The Puffer Forum

She is VERY active with the low-lights on ( I usually turn off the coralife 50/50 and shine an indirect HE bulb near the tank for a "sunset" effect. ). My guess is that she is more of a dawn-dusk hunter maybe? A half hour or so of furious exploration of the tank ( much more than when the full lights were on ) and she settled in to the cave I arranged for her. ( Yay! An aquascaping green thumb, have I. ) She was chilling on the substrate with slow fin movements when I went full dark. Still worried about the "bugs" but she seems well adjusted and I'm not that worried that she didn't eat today... Again, any advice about my idea to treat my fish in the 10g QT and let the "reef" go thru a normal die-off would be GREAT.
Also... I'd rather not go HypOsaline, my results with stepping up or down salinity have been mixed... need a refractometer. So would copper based work best, or a quinine derivative?

Buy a barren 20 gallon for a hospital tank, the 10 is too small for a clown and full grown toby.
Hospital tanks don't need to be cycled since you'll have to do daily water changes and medicate anyway.

In the future, make sure you always quarantine new fish. Initial inspection won't always reveal diseases, so it's best to be on the safe side. It's good practice to quarantine live rock too as it can harbor parasites and other unsavory goods.

Before you go with hypo salinity, it would be good to post some new pics of the affected areas, it might not be crypt, but something bacterial or who knows. Some fish don't handle hypo well, so it's better to know what you are working with so you pick the appropriate treatment. Either way, definitely always have an empty quarantine on hand for new arrivals and sick fish. That way you will always have something on hand for situations.

There are threads/articles on quarantine procedures if you search for them.

It's a female.

Purifire wrote:Here They are!! I thinks it's Female... but she is Keeling from time to time, do the girls DO that?
Let me know if I sexed her right.

Purifire wrote:Here They are!! I thinks it's Female... but she is Keeling from time to time, do the girls DO that?
Let me know if I sexed her right.

nice fish...... i have the same... from what i gather you have a female... my is the same.... if it where a male it would have some stripes right by its eye... my looks exactly like that..... sorry about the ich though....but of all puffers that i have had with ich. tobeys are the strongest and i have never lost any to ich....

Thank you, Scorpio, for the verification about sexing, was fairly sure, no eye vidrigis showing up, or grey markings posterior to anal fin,etc etc. And I absolutely agree Sevenyear, I should be more careful. The fact that I haven't got this drilled thru my head already is to my discredit as a "scientific-ally minded aquarist". Trying to be positive about the whole situation.... At least there's only one time that you have to deal with a 6 week fallow "Reef" for the FIRST time...

See?
I'm trying to be optimistic.

Um... BTW these white things I'm seeing are perhaps larger that Crypt forms as reported, Possibly parasitic Pods... Don't have enough exp to say for sure but I noticed white "bugs" on the glass the day after I added her. We'll see s things develop guys and gals
wish me luck and AGAIN, THANKS in adv.
-Purifire

If you have live rock in the aquarium then the little white 'bugs' are probably just young pods. I had the exact same thing in my aquarium. My goby ended up eating them all, though.

I would wait--still don't think it's Crypt. Crypt looks just like ich: salt shakings on the fish. I have seen these white markings even on Filbert. No big deal. Keep the water clean & they will go away.

Thanks PP! Yeah the fact that they're so big gave me pause so I'm just keeping up params and watching closely. Been having problems getting her to eat... tried oysters, squid, octopus, prawn, ghostshrimp, fiddler crab, hermit crab... She killed a ghost but didn't eat it.. WTF lol. As we speak she's picking at a huge redworm so thats good. I tried algae sheets and she didn't want that either. She DOES however pick over the LR pretty much all day. Pod hunting is my guess. Anyone know a good macro algae to try her on?

Camille absolutely LOVES mussels, maybe you should try some? She likes to kill ghost shrimp too but doesn't really eat them. She'll rip a ghost shrimp to pieces then just leave it there until my goby comes along and eats the shrimp. Even still, it satiates her natural predatory desire to hunt something down and kill it, it's good for her beak and helps keep my goby fed, so I'll throw some ghost shrimp in there every now and then. Camille never did go for algae sheets or macroalgaes, although she will from time to time graze on the very small patch of hair algae I allow to grow in the aquarium (it's her veggie garden.) Tobies are very active puffers and will constantly be hunting the live rock for pods or other crustaceans - Camille does the same thing when she's not taking her daily 3 hour nap.

lol thanks Scorpio

I decided on a name for her. Aphroditie.

Perfect!