The Puffer Forum

pH - 7.8
Ammonia - unk
Nitrite - 0 or < 0.5ppm
Nitrates - << 20ppm
Hardness - 150
Chlorine - 0ppm
Alkalinity - 180
Tank Size - 10 US gallons
Inmates - One South American Puffer, One dwarf puffer, about 5 surviving ghost shrimp

I feed the inhabitants usually once or twice a day (more often twice) on a diet that has been strictly blood worms (I plan to introduce snails shortly). I change the water on average twice a week between 30% and 50%. I use top fin water conditioner when making water changes and have Prime on hand in case the above parameters go out of the safe range.

The tank has been up for about 4 weeks and was cycled with 11 mickey mouse platys for about 10 days before adding a couple dwarf puffers and I added the SA puffer about a week ago.


Now, my problem is that I think the SA puffer has gotten Ich and I want to know how to treat it. I saw an article on here about raising the temperature to over 80degrees (86) and adding a tablespoon of salt for every five gallons. My question is what kind of salt can I add? Can I use table salt or does it have to be marine salt? Is iodized salt ok? Also, can I have my filter running or will it somehow impact the treatment by removing the salt? I use a hang over board whisper power filter 10 with activated carbon bio-bag filters. Most importantly, will I kill the dwarf puffer if I treat in this method?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Any kind of salt will do, including table salt. No, the treatment shouldn't kill the DP, nor will it affect your filter.

It it extremely common for SAPs to come up with ich or velvet, after transport. They just seem to stress easier than others. Get your heat up to 86F & do large waater changes every other day, cleaning the substrate.

I'd be considering an upograde to about 20g for the 2 puffers. SAPs are big swimmers & can easily be bitten by the much more aggressive DP. Mine had bites from them. Heavy decor should help too.

With the raised temperatures, you might want to consider adding an airstone as well to get more oxygen in the water, and keep an eye on the fish, if they start gasping for air. Good luck!

Thanks a lot guys. I've started them on the salt/heat cycle and am using a 4 inch air stone which seems to be providing enough air. The DP is a female and seems to be a pretty timid but also very intelligent and careful. She has never snipped at the SAP unless it snipped towards her first. I think she knows that she's toast if she messes with him.

I was wondering, what do the SAP and DP look like when they are stressed (i.e. what colors and patterns?)

Thanks!

When my SAP's didn't feel well they would get dark gray or black patches on their sides and belly, and fade their colors out really pale.

DP's don't really get stressed often, hehe.. no seriously, they do the same thing, fade their colors so they blend in, dark bellies, etc.

Really? OK, that;s good news. My DP seemed to be very yellow when I first got her and I liked how that looked. Now she seems more brown than yellow and I thought maybe that was a bad sign. I feel really bad keeping these fish sometimes cause it almost seems like she swims up to the tank glass trying to get my attention so that I'll fix whatever her problem is. And I have no idea what it is. Currently, I'd expect it was erratic behavior from the SAP..which I can't do much about for the time being and don't have another tank for her =(

If you check out the article in the library about sexing dwarf puffers, you'll get some examples of healthy coloration in males and females.

Hey, I am curious as to why the treatment with salt and elevated temperatures supposedly works? I understand the temperature part in that it supposedly shortens the life span of the parasite in between hosts, but what does the salt do? And wouldn't it make more sense to take the animals out of the tank and elevate the temperature to well about 80 degrees for a few days and then put the fish back (assuming there is another tank to put them in). Granted, they would still likely carry the parasite, but at least then there won't be any residual parasites hanging around in the water, right? I mean, if you had three tanks you could simply cycle the fish to a new tank everyday that is setup with the tbsp of salt and a temperature of 86 degrees. It's not something everyone could do since not everyone has three tanks, but doesn't the idea make sense? This would ensure a parasite free tank for the fish every day and then after all the parasites eventually fall of the fish there wouldn't be a reasonable chance that he'd be reinfected. Couldn't this shorten the treatment time down to less than 4 weeks and relieve the fish's stress a little more quickly?

The parasites die when they leave the cysts on the fish and enter salted water, due to osmotic shock. When they formed the cyst, there was no salt. When they pop out into the salted water, they shrivel and die. This is why I'm against salting water as a general habit, as it can cause resistant strains to develop.

OK. I was wondering if I should be observing a steady decline in the number of cysts forming on the pufferfish. It seems that last night his skin exploded into a mass outbreak since he didn't look nearly as coated in the spots when I went to bed. Is this unexpected?

No, the parasites can be in the skin invisibly small at first, then bloom to a full sized cyst(which varies quite a bit spot to spot but doesn't seem to change once they're visible), gestate, and fall off.