Sick puffer update... 2-9-16

(Update- 2/9/16)
First of all thank you all for all the kind words and support!  I promise I will get respond back to the comments, I've just been busy with school and such....

Anyways... well my puffer is still alive, but still very sick.  With a little more research, it is most likely an internal infection (possibly bacterial) causing the swelling and lack eating, but that dosen't rule out cancer and his old age being a major contributing factor.

The copper treatment did cause the lump significantly shrink, but the major problem now is that he has refused to eat anything for about two weeks now.  Every day we placed food directly in front of him and he would actually try to swim away from the food.  Starngely he's not showing physical signs of malnutrition yet, but obviously he's not acting right either. It isn't helping either that the Nitrite and Amonia levels are spiking from an algae die off.

Colsulting with our fish store, turns out there may be a couple exotic fish vets we could talk to, but the biggest priority is keeping the tank clean to rebalance the water chemistry and then see if adding some antibiotics will help.

Again thanks for all the support.

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Original- 1/25/16
I know there's more pressing issues in world, but it's just really hard to watch a pet you've  had for nearly 20 years to suffer and not be able to do anything about it.  About four weeks ago our pufferfish started to develop this large lump on his back. Sadly the lump has been getting bigger and is slowly affecting his ability to breath and eat.  We did do a water change and started him on a copper treatment, but there is a very good chance the lump may be a tumor... If that's the case, then there really is nothing we can do.

He's a golden dog face puffer that we got in 1998 and we estimate he may have been 3-5 years old at the time. So yes, it is very likely he's over 20 years old! He's about 10 inches long now, typically 3-4 inches thick depending on his mood...he has a personality that really could rival a dog's.

Every time someone walks into the room he'd press his face on glass try to get their attention. He'd avidly beg for food and would often squirt water out of the tank or even stick his face out to grab the food from our hands.

So far he's hanging in there, but we fear the inevitable may coming soon.

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