Puffer Help

[HalJ]

Has anyone scene this in a pea puffer?  I thought it might be an internal parasite.  I 've had the puffer for about 1 year.  I noticed the deformity about 2 months ago.  It's seems to be getting worse. I've treated the tank with the coop med trio, waited a couple of weeks, then treated with P-Expel, with no change. I think it might be some type of tumor.  There is no change in it's behavior, it continues to eat good and act normal.  The other two puffers seems to be fine.  Water parameters are good w/H20 changes every two weeks.

[Torrey]

::bump:: so someone who is more pea puffer savvy can see. I only know that they are born with non-determinate gender until they get to a certain size, and I don't remember how body shape/markings/coloration change once they hit maturity and start secreting hormones for gender determination (and suppress any other fish from becoming male...)

I never bred puffers, so I don't know what an eggy female would look like (which also means I can't separate the potential for eggs, versus potential for parasites, versus potential for tumor).

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help!

[nabokovfan87]

@mountaintoppufferkeeper Have you ever seen anything like this?

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

@nabokovfan87 i have not seen that in my tanks before. Could be specific to pea puffers id be interested to hear if pea puffer keepers like @eatyourpeas @Jennifer V have experienced this issue with theirs. @HalJHave you tried feeding live food daphnia baby brine etc just in case its bound up?

[eatyourpeas]

I have not bred mine, since I ended up with two boys. If the pea puffer is behaving normally, I would just keep an eye on her (yes, definitely a female!). Meds can be detrimental to pea puffers.

Here is a video showing courtship in pea puffers, and the girl’s belly looks similar to your pea puffer’s. Yours appears to be very loaded.

Sorry I can’t be more helpful. I hope she ends up making little pea puffers for you.

🐡

[Jennifer V]

I unfortunately haven't had anything similar with my babies but try not to get ahead of yourself just yet. There may be a cause we're just not familiar with that isn't life-threatening. Interested to see what some others have to say. I think @eatyourpeas is on to something. Have you seen any courtship behavior? 

[HalJ]

@mountaintoppufferkeeper @eatyourpeas @Jennifer V

thanks for the help.  Unfortunately, they are very picky eaters.  I don't have a source of live daphnia and they are not interested in baby brine shrimp.  They get mostly live black worms.  I have a small culture of mosquito larvae that I feed along with small snails.  I know I have a couple of males in the tank, but I have not scene any courting behavior.  Looks like I will wait it out and see what happens.

[Jennifer V]

That sounds like a good plan. As for being picky eaters, you can try fasting them for a couple days and reintroducing a food they don't normally eat to see if they'll go for it. 

[Odd Duck]

When my peas bred, the female(s?) did not get noticeably eggy looking at all.  That doesn’t mean they couldn’t, just that mine didn’t.

When you say you treated with Expel-P, how many times did you treat?  When I treat fish for internal parasites, this is the regimen I use and recommend.  Sorry for the large font.  The tablet won’t let me change fonts when I’ve done a copy/paste from my notes.

Deworming

Siphon out debris from the bottom before and after dosing to remove expelled worms, debris, etc.  Levamisole is inactivated by organic debris and by light, so dose after lights out and black out the tank for 24 hours, remove organics via water change and cleaning the bottom of debris as much as possible.  It’s likely that levamisole does what it can do within the first hour, but best to follow directions precisely for best results.  If you have a bare bottom hospital tank, it might be best and easiest to transfer the fish for the duration of treatment - up to 5 weeks total treatment time if doing 3 doses of praziquantal.  Levamisole treatment should be weekly for 4 treatments.  Praziquantal treatment should be at least every other week for 2-3 treatments and it is left in for a week at a time.  It can be dosed the day after levamisole treatment.  Remove any carbon or Purigen from filters before dosing.

A typical treatment regimen: 

1. 50% water change with careful siphoning of debris from the bottom of the tank.

2. Dose with levamisole and black out the tank for 24 hours.  Then 50% water change siphoning the entire bottom of the tank.

3. Dose with praziquantal directly after the second 50% WC.

4. One week later, 50% water change siphoning the bottom thoroughly.  Dose with levamisole following directions in step 1-2.

5. One week later (start of week 2 of treatment), repeat all steps 1-4 over another 2 weeks time.

6. Repeat all steps 1-5, then do last WC one week later after third dose of praziquantal.

 

Not all snails will tolerate treatments, so best to remove any snails in the tank.