Tetraodon sabahensis

[darb]

I got a better look at the eye, not great though, he keeps turning that side away from me and it is looking like either a worm hole or worm body in the eye ...

[darb]

update, the eye is looking much better at this point. It actually developed into popeye so I added Magnesium sulfate to the water which may or may not have helped.

anyways, there is still some visible damage to the corner of the eye, but it will be fine as long as I can prevent infection of the area over the next few days.

[Nanda]

That's good to hear.
There are some stories that if you increase the SG fast the eye could get damaged.

There is a great change the airbubble stays in the eye.

How is his behavior? Is he still flashing?

[darb]

yes, I have read that the eye is osmotically protected separately from the rest of the fish which also makes treatment of the eye difficult. I did do a largish change in SG, but dripped it in with airline tubing and am personally under the belief that brackish water fish are highly tolerant of SG changes since that is the nature of living in an estuary where it normally swings every 8 hours or so.

behaviour is back to normal, and unfortunately normal includes flashing. I am going to run the anti-biotics for a full ten days as recommended in all texts as opposed to the 4 days recommended by Mardel and API on their products, just to put to rest any chance that it is a bacterial gill infection.

So in theory, the elimination of parasites and the elimination of bacteria leaves water quality issues. But I am confident that it isn't an ammonia/nitrite/nitrate issue and PH is stable at 8.2 ish.

For now I am going to complete this run of treatment and hold him at the current SG of 1.015 and see how he stabilizes.

[Nanda]

Okay.

I'm very curious how this will end up. Keep us posted.
We all could learn from this.

[darb]

Well I ran API triple sulfa for a full ten days, did three treatments of Panacur (Fenbendazol) and am/have been holding the SG at 1.016 and still have noticed flashing a couple of times over the past 48 hours. It was never actually frequent flashing, just occasional and it seem to have noticeably reduced from that in the past 48 hours, maybe it is just residual healing or irritation from the meds.

The eye has healed nicely and I have come to to conclusion that it could have either been a worm or tear from flashing. The only way to really tell would have been to sedate and inspect the fish.

I did a 50% water change today, and will repeat it again tomorrow, set up my UV sterilizer, restarted the skimmer and am going to let things settle out. Time will tell and I think I will just let things take their course because I am at a loss. About the only possibility that I could think of would be salinity levels, but all of this started at 1.005.

[Nanda]

Pfff what a stressfull situation. Youre handeling it very nicely for as far as I can tell. My compliments.

I think a SG of 1.016 is a good level for his size.

Keep us posted!

[darb]

Well I think that I may have finally accomplish my goal; I haven't noticed him flashing at all over the past two days!

I also bumped up the temperature a bit, I had it at 77 and am running at 80 now (25 and 26.6 Celsius). The lower temperature may have been stressing him and he seems more vibrant and active at this temperature.

Also I believe that my UV unit reacted with the remaining meds in the tank which would have been either Panacur or APR Triple Sulfa (my first guess) with Prime also being present. I went out for a few hours and came back to a black/brown tank that I couldn't see the back of, or the fish. Thus I did a 50% water change which didn't help visibility noticeably and did two more over the weekend. I think it was the skimmer and/or the charcoal that made most of the difference.

[Nina]

great news! I really hope the problem is solved now.
I don't really understand what happened with your water, why did it turn black/brown? Because of a reaction between your UV unit and some meds? It would scare me if I came home to a black/brown tank! Is it all gone now?

[darb]

I am assuming that it turned black/brown because of the residual medications. It is just a unproven theory at this point, but it really can't think of anything else. My first guess would be the sulfa antibiotics, possibly the Panacur, with Seachem Prime also being present.

The charcoal and Purigen and/or skimmer have cleaned up the water nicely now, crystal clear actually.