Pepso Food for three days just in case the new fish brought any internal parasites with them. I feed my fish the Pepso Food once every couple weeks as a preventitive as well.

 

[supermatelot]

My puffer wont eat at all,ive tried dangling all foods by its mouth with a pipette even-to no avail.I know this sounds harsh but i have frozen ground up beefheart/liver/egg/shrimp mix,if i were to make a weak "gravy" of this and put the fish in for a minute,would it ingest any food or would that be a very bad idea?Its the only thing i can think of as i now think its close to starving to death-looking very gaunt,sunken stomach-still normal colouring though.

 

[grimlock3000]

That is a bad idea. Dunking the fish in a soupy food mix for any length of time could cause more problems than it is likely to help.

 

[BrianNY]

I would take the fish back to lfs.