MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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srmembership
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 5:39 pm
- Location (country): USA-California
MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
So our puffer fish at our gym has in the last couple of days developed a black spot on his face. I attached a picture where you can see his face used to be clear of this abnormal spot. AGAIN, THIS PICTURE IS NOT SHOWING THE SPOT OUR PUFFER HAS DEVELOPED!! I am going to try and take a picture of him when I can to display what he has developed. He is not eating like he used to, he keeps his body in a u-shaped form, he'll sit on the bottom of the tank and appear as though he's moving his fins to swim and seems to rub his face up and down on the glass. We have a "fish-guy" that supposedly monitors our fish and takes care of the tank but I don't know how knowledgeable he actually is. We feed him thawed-out silversides and crill. Can anybody tell me what might be wrong with him or if maybe it's the food we're giving him? I did some research and saw some of the typical types of food being fed to puffers but ours doesn't seem to have developed teeth yet, he is still fairly young i believe. appreciate all the help we can get. i think we're going to eventually assume the position of "fish-guy" and take care of our buddy ourselves. There are also some other fish in the tank and maybe they bit him overnight? There are a couple lion-fish, clown fish, and i don't know the names of these three silver fish that always stick together but their bodies are silver and their fins and tail are yellow - they're trouble. thanks again, look forward to curing our puffer!
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Last edited by Dadof4 on Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited out red and bold text for ease of reading.
Reason: Edited out red and bold text for ease of reading.
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J-P
- Former Staff Member
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
there are the Q's in red at the top of the page that need to be answered 
if you follow me, you avoid stepping in the crap that I just did...
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xrayjeeper83
- Mbu Puffer
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Abei named Huey
GSP named Bacon - Location (country): USA
- Location: Orange Park, FL
Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
Nice looking puff, but as JP said answer the above questions and we can further help you
RTR wrote:Fahakas do not have tank mates, they may have swimming food reserves.
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srmembership
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 5:39 pm
- Location (country): USA-California
Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
I was able to take a picture of our puffer fish and zoom in on his face. Here it is:
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J-P
- Former Staff Member
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
just re-read your original post ... Lion Fish are deadly towards puffers... I have read of a couple puffers dying from a simple sting from them...
if you follow me, you avoid stepping in the crap that I just did...
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purplecandle
- Mbu Puffer
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2 Adult Green Spotted Puffers
1 Fangs Puffer
1 Baby Green Spotted Puffer - Location (country): USA (NC)
Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
LOL, he has teeth, I can see them in the first picture! He needs a MUCH better diet, and he especially needs to stay away from krill.srmembership wrote: I did some research and saw some of the typical types of food being fed to puffers but ours doesn't seem to have developed teeth yet, he is still fairly young i believe.
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srmembership
- Puffer Fry
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- Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 5:39 pm
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
purplecandle what do you suggest for a diet? our fish guy provided us with silversides and krill! unbelievable!! we haven't been feeding much, if any krill but the silversides he WAS eating up but seems a little less interested. I did a little research where i saw shrimp and what not, what do you suggest? obviously we're not too educated on fish - which is why we hired someone who supposedly knew what they were doing - but we want to take as best care of him as we can and we will be searching for a new, educated "fish guy."
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J-P
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
That scar pattern reeks of lion fish stings.. and you have 2 of them in the tank. Puffers are known fin nippers... I hope the higher ups can discount this theory...
when did you notice this?
when did you notice this?
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purplecandle
- Mbu Puffer
- Posts: 2019
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- My Puffers: Currently
2 Adult Green Spotted Puffers
1 Fangs Puffer
1 Baby Green Spotted Puffer - Location (country): USA (NC)
Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
srmembership wrote:purplecandle what do you suggest for a diet? our fish guy provided us with silversides and krill! unbelievable!! we haven't been feeding much, if any krill but the silversides he WAS eating up but seems a little less interested. I did a little research where i saw shrimp and what not, what do you suggest? obviously we're not too educated on fish - which is why we hired someone who supposedly knew what they were doing - but we want to take as best care of him as we can and we will be searching for a new, educated "fish guy."
1. Never trust a fish guy
2. Here is a feeding article if the little guy makes it
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/
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Dadof4
- Tech Team
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
Couple of things, first that is a stars and stripes not a dogface, stunning fish! The black spots around the mouth could be stress induced, could you please answer the questions in red so we know more about your tank? Puffers have a tendency to develop dark areas when stressed and are easily stressed by their water parameters and tank conditions. Krill are very poor to add to any fishes diet except for a treat. They are nutritionally inadequate food. Please read the feeding article in the library. Good foods that I know Stars and Stripes readily take are whole Mussels, crabs, frozen thawed squid, and whole clams.
"Darwin swings...annnnnnd a miss. Boy Jim, Chuck's suffered at the plate tonight. He's 0 for 3 and I'm not sure he's recovered from that shoulder pull a few weeks ago. I'll bet the front office is re-thinking that contract."
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srmembership
- Puffer Fry
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
appreciate all the feed back. i'm aware of the questions in red, we're working on getting the necessary supplies so i can provide you guys with that information. i noticed it yesterday, and it wasn't there sunday. we're thinking they appeared either sunday or monday night. i will do my best to try and provide you with the necessary information tomorrow. i'm going to look into purchasing whatever's necessary to improve the condition of the tank and the fish. thanks for all the help, if anyone has any other suggestions i would greatly appreciate them as well.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
![[welcome]](./images/smilies/welcome.gif "welcome")
I would also venture a guess that this is caused by the lionfish. i always try to dissuade people from that combo of tank mates.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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jdak
- Green Spotted Puffer
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
Your fishguy is not that good. Does he call it a DogFace? It is a Stars and Stripes like mine. Best diet would be shellfish like shrimp, clams, oysters, mussels and other meats like squid and octopus. Unfortunately, the fish in this tank are not compatible. And yes, i would say he has already been stung once. He is lucky to survive that.
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Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
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- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
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- My Puffers: Puffers I have kept:
T lineatus
T miurus
A modestus
T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
C lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
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Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
Actually, the guy is partially right, they both come form the Arothron (dogface) family.Does he call it a DogFace? It is a Stars and Stripes like mine.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
Re: MY PUFFER HAS A LARGE BLACK SPOT ON HIS FACE
Yes that is true but there tank size requirements are different. 100 gallons min. for the dog face 180 gallons min. for the stars and stripes.Pufferpunk wrote:Actually, the guy is partially right, they both come form the Arothron (dogface) family.Does he call it a DogFace? It is a Stars and Stripes like mine.