The Puffer Forum

Sorry for your loss. That is some nasty stuff. It is the equivalent of Parvo in dogs. That's about as bad as you can get as you already know.

I was just wondering, if your puffer gets vibro does it affect all the other fish and live rock in the tank?
Do you have to throw everything else away and start again?

I would at the least, sterilize everything.

Pufferpunk wrote:I would at the least, sterilize everything.

Sound advice. We're boiling or bleaching everything.
Our fish was in a quarantine tank alone, so if it was vibrio we wouldn't know how it would affect other fish.
Vibrio is an organism that is often present in the fish, but doesn't become a pathogen unless the conditions exist for it to become an infection (e.g. wound, stress, bad water quality). In our case there may have been a wound in the mouth area from glass surfing. The fish was undergoing treatment for Cryptocaryon irritans, a protozoan that causes wounds. We dropped the water salinity to treat the Crypto, which may have added even more stress for the new fish. Striped Burrfish are difficult fish to acclimate to the aquarium, in part because they get very stressed by shipping and often have internal parasites (internal worms, bacteria, flukes, Protozoa, and other microbes) from the wild that can become pathogenic when the fish is stressed.

It is possible for bacteria that enter through a wound such as vibrio (maybe) to only affect one fish. Brooklynella, on the other hand, perhaps less so since it makes it's own wounds.
-R

DO NOT BOIL LIVE ROCK!!!
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... ?t=2253493

Pufferpunk wrote:DO NOT BOIL LIVE ROCK!!!
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... ?t=2253493

Nope, no boiling live rock. Bleach dip followed by an extended soak in fresh water dosed with prime, then air dry.
-R