The Puffer Forum

i wouldnt worry o much about the spots most mbus have them can be confused with whitespot though....if these spots protrude then there normal

yeah they do protude and the best i can describe them as is like calcium spots on people! they appear to be smooth not furry, do they just dissapear with age then?

no my bigger mbu usually has one or two they come and go

I've had a few like that on my fahaka's fins. They go away after a while, although I haven't seen one in a very long time. Are there a lot of them on your fish?

What do you mean by "replenish minerals"? I've never heard that about keeping FW fish.
I go by what this guy says:
http://www.aquariumboard.com/forums/articles/4802.htm

there are about 15 spots on him at the mo, im using ro and re mineralizing using lake tanganyka minerals, as i had the ro unit left from my marine tanks and the nitrate outta my taps is nearly 40ppm! i just read the article by that guy makes sense, but everything is stable (test most weeks before w/c ph, gh, kh, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and log in diary) and nitrate never even shows after 1 week (doing 10 percent) would you still do 50 percent then? the only other thing im not too sure about is salt as a tonic/medication with mbus: which salt and how long etc and should i carbon out old medication first as it hasnt appeared to have done anything!

ok im going with protazin just done a 100 litre w/c hoovering gravel, and am adding treatment as its still spreading it must be some usual form of "spot" ive also been adding minerals to his food. so fingers crossed!

What nitrate test are you using? It's is very surprising that you have no nitrate in there. How big is the puffer now?

There is a lot more to water than ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.. those are just easy to measure guidelines.

Clean water is always a good thing. The cleaner the better. By clean, we don't mean that it looks clean or has low nitrates, but that you've removed polluted water filled with all kinds of things the average fishkeeper can't measure for (hormones for example) and replaced it with clean, healthy water. If those things aren't removed, they can cause stunting and weakened immune systems.. leaving them very susceptable to any disease or parasite they happen across. Stunting is really bad, as it only really seems to affect their skeletal systems (full body size) but their inner organs continue to grow at a normal rate.. leading to internal issues as the organs get too cramped and can not function properly.. Which of course means the puffer will never grow to its potential size and will die an early death

RO water is great, as long as you are remineralizing, which it sounds like you are doing. I understand how hard it can be to make large batches of RO water, trust me.. but if trying to keep a fish like Mbu and you have 40 nitrates out of the tap, you really don't have any other option I'm sorry to say. Short of a small pond and huge veggie filter..

The 6x2x2 tank is a 210 right? Yeah, you'll be needing to upgrade that. A full grown Mbu will have trouble just turning around in there.

Myaj wrote:There is a lot more to water than ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.. those are just easy to measure guidelines.

Clean water is always a good thing. The cleaner the better. By clean, we don't mean that it looks clean or has low nitrates, but that you've removed polluted water filled with all kinds of things the average fishkeeper can't measure for (hormones for example) and replaced it with clean, healthy water. If those things aren't removed, they can cause stunting and weakened immune systems.. leaving them very susceptable to any disease or parasite they happen across. Stunting is really bad, as it only really seems to affect their skeletal systems (full body size) but their inner organs continue to grow at a normal rate.. leading to internal issues as the organs get too cramped and can not function properly.. Which of course means the puffer will never grow to its potential size and will die an early death

RO water is great, as long as you are remineralizing, which it sounds like you are doing. I understand how hard it can be to make large batches of RO water, trust me.. but if trying to keep a fish like Mbu and you have 40 nitrates out of the tap, you really don't have any other option I'm sorry to say. Short of a small pond and huge veggie filter..

The 6x2x2 tank is a 210 right? Yeah, you'll be needing to upgrade that. A full grown Mbu will have trouble just turning around in there.

Thats great thank you really helpfull, is there no way of measuring for hormones then? and are they released by such a young fish? what else would be in the water to pollute it? what is a veggie filter? so many questions such little time! sorry but want to do the best by him! i know already about tank size thats soon to be sorted, will post some pics up hopefully an 8x3x3 that should be ok yeah? have you any idea on the reason that i originally posted, about the spots he has got?

Pufferpunk wrote:What nitrate test are you using? It's is very surprising that you have no nitrate in there. How big is the puffer now?

its a liquid salifert test kit and a nutrafin liquid test kit both reading 0 hes 4" now

If he's only 4" and in a 210 and you are using RO water on your water changes, zero nitrates are very possible.

I don't think the average person can test for things like hormones.. colleges and labs set up for fish specific research probably can do that sort of thing. I wish I knew of an article or something to refer you to, I can't remember all the details. I just picked it up along the way while researching live plants.. when you keep live plants, they remove nitrates (they use it as fertilizer/food). So your nitrates look nice and low, you assume you don't have to do water changes, but all kinds of other organics are building up and causing problems.

Its hard to say what the white spots are without seeing them. Ask around if you can find someone with a good camera to take pictures for you.. you'll have best results if you take them at night, in a dark room, with the tank being the only light (no TV's, no lamps, etc). Try to get a few without flash (gets the natural colors of the fish), but if you can't get a clear enough shot go ahead and use the flash, even if it makes the fish look wrong, color wise, as long as we can see the spots, that's the important part. The easiest way to use flash is to put your lens up against the glass, or shoot at an angle to the tank OR put a small piece of white paper over the flash to diffuse it, otherwise you get a nasty reflection.

Veggie filters are mentioned in the sticky in our Giant Puffer forum. Here are more articles by that author in the subject:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article69.html

Thanks very much guys, youve been really helpfull im going to give the camera a go today, but he is looking much better now only a few remain so hopefully that protazin might have got it? anywaay im just off to learn about veggie filters! thanks again!