Please help me understand what went wrong with my Figure 8 puffers parasite treatment.
I got a new figure 8 puffer in the mail and it came in looking fine. I immediately started the quarantine trio of meds but the next day I noticed ich all over the puffer. So I decided to focus on the ich treatment. I did a water change and then followed the ich x instructions until the issue was gone plus 3 days as recommended. Everything was fine and I waited a few weeks before I started the parasite treatment with fritz paracleanse again.
I have a 29 gallon tank and used 3 packets on day 1. The puffer immediately seemed to be in a little distress. Fins clamped a little and not swimming much. I was worried but I left the meds in until the next day. He seems to be worse. Staying clamped up and mostly laying still on a leaf. Not much swimming. After some research I decided to abort the treatment and did a 50% water change. His behavior did not change. The next 3 days I did 30% water changes and added carbon to the filter to remove all meds. The next day he was just dead on the bottom.
The only theories I have are that
1) the meds were overdosed. I dosed for a 30 gallon and I have a 29 gallon minus the water volume for the sand and rocks.
or
2) the puffer was on the larger side for what I would expect a new fish to be so maybe he was an adult that had a high parasite load. Not sure on this one because he was not emaciated.
Does anyone have any ideas of what went wrong so that I can prevent this in the future. I know new puffers have to be dewormed to I will have to try again.
edit to add that 4 bumblebee gobies survived the entire process and are still doing fine.
Picture is before the paracleanse treatment you can see he seemed healthy
Water Parameters:
pH 7.2
Nitrates 5-10 (I’ve been doing a lot of water changes)
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Water Temperature 79.3
Salinity 1.005 SG (instant ocean marine salt)
