The Puffer Forum

I have 3 dwarf puffer fish and 2 weeks ago I discovered one of them had 3 white spots on his face. I discovered it was ich and proceeded with the treatment recommended on the bottle as well as slowly increasing the temperature to 29°/30° C to speed up the life cycle of the ich to increase the chances of getting rid of it. The other two puffers have not been infected and we could see a visible reduction in the ich and almost gone completely. Today however we have discovered more spots on the same puffer fish. We are unsure whether to continue the same treatment regime or if we should look for something more aggressive in treating it. There was a minor water change done during the treatment in order to remove debris etc and we are worried that possibly the small water change will have reduced the strength of the medicine in the water as the water conditioners bind heavy metals and I think protozin is a copper based medicine and I am worried that this has reduced the strength of the treatment and allowed to parasite to reappear.

Tank size: 10 gallons
Water para: 0 amm, 0 Nitrite, pH 7.2/4, nitrates 5ppm.
Temp: 29.5
2 air stones in the tank to keep oxygen levels up with increased tank temperate.

The puffer is still eating well and only behaviour changes noticed was him rubbing himself off plants to scratch himself. We have also been using the full dose in the tank at the recommendation of the chemist at waterlife (protozin suppliers).

Did you add salt? 1tbsp/10g is recommended. Table salt is fine. Also, you must do large WC (80%, while stirring the substrate thoroughly) every other day, to remove free-swimming cysts. Treatment lasts 21 days. No meds necessary.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=28113

I can't add salt as the puffers are freshwater, sorry I should have mentioned that in the specs. He seems healthy enough other than the scratching we thought we had it just about gone but we got up today to find new New ones in him so we are worried as it's been two weeks of treatment and raised temp to try and get rid of them.

I am well aware of what those puffers are & I am telling you this amount of salt for medicinal purposes is fine. Ich is a gill disease. What you are seeing on the body is the "overflow" of the fully infested gills. Most ich meds are toxic to puffers.

That's great I will say to my partner so we can get started on that treatment. We have only had them a few months and we are new to aquarium keeping so I think we are panicking as we have been doing everything we can to get rid of it. We had been feeding them live bloodworms and live brine shrimp and we think that's how they got in there. I have a snail tank for breeding bladder and ramshorn snails for them. We are thinking of breeding our own brine shrimp for them to reduce the risk of this happening again. There are 3 puffers in the tank but only one of them is infected. He does seem healthy othwrwise

Considering they will only eat shails the size of their eye, it's close to impossible to buy snails for them. Breeding is the only way to get them that tiny. You can also try freeze-dried plankton & small pieces of people shrimp.

I have been breeding bladder snails and ramshorn for them, we are going to buy a brine shrimp hatchery and bed or own brine shrimp, I think once we are free of ich it will be the safest way to go to prevent further outbreaks. Thank you so much for your help