Spotted puffer hovering at the surface

[brooksst]

Hi all,

I posted on here just a couple days ago about the same fish. He's a spotted puffer that's about 3/4" long. He's currently in a 20g tank with 200 gph powerhead and sponge for filtration. I just got him last friday and it seems like he's doing pretty good except for one thing. He was in a freshwater setup at the LFS and came home to my tank which was 1.002.

Everyday that I've come home in afternoon I find him hovering just below the surface next the glass wall. He'll float with the circular current a bit and then move forward again just to float back. He has done this everyday now. If I do a water change or give him a treat or something he'll respond and swim around for a bit then go back to floating near the surface. He's always in the slower moving water, not far the power head at the end of the circular flow around the tank. Every morning when I get up and when I come at lunch he's swimming about like a normal puffer. He's been eating eagerly and I've been feeding him blood worms, snails, and a little freeze dried krill. I'm going to start with shrimp soon but I want until they are frozen three days. His poo seems normal and brown colored. When I noticed him doing this the first time I panicked anddid a water change right away, and feared the worst. Someone on here mentioned it could be ammonia in the water. Since then started doing this I've tested the water and there is no ammonia or nitrites present. I plan to continue the daily water changes though until I know he is settled in.

What complicates this is after the move I noticed right away he was just getting ich so I started treating for that right away. I've been using a half dose of ICH-X twice a day, turned the temp up slowly from 78 to 82 and added a little more salt over a few hours to bring the tank up to a little over 1.003. I'm not sure if any of that is having an effect on his behavior.

What's odd is that it's has been like this everyday like clockwork. Everything else is normal, his colors are good and his belly is white. Is it possible he's sleeping? I thought they normally slept resting against something, on the bottom or in a cave. As he floats his eye's sit just about the black rim of the top of the tank so I can't see his head. Is it possible he feels more hidden up there and prefers to sleep there? I've planted the tank heavily with lots of hiding places

I typically do the water change right when I get home from work and he'll go back to swimming around again for about an hour. Then it's back to hovering at the top. In the morning though he'll be buzzing about so I don't think it's a water quality issue but I could certainly be wrong. Before getting him, I cycled the tank with gravel from my other tank, then I had four 1.5" tetra's in there to keep the tank cycled for about a month and a half while I was looking for the right fish.

If anyone has any advice or if I need to worry let me know

Thanks,

[marksrush]

Welcome to the forum!

1) You're using marine salt, correct?
2) What are you using to test with - strips, or a kit such as the one made by API? This is important because the strips are considered to be unreliable.
3) If he has ich and you bought him in freshwater, getting him into brackish water and raising the temperature as you're doing will eventually cure the ich - especially once you get up to 1.006 or so. If one of the gurus disagrees, then please speak up, but I'd say drop the chemical ich treatment immediately.

[brooksst]

Answers and more questions

1.) Unfortunately I started the tank with freshwater salt and that's what's still in the tank. I know I need to change to marine salt and I already have some. My thoughts were though that I should slowly change the tank to marine salt through water changes after he is settled in. I was worried that I would be changing to many things too quickly and stress him out. If you think I should start using the marine salt immediately I can do that.

2.) Right now I'm testing with strips. It was the quickest thing I could get my hands on. Do I need to get a more professional test kit? If so what would you recommend?

3.) After getting the tank up to 1.003 I was planning on raising the salt level slowly from there so I didn't disrupt my cycle. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to implement a high salt level quickly enough before the ich had got out of control. I'll go with whatever you recommend.

[marksrush]

Yes, start using marine salt from now on...personally, I would do a moderate-size water change now so the aquarium salt gets replaced by marine salt. The strips are better than nothing, but if you're going to be a serious aquarium keeper you should get the kit from API or some other good brand. The whole kit costs a fair chunk of change, so maybe start with the single tests from API that are also available. For starters you want the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates tests. And you are right, don't raise the specific gravity by more than .002 per week. I had a GSP once that got ich almost as soon as I got him home, but after I started adding marine salt, it went away very quickly, so keep your fingers crossed that your luck is similar to mine.