The Puffer Forum

Yes, it is both for Fresh and Saltwater. At least the manufacturer claims so...

Saudações também de Portugal! Coimbra... tem mais encanto...

Another usefull information:

I tested my tap water a while ago just to make sure. As i suspected, the amonia content is absolutelly zero...

Is it possible that amonia is generated when i add the salt to the water? It has been inside the 20l bucket for 3 days now, with an air filter moving is...

On the first day i just added 20L tap water, 700g marine salt and 50 drops of PH-DOWN because from my previous experience the PH always goes up, out of my tests scale...

Nothing else was added, after 3 days moving with the air filter i have 0.8m/L amonia and a PH of higher than my tests reading, (>8.6)...

Any idea why?

If there is organic material in your water supply or stuck to the sides of the bucket it would be possible.Sound like it is starting a cycle in the bucket.

Hello, i would like to wish you all a happy new year.

I tried your suggestions, i have been keeping an eye on my water parameters.

During the first week i removed the puffer to another tank and tried treating him with melafix + pimafix for 7 days. On the last day the puffer was not moving much, he was mainly at the bottom of the tank, under the filter, he was not eating at all and i was already fearing for the worst. I decided moving him back to the main tank and, after 1 days, he was already looking happy again, interacting with his 2 other tank mates and eating like if there was no tomorow.

I then decided applying the treatment again, now on the main tank. Did it for 8 days in a row with a little bit higher dosis. Although the spot on the tail disappeared, the bigger one still remains.

I have a friend who is a marine biologist, specialised in fish diseases, and he told me that we are probably looking at a "hole in the head" case. He suggested lowering my water salinity to 50% (around 1.012) gradually, for two reasons:
- my animals are still juvenilles;
- the animal has an open wound and i should do this to try to avoid affecting the animal's osmo-regulation.

My friend told me to treat the animal with metronidazole (flagyl), but he did not suggest a dosage and i have not been able to contact him during the last few days.

Does any of you have any previous experience with puffers and flagyl? I am sure that you have tried this before. What should the dosage be? How many mg flagyl by liter of water? And, how should the flagyl be added to the tank? Should i just disolve the pills in a cup of tank water and add it to the tank or should i soak the food on this water for some time and offer the food? should the remaining water/flagyl mixture be added to the tank or should i discard it? What is the best way?

Thank you!

You need water conditioner everytime you do a water change, 25% water change a week and the salinity is way to high for those little puffers in that small tank.

How is your water change schedule?
Do you mix the salt in the same bucket you water changed with?

Those nitrogen compouds showed in your tests aren't good to keep your puffers healthy.

I don't think that skin disease looks like hole in the head disease. But if you wanna try metronidazole (flagyl) treatment, here's the dosage:

15 mg/L of metronidazole for 10-15 days. (treat in a hospital tank).

Use Prime to detoxify the ammonia in your system. If you do not upgrade your fish to a much bigger tank, I'm afraid they may all succumb to the same problem. Use the tank they are in now as a QT if you're going to treat with such a strong antibiotic.

Stop using any pH buffer. The fluctuation of pH is much more stressful to your fish than the high pH.

This is very simple. Your tank is way overstocked (at over a year old, if those fish were healthy they'd be MUCH larger than 3cm) and it is harming their health.

Remember, nitrates, ammonia and nitrites are just things we have test to read for.. there's a lot more in that water that is harming the fish, that the normal hobbiest can not test for.

Salt is fine for GSP's of any age, but being over crowded in a tank with little or practically no water changes is a death sentance.

Get them into a bigger tank or get rid of them, or they will die, sooner or later. These are fish that should grow up to 6" long and live 10 or more years, they can't do that if you keep them in that tank.

Hello.

I digged deeper into my high amonia values, both on hy tank water and on my water changes bucket.

Indeed my amonia test was only for fresh water - i bought a saltwater test and the values are zero both oin the tank and bucket..

My actual water parameter are zero amonia and zero nitrites, SG = 1.021 (i have already started decreasing it slowly with the water changes, i am gonna aim for 1.012).

My puffer still has the wounds. My biologyst friend (ichtyologist, specialised on fish diseases) suggested Flagyl (suspecting of hole in the head), so i mixed one crushed 250mg pill with 100g turkey heart and herbs pate - divided it on a 30 portion blister and i am feeding one these doses as the first daily food to the 3 of them.

Any more treatment suggestions, appart from getting a bigger tank?

Thank you!

Regards,

sonicb00m

Flagyl is an extremely potent antibiotic. I was under the impression that not only is HITH caused by a parasite but it is very rare in puffers. Using an antibiotic like that in your main tank is guaranteed to cause an entire system crash.

I sure hope that you are using a hospital tank when you're treating with Flagyl. If you're not you more than likely will kill your biofilter because flagyl isn't really selective....

Dear Friends,

Since i last wrote i tried treating my ill puffer with flagyl, Sera Baktopur Direct and Esha Hexamita and Esha Exit. I did these treatments according to the prescriptions, on an isolated quarantine tank, and until now nothing solved the problem. His wound continues spreading.

It all started with one white spot on the upper part of the head, looking like a bite mark (although i have never witnessed agression between the 3 of them during the 1,5 years i've kept them), where his skin was missing. it started spreading very slowly and this is the way its spreading: arround the first spot other spots appeared, drawing like a spot line arround the first one, very close. They grew bigger very slowly, until they joined the first spot making a bigger wound. After some time a new line of spots appeared very close to the wound, and once again with time they grew bigger until they all became one even bigger wound. It's been around one year and since then this process is being repeated. At the current date the wound is covering around 50% of the top and left sides of his body.

My water parameters are still good and i am doing water changes, around 50%, every week. I have slowly lowered the density to 1.015 and i am aiming for 1.012.

Before these latest treatments i have already tried pimafix, melafix, spirohexol, and others. I do not know what else to do.

One experienced friend from a local fish shop, who has been raising and breeding discus for nearly 50 years, told me that 20 years ago they had no special medicines for fishes. To treat the salt fishes they used to bath them for 30 minutes on fresh water on a daily basis, and the opposite for fresh water fishes. The theory is that the harmfull bacteria or fungus will not survive the salinity changes. I do not know if this works or not, but i have been doing it for the last two days with my puffer.

Do you guys have any other suggestion i might try? I have already been told that i can try appling betadine, mercury or even canesten directly on the fish's wounds. Has anyone tried this before? Should i have any special care if i try this?

Thank you all.

Regards,

sonicb00m

A little bit more information:

I believe that this disease only affects his skin because it is going around one of his eyes without affecting it. It has also completelly surrounded one of his lateral fins, but the fin itself is untouched and he uses it perfectly. He swims well, feeds well (he is always the first to run for the food) and he ssems to swim happilly along with his other two tank mates, although i am sure that this must hurt him and bother him. He always reacts when i approach the tank.

Whatever the disease is i am sure that it is not contagious. He has been living with it for nearly one year and none of his tank mates got it.

Within 3 months i will move to a bigger appartment and they will get a new 200l home. If lack of space is really the cause of the problem, as some of you suggested, i hope can hang on till then.

If you have any other suggestion please post it here. I will try to make some more pictures of him sson.

Regards,

sonicb00m

I have occasionally taken a fish in a net and applied melafix or pimafix directly to damaged skin, holding just those skin portions wet but just above the water for a few minutes. It DOES seem to burn the skin a little, but also harm the infection badly. Deciding how often to do this is a bit of a judgment call...

I do not mean to be hard on you..but you cannot be lazy and own puffers...I am new to puffers myself...but the first thing I learned was that I cannot be lazy.

In a tank that small going more than a few days without doing a water change is deadly business.

A couple of weeks ago I acquired several puffers..and put them in quarantine in 10 gallon and 20 gallon tanks..Their water was changed everyday and I measured their levels twice a day...because in the matter of a couple of hours in small tanks the bio load of puffers can rise to dangerous levels.

The advice these members are giving you is correct...you should be using some kind of medication..

But, I suspect that no matter what medicine you use ...this problem will probably not go away or will return again..

If you want this little guy to truly heal he needs a much bigger tank and frequent water changes..

You ask why this is happening to one and not all...well, at your levels and in that small tank you have got a survival of the fittest situation going on...in such bad conditions (even if they were at once all healthy) the weakest will go first, then the next weakest..and so on...

Please get a bigger tank!

Good luck, I hope your puffers get better