dog faced puffer health

Question
I have an 8" dog faced puffer who's health is concerning to me. He is sitting on the bottom of the tank, loosing weight, not eating much. I have force fed him for the last 4 days. He gets crustations about 5 times a week. He is in a 140 gallon tank, environmental conditions maintained very well. There is a 10" stars and stripes puffer in the same tank and the stars and stripes puffer is kept busy on the other side of the tank during feeding. Are there specific diseases or environmental concerns that sound like these symptoms?

Answer
Hi DeeAnn. How is the puffers teeth? Check them out to make sure they are not getting too overgrown which will cause him some stress during eating and make him not want to eat at all if too long. are there any other symptoms he may be showing? Not eating much and sitting on the bottom are symptoms of every disease out there. Most puffers are more prone to eye infections then anything else. You say you are feeding him crustaceans but what kind of crustaceans does this consist of. Are they frozen marine food or live? Saltwater crustaceans or freshwater? This is a very important piece of information for me to help figure out what could be ailing your puffer. Hopefully you are feeding him saltwater crustaceans because freshwater ones would not be proper nutrition for a saltwater fish due to the fact that they lack HUFA's(highly unsaturated fatty acids) which is an extremely important nutrient for all saltwater fish. Is he being bullied by your other puffer in any way?( or any other fish in your tank) Bullying can lead to stress which can lead to a lowered immune system and all sorts of other problems. Puffers are extremely disease resistant and are usually more prone to having problems when the tank conditions deteriorate. Poor nutrition is another common problem for these fish. How long have you had him? puffers in general live around five to seven years so there is a possibility he may be old if you have had him long or bought him at a larger size. Has he ever been treated with any kind of medication to your knowledge? Some medications, while necessary to treat a life threatening illness, may do some significant damage to the liver and/or kidney and greatly shorten the life span of a fish. There is also the possibility of cyanide being used to capture the fish when it was netted out of the ocean. This will also significantly shorten the life of any fish netted under this horrible practice. And lastly is the possibility of a genetic disorder. Fish can suffer from this just like any other animal can and is probably more common then most would think. In this case there is nothing that can be done and no way of knowing for sure if this what causes illness in a fish yet I would bet that it accounts for more unexplained loses than one may think. Without seeing any other signs of illness it is nearly impossible to guess at what could be ailing your fish. Keep a close eye on him and try to keep feeding him to keep up his immune system. Make 100% sure that your water quality is as good as possible and that there are no other stress factors, like bullying, going on in your tank. Other than that there is really not much else you can do. If the fish were to pass it definitely would not be from lack of trying and that is all you can do at this point.