Deworming Pea Puffer

[Mickayla]

Hi! Just put my new baby pea puffer in their 5 gallon aquarium. Bare bottom with one big fake plant for adequate coverage. This is a quarantine set up as I know Pea Puffers generally come in pretty sick due to being wild caught or catching something from another batch. I’ve been researching for a few months how to care for them and the best practice for deworming them. I did watch a video from aquarium co-op stating he uses A.P.I General Cure, A.P.I Erythromycin, and SeaChem’s Ich-X. I have started the process of treating with these medications and all seems to be going well following doses according to box recommendations as Cory said in his video that they work well together and following box directions generally does the job. My question is... how long should I expect to treat my Pea Puffer with these medications? I don’t want to harm the fish or dose too little (following water change instructions according to each medication). I also know my Pea Puffer is not taking food at this time (read that happens when meds are distributed). I’m not sure when I should break from this to make sure it’s eating and staying in optimum health for treatment or if they just have to power through. Any advice is greatly appreciated! 

[Fish Folk]

2 hours ago, Mickayla said:

Hi! Just put my new baby pea puffer in their 5 gallon aquarium. Bare bottom with one big fake plant for adequate coverage. This is a quarantine set up as I know Pea Puffers generally come in pretty sick due to being wild caught or catching something from another batch. I’ve been researching for a few months how to care for them and the best practice for deworming them. I did watch a video from aquarium co-op stating he uses A.P.I General Cure, A.P.I Erythromycin, and SeaChem’s Ich-X. I have started the process of treating with these medications and all seems to be going well following doses according to box recommendations as Cory said in his video that they work well together and following box directions generally does the job. My question is... how long should I expect to treat my Pea Puffer with these medications? I don’t want to harm the fish or dose too little (following water change instructions according to each medication). I also know my Pea Puffer is not taking food at this time (read that happens when meds are distributed). I’m not sure when I should break from this to make sure it’s eating and staying in optimum health for treatment or if they just have to power through. Any advice is greatly appreciated! 

You may find that your Pea Puffer will have a soft spot for live food. We found that our smashed mosquito larvae and small snails. If yours is really small . . . baby small, as you describe . . . you'll want to ind something small and wiggling to help it break its fast. I'll mention that a 5 gallon aquarium is really small, and needs to be monitored. I'd be more concerned about it's parameters crashing than the Puffer getting hurt with meds, or not eating. If you can find some mosquito larvae in a dark pan of standing water someplace, or get some daphnia, black worms, etc . . . that's probably your best bet.

[Mickayla]

Thank you for the heads up! I’ve been keeping an eye on perimeters and have great biological filtration set up for this quarantine tank so I’m not extremely paranoid about parameters at the moment, my goal here in the next 2-3 weeks is to have a nice cycled and planted 10 gallon but I was afraid to go straight to a 10 with how small this guy/girl is and I don’t want to kill the plants with the medications listed above:/ It’s a little less than half an inch long currently. I’ve tried some live brine shrimp as well as live blood worms and gotten a nibble here and there but I will definitely check out the mosquito larvae! Any advice on how long I should be medicating? 

[Brandy]

baby brine is often appreciated too.