The Puffer Forum

In regards to your ammonia problem, have you looked around for any hidden or trapped food that might be rotting? I had a spike a couple of months ago in one of my tanks and couldn't figure it out. I moved some decorations and to my surprise found a small pile of rotting food trapped inside one of the decorations. I removed that and my ammonia levels dropped back down to zero.

Also, have you been treating the tank with Prime? It's been my experience that you can sometimes get false ammonia readings after you put Prime in the tank - especially if you had ammonia readings to begin with.

Hope your puffer gets better.

Dan

A fellow I worked with at WWM, John Champlin, was doing some research on that. He worte the Marine Pufferkeeping article stickied in the Marine Puffer Forum here. Goes by the name "Magnus".

I dont really understand why iodine would work for puffers. For people eating fish are a good source of Iodine to prevent thyroid problems. Fish that eat other sea creatures, like puffers, have been found to have very high levels of iodine in their systems.

So unless the fish are malnourished they should have high levels of iodine already in their systems.


....unless, very high levels of iodine help to solve the problem. In people very high levels of iodine cause heart problems and weight loss.

MP

It seems to happen to puffers that aren't fed a varied diet & generally were only fed krill for several years. Seen it countless times... iodine always seemed to help.

Here is an interesting thread on iodine :
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic35849-10-1.aspx

Thanks for the link Kelly, interestign thread. I am sorry I have no studies to back this up. I do knopw John Champlin was starting one. Not sure where it went. I will try to contact him about this. I do know though, that folks were having positive rusults of reversing the lockjaw by dosing w/iodine & force feeding till the puffer could eat again. There are threads on this at WaterWolves too.

Jennie,
Were these exclusively diodon holocanthus?

Were there documented low iodine levels in the tank? What dosage of iodine - mg/kg? How many doses or how long were they treated? Were iodine levels monitored during dosing? What were the nitrate levels?

Were the fish gavaged (tubed) when you say force feeding? If so - what was fed?

Any links or articles are greatly appreciated.

Your best bet is to get your poor puff in a larger aquarium. Do research on how to cycle your new aquarium. You dont want to just fill up the tank and drop him in.. search on here for fishless cycle. That should help.

Kelly, I emailed John Champlin, hopefully he will respond here.

Thanks Jeni!
Hope he will post soon!