HELP!!! Dexter needs your help!

[peterp63]

Dexter, our Fahaka Puffer, hasn't been eating for the past 3 weeks or more. He started getting pretty thin but now he's starting to look normal in size, but he hasn't been eating so that's weird. He was in a tank with sugar sand for about 6 months with no problems, but I thought that it was possibly irritating his skin or gills so I recently move him to a tank with gravel. Well, he still isn't eating. I added epsom salt and aquarium salt to no avail. Now, recently, he's been developing "rashes" of some sort on his belly and sides. Anything will help. Here are pics from 5 mins ago.....

[peterp63]

One more thing, I found him darting around the aquarium from time to time recently like he was going through a seisure. Any medical recommendation or whatever will really help. Thanks all!

[myjohnson]

Did you test the water?

What is your filtration on this tank?

Did you add anything "live" to it lately?

[peterp63]

Wet/dry that I've used forever with him. Kinda recently added 5 black neons, but he did okay with them for about a month before this started happening. Have not tested the water parameters yet, but should be similar to my troph tanks. Change the water out regularly.

[peterp63]

Now, he's in another tank with some good filtration too. 55 gallon with a strong UGF and Eheim 2028 (Pro II).

[myjohnson]

How old is he?

[fishlady]

fahaka's like to bury themselves in the sand sometimes....if you have moved him from sand to gravel he may have tried to bury himself and caused the wounds on his belly and sides.....or it could be a fungus brought in by the black neons.....or just moving him to gravel....

[Complexity]

Looks like a fungus to me, but I don't know much about puffers. I found this diagnostic flowchart that might be helpful:

http://puffernet.tripod.com/diag-flowchart.html

[fishlady]

do a water change and start dosing with primafix and melafix immediately is what i'd do

[Complexity]

Kinda recently added 5 black neons, but he did okay with them for about a month before this started happening.

Did you quarantine the neons before putting them in the tank with the puffer?

Are the neons showing any signs of health problems?

[peterp63]

Not sure. He's. About 10 inches long

[imagirlgeek]

I'm going through all my puffer and fish disease books right now. I'll post what I find as soon as I can.

[imagirlgeek]

Question.

What exactly am I seeing here? Are those white spots attached to Dex? Or is that where the sugar sand is sticking to him because of an increased slime coat? If they are attached to him, are they fuzzy? Like a fungus? Are there sores under each white spot? How long did it take to get to this point? Did it all start with just 1 sore? Is there any pattern to the spreading?

[myjohnson]

do a water change and start dosing with primafix and melafix immediately is what i'd do

+1

[imagirlgeek]

'Slime Disease', caused by either flukes or protozoan parasites is what keeps coming up as a likely diagnosis (based on the photos and the information you've provided). The symptoms for all of the different parasites are about the same. Labored breathing, flashing, excessive slime, listlessness, loss of appetite, and gray/white patches on the fish. Usually fish fight these off with their own immunity, but if something causes that immunity to lessen, they can take hold and multiply.

The other possibility is Columnaris. It's a bacterial infection. It also causes excessive slime.

I'm leaning towards Slime Disease though.

If I were you, I'd go get some Ich Attack. It's organic and so it's safe for puffers. It also treats more than just Ich. I'd use 2x the recommended dose. If you don't see an improvement in a couple of days, I'd start thinking about doing a bath in Formalin. You're not supposed to use Formalin on Puffers because it burns their skin, but I've used it on South American puffers as a bath treatment when the Ich wasn't responding to any other puffer-safe treatment. (the puffer lived, btw) If it comes to that point, let me know and I'll tell you how I did the Formalin bath without killing the puffers.