Does My Pea Puffer Have Parasites?

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Annabelle

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Hi! Today I picked up a pea puffer from my LFS, and she seems to be SUPER skinny. I was hoping to see if any of you could tell me what to look for, so that I know if she has a parasite, or if shes just skinny.
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The first thing I thought was that she must have a parasite, but the thing is, she's super colorful, and very active. Any advice is very much appreciated! Thank you!
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

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Don't add anything to the tank just yet. If the fish is skinny and doesn't have any diseases, you will not help it by treating it. Give the fish a few weeks to settle down and feed it well and see how it goes.

If the fish doesn't gain weight after a few weeks of good food, or it does stringy white poop, then post another picture and we can talk about medications.
 
the links don't let me see anything except a login page. take some pictures and upload them with the "Upload a File" button below.
 
Oh, no. She's not doing well. All of yesterday I couldn't find her amidst the plants, but this morning I found her in some hornwort, breathing heavily. She's paper thin.
I think that I'm going to take her back to my LFS and tell them that she might have parasites. Hopefully they'll have something to treat her with, and perhaps their other puffers too. She's in a tank with 5 Phoenix rasboras, little tiny fish less than a centemeter long. I didn't quarentine her, because I trust my LFS, and I didn't think that they'd let any of their sick fish be sold. Perhaps this one just slipped through their fingers, but I'll be sure to quarentine any other fish I get from them. Do you think the rasboras could get the parasite too?
 
Have you tested the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?

Most fish health issues are caused by poor water quality. The following link has information about what to do if your fish get sick. It's long and boring but worth a read when you have spare time.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/

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Pufferfish should only be kept in single species tank because they can release toxins into the water when sick or stressed. Activated Carbon or Highly Activated Carbon should be used in the filter on any pufferfish tank to absorb these chemicals if they are released.

You should do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified.

Pictures or a short video would help if you can get them to upload.
 
Thank you very much for the advice. By the time I took her to the store, she died. I did test my parameters with an API chemical kit- pH:7, amonia:0ppm, nitrites:0, nitrates: less than 5ppm. The store's results were the same. The store said they could just do a fish swap, so I got another little puffer. She looks much healthier, with a plump belly, and lots of color. She already deficated in the bag, and the poop is normal and brown. Is this enough to say that she doesn't have parasites?
 
She already deficated in the bag, and the poop is normal and brown. Is this enough to say that she doesn't have parasites?
No.

Any fish and in fact most fish have small numbers of parasites in and on them. Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms and are fine if there are only a few minor organisms in the water. However, if the tank gets dirty from lack of water changes and gravel cleaning, or the disease organisms build up in number, or the fish gets stressed out, then the fish get sick.

You should quarantine any new fish for at least 2 weeks (preferably 4 weeks) before adding them to the main display tank. You should then monitor the fish for the next few weeks to make sure they are swimming, eating and acting normally.

Because you don't have a quarantine tank, you should just monitor the fish closely over the next few weeks.
 
Ok, good to know. Will do! Thank you very much for the advice!
 

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