spiny puffer help

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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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Kman
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spiny puffer help

Post by Kman »

I dont know how to show that there is a new post so I just made a new one.
I just needed to ask if you are dosing with both melafix and pimafix is it ok to use 1 tsp. for every 10 gallons as the bottle says? Or since I will be using both should I cut the dose in half.
Thank you.
Kman
laxratnd
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Post by laxratnd »

i would use the recommended does it should work fine together.

stephen
Kman
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spiny puffer help

Post by Kman »

Thanks for the help. That is all I needed to know.
Kman
Kman
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spiny puffer help

Post by Kman »

Well I dosed the tank with melafix and pimafix, and it killed one of my snails within five minutes, and all the other snails started acting up so I got them out of there. I dosed the tank with 7 tsp. of the melafix and 7 tsp. of the pimafix, and the tank total volume with the sump and all is about 90 gallons.
Does melafix suppose to smell like icey hot. It had a very strong smell, and you can smell it in the tank. I thought this stuff was safe to use. Please someone let me know about this, because I have never used this stuff before. Is this a natural reaction to the stuff?
Kman
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Post by Pufferpunk »

Never heard about it killing snails. It will mess with your skimmer though. I turn mine offf for a few hours after adding the stuff. Smells just like Vicks Vaporub. That's the tea tree oil.
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!"
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Post by Pamela »

It's great stuff, is Melafix. The tea tree is diluted to 1%, and is very gentle. I use it in my left ear canal, which has excema in it from time to time...very soothing.
Pami.
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Post by puffergeek »

Pamela wrote:It's great stuff, is Melafix. The tea tree is diluted to 1%, and is very gentle. I use it in my left ear canal, which has excema in it from time to time...very soothing.
Pami.
I pictured you sticking your head in the aquarium for a second there :-)

I've never dosed a snail tank... although I once stuck a half full five gallon out on the back porch and still had snails living after a couple of weeks of cold nights (well, San Diego cold anyway... even in the winter it isn't much) and sunlit days. They are tough little buggers.

Are you other water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, ph, etc) good?
Kman
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spiny puffer help

Post by Kman »

Is it possible that the pimafix and/or melafix can still cure the puffer not using as much as the bottle says? I'm talking about using maybe 4 or 5 tsp. of the pimafix, and work my way up. I'm kind of afraid to put in the recommended dosage now, because of how those snails acted. And it is not about the snails its about my puffer. If it killed a snail and wasn't suppose too how do I know that it couldn't hurt my puffer.

Also the growth that is on his eye is a white cottony type of growth, and I noticed that one of the piece's of live rock has had what looks like the same growth growing on it for a while. Slowly spreading a little at a time. Could what is on the rock be the same thing that is on his eye?
This stuff was also growing in the sump, and I peeled it right off the bottom of the sump. It came out really easy. It had a type of silicone type of feel to it, and was a little sticky. Does anybody have any idea's what this could be? If I had a digital camera I would take a picture of it, but I don't have one yet.
Thanks,
Kman
Pamela
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Post by Pamela »

Ok...try half doses of each at the same time. If your puffer looks to be distressed, start changing the P&Mfix out, but I can guarantee you 99.99999999999% that he won't be.
The important thing is to stop worrying about about the effects of very gentle, recommended meds and to think about how you're gonna cure this prob. You've been debating about M&Pfix for a few days now, and time's getting on.
This is not meant to be harsh...it's obvious you really care about your puffer, but trust us - M&Pfix are fine..think about how diluted they'll be in the water - 99% of the bottle is inert anyway, so think about how dilute it'll be - but still effective.
Try the half doses, and see how you go, you'll be ok.
Pami.
Kman
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spiny puffer help

Post by Kman »

Thanks for the help. Yes I look into it too much. I'm bad about that with anything I do. I haven't been waiting for what to do. I decided to dose the tank 3 days ago, but have cut back on it since, but I'm going to see how that is for a couple of days and then start dosing the full dosage if it looks like his eye isn't getting better.
I think most of the reason why I'm worrying about it so much is because of the high nitrate levels. I was in the process of doing an excess of water changes to bring it down when this happened. I had to decide which one was more important at the time, and I chose to medicate him for now, and then get back to lowering the nitrates. I was afraid after seeing the snails reaction to the medicine that it might be do to the high nitrate levels, and thought that it might effect my puffer too. You right I do care about him, and just want to do whats best. I didn't take your comments as harsh at all. I agree with you completely. I just needed reasurance again I guess. Thanks for your help and comments. By the way my wife pretty much said the same thing.
Kman
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