The Puffer Forum

Today I did a water change. the last 1/2 gallon I added I forgot to put the dechlorine stuff in. I realised it while pouring the water in the tank so I ran to get the product and put enough to treat 10G (size of the tank). About 1-2 minutes later, the puffers had their spots all bright and they kept swiming together like they want to get out of the tank. Lately they've been chasing each other so it's really unusual that they hang out together and I've never seen their spots so bright.

technicalities:
water treated with Aqua plus and 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per 5G because I am treating for ich.
Ich came from the 3 otos I got with the puffers, the otos all died whithing 5 days.
Before WC nitrates were 10
After WC:
NH3 = 0
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 5
No other fish in the tank, gravel, plastic plant.
Got the puufs on october 19th, tank was fishless cycled before.

I have no idea what is stressing them out like that. I've been treating with aquarium salt for 1 week so they should be used to eat. Can 0.5G of chlorinated water for 1 minute affect them like that? I'm afraid to do another WC because that's what seemed to stress them, but on the other end it sound like the thing to do...
Any help welcome!

I have done as much as 50% WC w/o dechlor. What about the temp?

82oC before and after. I keep it higher for ich. I think the puffers have 1-2 ich spots each... I see small whitish spots, but they haven't changed in size or number or place in 4 days. Maybe not ich? I felt more secure treating for a total of 10 days even if the otos died.

They've calmed down a bit (it's been 30 minutes), they still swing together but are not franticaly trying to go through the glass!

Also, before the WC, one of them didn't look well. He was keeping to the bottom of the tank, not swimming around and lookds a little "swollen". When they started swimming widly, he joined the others so I thought it was just temporary, but now I see he's back to being all too quiet...
I'm worried!

Usually if their color is brighter, they are happier. Dark bellies would be something to worry about. Maybe these guys just haven't experienced many water changes and didn't know what to do. Or maybe they liked it and were just excited.

I seriously doubt it was the unchlorinated water, if you had already dechlorinated the first buckets you put in the tank, that last 1/2 gallon should have been fine (still enough dechlor to take care of it). Many of us just add dechlor to the tank before filling it, if we are filling with a hose instead of a bucket.

You did match the temp of the new water to the tank water though, correct?

Well, now I'm confused! I think it's a vocabulary issue (my first language is french!)... someone in another post said darker spots means stress. and here brighter spots means happy. I'm not sure I get the difference, darker to me means you see the spots more and, well, brighter too! So what happened is that normaly their spots is light and don't contrast much with the rest of their skin. Last night, the spots were very visible and contrated a lot. The bellies were normal color. Happy or not?

yes, I did match the water temperatures when doing the water change.

Well, I hope all this was a fuss about nothing! I'll check them out today see if they look better or not (right now they are still sleepy!)

I think what they meant for dark spots are those on their back. You want white on their tummy. DARK TUMMIES can mean they are stressed, but not always. If their TOPS ARE WHITE, their colours are a little bleached, which can mean they are stressed, but again, not always. Hope that clears it up.

By brighter, we mean the white is whiter, the greens are greener, more vibrant. They can brighten up their colors when showing off for a potential mate, for example, when they want to be noticed.

By darker, more of a dull, mottled color, like they are stressed out and trying to blend in with their environment so they aren't noticed as easily. If you look in my gallery, under the puffer photos, there's a photo of a female dwarf in her "hunting colors". I consider that more of a "stressed" color pattern, but she was really just trying to blend in and sneak up on some shrimp. Definately not her normal, happy coloration, but it wasn't a bad thing either.

Does that make sense?

Yep, makes sense. Well, yesterday they were pretty much like your female picture. It's also the color they get when they chase each other around. One of them as the same coloration as you male most of the time (the bigger one) and the other 2 have a lot lighter spots but I'd think it's because they are too young, like you suggested.
So I have no idea what stressed them yesterday, but they has a good day, they were back to their normal selves. I've been treating with gel-tek for 3 days (although yesterday only 2 ate worms, they were too stressed to notice them!). They have been putting some weight on since, can it be that quick to get rid of IPs? How long should I treat?

Seeing your pictures Myaj, I see what you mean when you say my puffers look skinny! I think this will resolve itself quickly enough! They are already rounder.

Thank you so much all of you for your help!! I know I'm asking a lot of questions, but since I'm new to fish I want to make sure they are all right!

If they do have parasites, they certainly can look better in just a few days. IME, they start purging dead worms within 24 hours of dosing. If the worms aren't in there eating their food for them, they can look better pretty fast. Usually they'll have a nice growth spurt as well.

Make sure you do a water change too in the immediate days after treating, to get rid of the worms they might have purged.

As far as how long to do it.. generally I only treat them with one feeding, but I do the metronidazole/levimasole route instead of Geltek, I'm not sure if they are different from each other.

Actually Mareva, I just looked at my gallery.

The photo of the female that is in there is NOT the "hunting colors" one, that's normal coloration for a female. I must have accidently deleted the hunting colors one (its quite a bit different). And its stored on my broken computer, so I can't show it to you, unfortunately.

Aha! I actually had it on my photobucket account yet.. here's one with flash so you can see it better and the other is without flash so you can see how well she blended in:





Compared to her "normal" colors:


Same fish, different "moods".

Now there's a couple of chubby DPs!

lol, they sure a fatter than mine!
Well, I guess then that my puffers were probably happy about the WC!?! They have never looked like your hunting puffer yet.

Gel-tek says to treat for 3 days. So I'll stop now since it's been 3 days that I've been treating them, and if I see they don't put more weight on, 'll do another treatment. Does that sounds like a good plan?

Thanks again!

That's usually what I do with deworming. If I don't see them holding weight, I re-treat several weeks later.

Yes, my dwarves were very chubby when I had them. But they had a heavily planted 33xl tank stuffed full of snails and red cherry shrimp to hunt, and hunt they did! They rarely showed any interest at all in regular food, live black worms was the only thing I could offer them that they actually liked.

Well, I'm going to call it the WC danse!!
I did a WC because of the deworming and they reacted quite similar, getting all bright color and swiming together! They were not franctic though! I realised that because this is the QT there's not a lot of gravel and only plastic plants so everything moves around when I do a Wc... Maybe it's just that they like having a "new" environment to explore!

My snails in the breeding tank made babies! Soon my puffers will get their crunchy snack! Maybe I'll keep the snails in the breeding tank so I can still get them to eat bloodworms if I need to get medicine into them!