help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
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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rocky23
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:34 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: diodon holocanthus/ porcupine pufferfish
- Location (country): United Kingdom, Leicester
- Location: United Kingdom, Leicester
help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
as the title says i've woke up to my puffer, having what looks like cloudy eyes forming. what is this, can it kill him? will it go away on it's own or do i have to treat it? i already have some parasite medication in just in case, it says it treats all parasites including internal ones it says it also does whitespot. should i use some of that? it's a 10 day medication that you add once and you can leave the fish still in the main tank. sorry for all the questions but want to get this sorted.
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
If you could please answer all question above in red it will help us to help you. Could be something as simple as water quaility.
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rocky23
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:34 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: diodon holocanthus/ porcupine pufferfish
- Location (country): United Kingdom, Leicester
- Location: United Kingdom, Leicester
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
yeah sorry about that forgot all about it, it's just cause i've put the stuff above on here a few times know. anyway here you go, he's in a 5ft aquarium, which is 600 litres, the skimmer is rated at 1000 lph, has powerheads rated at 3000 lph, fitted with a canister filter with spray bar. inside the canister filter i keep, filter floss, rowphos and nitrax jbl i think it's called. everythings been set up know for about 4-5 months know and i have the liverock in etc... of course, with a 300 watt heater and auto top up. the pufferfish him self is about 1 and half to 2 inches and i know he will out grow the tank but am planning on upgrading to a 8ft tank in about a year or two. lighting is 2 x 55watt t5's, two 50 watt metal halides, and leds. they can all be switched of seperatly, so don't have them all running at the time. other fish with him are two chromis about the same size, with snails and hermit crabs.trekenk wrote:If you could please answer all question above in red it will help us to help you. Could be something as simple as water quaility.
parameters are:
PH - 8.2
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
Amonnia - 0
salinity - 1.025
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rocky23
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:34 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: diodon holocanthus/ porcupine pufferfish
- Location (country): United Kingdom, Leicester
- Location: United Kingdom, Leicester
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
oh and i do a water change every week, the only changes i've made in the last week are moving a spray bar and adding a new heater. and the tank has cycled
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
You should be showing some Nitrates especially with a cannister filter on there, you sure your tank is cycled? What type of test kit are you using. With the skimmer and live rock ( how much live rock) you shouldn't need to be using a cannister filter at all. With IP's you should see stringy white poo or a thinning belly shortly after eating. A lot of time cloudy eyes can be from an ammonia spike are those reading from just now?
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
Does it look like he could of injured his eye in some way. Melafix the salt water version would help that.
600 litre = 158 gallon that is a good size tank for him.
600 litre = 158 gallon that is a good size tank for him.
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rocky23
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:34 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: diodon holocanthus/ porcupine pufferfish
- Location (country): United Kingdom, Leicester
- Location: United Kingdom, Leicester
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
yeah those tests are from just know, but i've just tested again with some different test kits and here is what this one is showing:trekenk wrote:You should be showing some Nitrates especially with a cannister filter on there, you sure your tank is cycled? What type of test kit are you using. With the skimmer and live rock ( how much live rock) you shouldn't need to be using a cannister filter at all. With IP's you should see stringy white poo or a thinning belly shortly after eating. A lot of time cloudy eyes can be from an ammonia spike are those reading from just now?
PH - 8.2
Amonnia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 5
salinity - 1.025
and yes i'm sure it's cycled, seen it go through sky high ammonia nitrite and the nitrate come down. the canister filter is being used just mostly for filter floss to remove any fine particles as i aim for crystal clear water and the rowphos to help combat the algea that sometimes breaks out. and the nitrax stuff helped with the lowering of the nitrate when the tank was cycling. i use instant ocean salt, and have about 60 ish kilo's of live rock. i know i don't need the canister i just run it for the reasons i have just mentioned. sorry to sound abit silly but what do you mean IP'S? when he eats he gets a little fat belly while he digests the food but it goes back down once fully digested. he's not under weight he's nice and fat.
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rocky23
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:34 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: diodon holocanthus/ porcupine pufferfish
- Location (country): United Kingdom, Leicester
- Location: United Kingdom, Leicester
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
no he looks like he's got it on both eyes, he's currently sitting on the sand bed. not to worried about that though as that is normal as he tends to be a late riser, for his breakfast. plus i was told them lying on the sand bed is normal, by other people on here.trekenk wrote:Does it look like he could of injured his eye in some way. Melafix the salt water version would help that.
600 litre = 158 gallon that is a good size tank for him.
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
Are those strips or the liquid test kits you are using? Did you just turn the lights on? Could you possible get a picture of the eyes? Any other symptoms , active eating ect. Could be a bacterial infection in that case you would need antibiotics. Hopefully someone else might have some ideas.
Hmm both eyes and came on all of a sudden?
Hmm both eyes and came on all of a sudden?
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rocky23
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:34 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: diodon holocanthus/ porcupine pufferfish
- Location (country): United Kingdom, Leicester
- Location: United Kingdom, Leicester
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
mixture of both mate for the test kits, the lights have been on for about 1 hour now and just had alook at him and he has turned around know so he is getting abit more active. i'll try and get some pictures of the eyes if i cantrekenk wrote:Are those strips or the liquid test kits you are using? Did you just turn the lights on? Could you possible get a picture of the eye? Any other symptoms , active eating ect. Could be a bacterial infection in that case you would need antibiotics. Hopefully someone else might have some ideas.
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
Test strip are very inaccurate and you can't rely on the readings from those. With the liquid you have to shake them till your arm is sore. Just want to make sure were getting the right readings as 9 times out of 10 cloud eyes is from the water quality.
BTW don't waster your money on nitrax stuff the only way to remove nitrate is through water changes also that canister filter is not needed as it tends to become a nitrate factory. 1 pound pre live rock pre gallon and the skimmer will be enought and actually save you money with less water changes ( hence less salt). Just off the top of my head you would need about 10 kilos more live rock, 158 gallon = 600 litres and 60 kilos live rock = 132 pounds.
BTW don't waster your money on nitrax stuff the only way to remove nitrate is through water changes also that canister filter is not needed as it tends to become a nitrate factory. 1 pound pre live rock pre gallon and the skimmer will be enought and actually save you money with less water changes ( hence less salt). Just off the top of my head you would need about 10 kilos more live rock, 158 gallon = 600 litres and 60 kilos live rock = 132 pounds.
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rocky23
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:34 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: diodon holocanthus/ porcupine pufferfish
- Location (country): United Kingdom, Leicester
- Location: United Kingdom, Leicester
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
yeah thanks mate, i'll do another waterchange today then. going to do it know though as it's my mothers birthday to day so going out with her later.trekenk wrote:Test strip are very inaccurate and you can't rely on the readings from those. With the liquid you have to shake them till your arm is sore. Just want to make sure were getting the right readings as 9 times out of 10 cloud eyes is from the water quality.
BTW don't waster your money on nitrax stuff the only way to remove nitrate is through water changes also that canister filter is not needed as it tends to become a nitrate factory. 1 pound pre live rock pre gallon and the skimmer will be enought and actually save you money with less water changes ( hence less salt). Just off the top of my head you would need about 10 kilos more live rock, 158 gallon = 600 litres and 60 kilos live rock = 132 pounds.
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sevenyearnight
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
Porcupine puffers have a shimmery almost cataract look to their eyes. Maybe since he was so small, it wasn't noticeable, or it took time to "show". It looks odd, or magical.
Those are great water parameters. Also with such a low stocked tank, it's not uncommon to get a 0 nitrates reading.
Macro algae will remove nitrates, and I *believe* the anaerobic bacteria in the live rock also breaks down nitrate.
+1 to the canister filter just being a nitrate factory. Once I removed the filter floss, nitrates are barely measurable. I change 25% of the water out a week anyway because my little dude is in his smaller"waiting" tank while the new tank is getting set up. It needed resealing.
If you have or get API test kits, you really need to shake the Bob Saget out of the second nitrate bottle to get a proper reading.
Those are great water parameters. Also with such a low stocked tank, it's not uncommon to get a 0 nitrates reading.
Macro algae will remove nitrates, and I *believe* the anaerobic bacteria in the live rock also breaks down nitrate.
+1 to the canister filter just being a nitrate factory. Once I removed the filter floss, nitrates are barely measurable. I change 25% of the water out a week anyway because my little dude is in his smaller"waiting" tank while the new tank is getting set up. It needed resealing.
If you have or get API test kits, you really need to shake the Bob Saget out of the second nitrate bottle to get a proper reading.
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Black Widow
Re: help porcupine puffer with cloudy eyes
Is the cloudy eyes greenish in colour or white cloudy eyes? If its green cloudy like an emerald colour then that quite normal. I wouldnt worry too much and my advice would be not to treat him with anything unless he gets worse or stops eating. With puffers along as they are eating then they are in good health! You have had your puffer a while and have most probably watched him for hours on end so you know what is healthy behaviour and whats not. Just keep an eye on it!