Trying to save a juvenile figure 8...

[Tihsho]

Well here the story goes:

This afternoon while I was doing my usual sweep of lfs trying to find the puffers to occupy my bare (other then the livebearers and corries that are temporarily there to keep the bioload going) tanks I stumbled across a couple of figure 8's. 2 of them were being housed with gouramis, corries, some cool looking expenive plecos and they looked happy as ever. No wounds to any fish in the tank (other then a single kissing gourami with ich.) The matter of me being overly obsessive about keeping fish alive at any cost I searched through the tank thoroughly, eyed up each puff watching every move they made and scanned for any signs of possible disease or injury. The only thing that I could see was one of the 2 unfortunatly had internal parasites. The stomache was sunken really low and it wobbled when it swam. The other one seemed to be healthy (other then a nipped tail and a healing bite wound on its back.) So I ended buying the little thing and bringing it back and floated the bag and did the whole introduction ordeal and so far the little thing is temporarily in my 5 gallon quarantine tank due to my 20 long quarintine tank having had a wee bit of an accident a few days back.) The puff is around 3/4 of an inch and just seems to be getting use to its surroundings.

My main concern is moving the puff to brackish water maybe in a week at the latest after it gets settled and eating normally. I already have some instant ocean salt mix and a hydrometer that I had a while back, it just seems I will need a tutorial on what to do.

So far what I really need to know are:
~How do I prep the salt and the water? (how long should it sit as a mixture in other words)
~How many cups of salt per gallon of water?
~How much should I be brining the salinity of the water to?
~And any other things I should do to keep this puff healthy...

And I after having the puff settled in brackish I am then going to move him/her into a 10 gallon I have. I know that the pufferlist recomends 15 gallons per puff but will it suffice? Also, if the puff manages to stay within steady health I was hoping on maybe adding another 2 figure 8's with
him/her. Probably will then move the tank up to a 50 gallon or so.

So far I have a biowheel filter in the puffer tank without the biowheel (old model biowheel and the wheel broke down and I havn't replaced it yet) when I move the tank up to a 10 or possibly 50 gallon what would you guys recomend I should buy filter wise? I was thinking a fluval.

~Thanks
~Thanks

[Pamela]

Let him get settled first, before you start raising the SG, but I'd get him in his 20 gallon for that.
You can raise the SG very slowly by adding small amounts of salt to your change water...I took six weeks to get mine up to 1.005, and I was doing twice weekly changes.
Add a smidgen to the change water, note the SG, and just keep doing that, testing both the change water and the tank water, and adding slightly larger amounts of salt till finally you have the SG in the tank that you want. Don't make any sudden big leaps...the max is a .002 rise, cos you'll kill off a lot of your good bugs. You don't really need to do it that fast.
At low salinities like this, the salt goes into solution pretty fast, so I leave mine for a few minutes after the water clears and then add it.
Fiddle around with solutions...each brand seems to vary in concentration...I use Tropic Marin, and don't need much to get up to 1.005, so give it a try and measure it before you actually make up a solution to go in the tank.
For an F8, 1.005 to .008 is what you want - mine are at 1.006 but every now and then I vary it a bit - to 1.005 or .007, as that's what happens in the wild.
Good luck with him...good clean water, nice food and some tlc should pull him through. Keep us posted.
Pami.

[Tihsho]

Well, I just checked up on him. Just as I guessed there would be something wrong with the little one today. I noticed some stringy things (clearish) on its belly, anyone experience this before? His belly looks a bit thinner, which I'm guessing is due to the enviroment change. And he looks a bit sad and lonely, I had experienced this effect with other puffs I had so no biggie. And my main concern is what looks like ich developing on a pectoral fin. I have a ich remedy (maroxy or something of that sort, can't remember the name off the top of my head) but I would like to stay away from any chemical remidies if anything I would want to stick to melafix or pimafix but just wanted to see what people recomend before I do anything.

And as I also guessed, he wouldn't eat. I tried live black worms, frozen brine, live brine, shrimp pellets and added a few nussiance snails to the tank if he/she is just scarred to eat when someone is watching. I tried the shrimp pellets cause it seems no matter what live or frozen food I have ever fed to the puffers I kept in the past the first few days this was all they ate till they got use to the tanks they were in.

I still need to go out and stock up my ghost shrimp tank again and begin the breeding process all over, but I do have some baby crayfish (bout 1 to 2 centimeters long) from my first batch of crays I have been breeding. So after a week I will try using a few as puff food.

Tips or info about any of the issues I mentions would be great!

Thankz

[Pamela]

Ok, if you think he's got ich and some kinda external parasite, then get him into a bigger tank and start raising the SG now. Although, if you REALLY can't put him in a bigger one, then start raising the SG anyway, but sort your 20G out..what happened to it?
Try soaking his food in garlic juice to tempt him to eat, and get hold of some de-wormer, just in case it is IPs.
The salt should take care of the ich, and maybe the string-things on his belly, if he picked them up in a FW tank.
Don't bother with the ich med, raise the temp and the SG, and that should do the trick...read the sticky on ich in Hospital.
Just to check, you are removing uneaten food, aren't you?
Can you give us the tank params?
Adding some Melafix while you're treating the ich will soothe his skin a little, so go with it.
Pami.

[Tihsho]

My 20 long got knocked while stuff was being moved around in the basement and the so called 'knock' cracked part of the tank. So its out of order till I can seal the crack or buy another tank.

The tank parameters are Nitrate: 0.00 to 0.25 , Ammonia: 0.00 , Nitrite: 0.00 to 0.25. The test kit is kinda weird, planning on getting a new one soon.

Garlic juice I have found to cause problems with the water parameters so after feeding should I do a partial water change?

Any uneaten food within 5 to 10 minutes are removed.

I will try to add some salt to the water and th melafix (and yes the salt will already be in a solution)

k thanks for the help

[Tihsho]

Big problem came up. I started mixing the salt and left it to sit with an airstone in so iwould aerate and cool the water down and when I went to get my refractometer I looked at the intervals and saw that it starts really high (1.010 SG/16 ppt) I really want to help the puff get better but I can't get out today to get a new hydrometer and I start school again tomorrow (first day of my junior year YAY!) So it seems I am going to be swamped for time. And that I know of any closest LFS do not carry that many hydrometers and if they do carry them they will probably have the same one as I do (Coralife Deep Six) I was looking into possibly getting a refractometer but I don't have enough cash to chip out for one of those at the moment. Is there any way to bump up the SG (at most .002) in the tank a bit without having to measure with a refractometer? The Instant Ocean mix I am using said to use 1/2 cup of salt per gallon (so it is in a 1 gallon jug.)

This is bumming me out

Hope theres something I can do.

And yes after looking over the puff again it does have ich. The white spots are clearly beggining to form.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.

BTW if anyone out there is thinking of saying to bring a water sample to my closest LFS to get it tested for ppt/SG, I would highly notl ike to do that. The manager is the only one there who seems to know a little about what to do and the staff there arnt that reliable.

[Tihsho]

Ok, the hydrometer problem is fixed, a parent was out shopping somewhere close to a reliable LFS and they picked up a Instant Ocean Hydrometer. This Hydrometer goes down to 1.000 SG what is the SG of fresh water? Also how do I know when I have bumped up the SG .001? since there is no SG read on the hydrometer (needle thing goes past 1.000.) The saltwater solution I mixed earlier is at 1.023 SG how much of this should be added to bump up the SG?

Thankz and sorry for so many posts

[Jayhawk]

OK, FW is 1.000 SG. I have the same hydrometer. I tend to add only a small amount of salt to get my bucket of water up to 1.005 SG (the hydrometer reads 1.004, 1.008, etc., so you have to estimate 1.005 ) - I add one tablespoon at a time to the bucket to get it up to the right strength.

What you're going to need to do is take out some tank water and replace the same amount with a mix of your full strength SW and some dechlorinated FW in amounts such that your overall tank water doesn't raise the SG more than .002. You'll also want the temperature to be very close to the same as the tank water. I've never done it this way - so I can't give you hard numbers. I'd add the mix slowly, test your water, when it gets to 1.001 or 1.002 stop adding the SW/FW mix. Then, if you need to add more, mix FW and your SW so that it's at 1.001 or 1.002 to fill up the tank.

In the future, I think it's easier to add 1.5ish to 2 tablespoons of salt per gallon in your bucket, swish it around and let it sit 10 minutes or so, then add to the tank (this assumes your tank is around 1.005 SG). Measurements are not exact, so I always check with the hygrometer and add more salt or more water to lower the SG if needed. I find this easier if you only have one brackish tank at a low SG. The salt does mix quickly in such low amounts (I use a fish net to stir).

Eric

[SirMinion]

We also recently rescued a nearly dead F8 that was being kept in freshwater at an ignorant fish store.

The poor fish was almost dead with a serious ich & fungal infection, ragged fins, emaciated shape and cloudy, fungus covered eyes.

With a 'kill or cure' attitude we got him home and immediately turned our hospital tank into a brackish tank at about 1.005.
used a trickle system to change the water in his fish-bag from fresh to 1.005 withinn about two hours then set him free withing the tank.

Within hours his eyes had cleared and he was eating.

within a week his serious ich had almost cleared with no meds and his colour was back.

Now his tail has almost totaly healed and he's demanding food constantly.

So that's how we did it.

From this:

to this

within 10 days.

[Tihsho]

He is already in a tank sadly it is only a 5 gallon due to an incident with my 20L (intrested read what happened above.)

I have dripped about 8 ounces of 1.023 SG water in the tank in the past 2 days (meaning today and yesterday.) He does seem a bit more active. I hope that the gallon of saltwater solution I have will raise the SG in the tank up to 1.005 or so in the next 3 four weeks. I think I will hold off with adding much more of the solution into the tank this week, just wanted to see him perk up a bit. Now I am getting to be concerned about if I add too much if the benificial bacteria I have in the tank will die (I know they will, but I am trying to take it slow now.) I havn't tried feeding him yet but I will as soon as I can get some more bloodworms, so probably later tonight.

Thanks

And thanks SirMinion for showing me that it is possible to bring a puff from total icky (no pun intended) to total happy

Woops I just had to edit this in aswell, sorry for not putting it in the first place (seems a bit rude):oops: :

Thanks Jayhawk for those tips, I will for sure try them out

[Jayhawk]

I bet that slow drip will help keeping the beneficial bacteria.

Keep us posted & best of luck!

Eric

[Pamela]

At the max, keep it to a .002 rise a week...the last thing you need in a tank that small is a crash.
Sounds like he's perking up, bt I'd start making plans to get him in that 20G.
Pami.

[Tihsho]

Well at the moment I'm setting up 2 tens and one is going to be his next home for a few weeks till I can get the 50 gal I have up outa the deep corners of the basement and cleaned any ready to go!