puffers and ick

[DragonGoby]

I was at a local fish store earlier and they had five figure 8 puffers in a tank and they all had ick. I could tell they were being treated by the bottle sitting under the tank but are they likely to recover and will they be healthy if I ask the store to save me some until the disease clears up? They all looked well fed and were about 1-2".

[yunachin]

No offense to the LFS, but if it is the same place that told you that puffers would kill your whole tank, I would consider shopping elsewhere. Also...never ever buy sick fish.
Even if the LFS is treating them with "mystery medicine" you are better off waiting and getting a healthy puffer, that way you don't feel the pain of loss if there is more wrong with them than you can see with your eye.

[Happy_Puffer]

I have a question about ich. Is it just on their tails or is it all over like with tropical fish? I'm pretty sure my f8 has ich and it just keeps getting worse. I have read so much about ich, but what mine has looks more like sand and its only on his body is this ich or something else?

[yunachin]

They will get it all over their bodies. Do you have a photo?

[Happy_Puffer]

Sorry that the pictures are bad my camera isn't good at taking inside pictures. It just looks like he got dusted with sand and its all over his body. I am trying to bring the temp up but i have a strange heater but it was at 76 and now its 78 so that is slow going. Should i be giving him melafix instead of pimafix? Could this be why my water is cloudy?

[DragonGoby]

yah it was a different store then i normally go to, which I went to for the first time today, and the tanks were filthy and the fish looked bad, I just wanted to check some other stores, but I have still never bought any fish or equipment from anywhere but big als which I have always been happy with.

[mikeosoft]

Happy_puffer, it looks like your fish has ich. I would follow the directions outlined in the following article located in the puffer forum library.

http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... tal/fwich/

Since puffers are extremely sensitive to medications (many of which don't work anyways) this method uses a little bit of salt, raised temperature, and frequent waterchanges to eliminate the ich. Ich cannot reproduce at temperatures above 86F so they will slowly die off. It's important to keep the water very well aerated during this process as oxygen levels and temperature have an inverse relationship.

[Happy_Puffer]

Thank you I have read that article and I am slowly raising the temp but I am trying to do it slowly because last time I messed with the temp. I fried my fish alive so I try not to mess with the heater. The temp right now is 78 f. He is eating and swimming around but I notice that after he eats he likes to go to his favorite plant and lay in it or under it. I don't know if its because he is sick or that he just like to do that. Also after a month should I start to bring the temp down? What should the temp in my tank be for a f8?

[mikeosoft]

Once the spots have been gone for a month you can bring the temp back down. It's absolutely critical to make sure your tank is properly aerated at high temperatures, I would suggest adding an extra filter or bubbler during this process.

I keep my F8's around 78F. They do sleep a lot but usually become quite active when I'm in the room.

[Happy_Puffer]

I have a bubble wall right now and a filter that kicks out bubbles. Do you think I need more then that? I think the spots are starting to go away I just got the temp to 82 right now but I am keeping my eye on it so that it doesn't go higher then it should.

[mikeosoft]

Thats probably enough as long as there is very good surface agitation.

FYI, the higher your temperatures are the faster the ich will reproduce and infest your fish (so you want to raise it fairly quick). The ich will not stop reproducing until the temperature hits 86F (make sure you have an accurate way to measure the temp). You might even want to take it to 87F to be sure.

[Happy_Puffer]

Well he seems to be getter better the spots are going away. The temp is 83 right now and he is much more active I see. He is also eating more which is a good sign so I am very happy but I will keep raising the temp to at least 86. Thank you for the help!

[mikeosoft]

The ich could just be passing into the next phase of its lifecycle. Don't be supprised if it comes back even worse before it dies off.

[Happy_Puffer]

Aww I was really hoping he was getting better. He had it really bad and I really thought he was going to die. I don't know how he could get it any worse because there wasn't an inch of his body that didn't have a spot on it. I went back to where I bought him and all the other f8s had ich and the owner told me that they must have had it when they came in because the other puffers in the tank were fine till the f8s came in. She told me that I could bring him in if he didn't get better and she would put him in a qt tank and help him get better. She was very upset because she has such pretty puffers before these came in and now they are sick. She is doing everything to help them (besides meds). They other f8s look like mine did and he didn't look like that when I bought him and my tank didn't have ich. Because my other puffer didn't have it and he still doesn't (I don't have a qt tank set up yet).