The Puffer Forum

This morning Hootey (smaller of my GSPs) has a spot on his back that looks almost like a bite. how do I tell ich from a bite? also I know it'll be suggested I separate them, but I don't have another tank. what should I do about that?

this is the best pic I could get. see that spot on his back.

That looks like it is probably is a bite, there is an article in the library on melafix http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... l/melafix/ so you should take a look at that

If you can't separate them problems might worsen. Make sure there are a ton of decorations that break the line of sight so there are no open areas and also some places to hide.

I witnessed my bigger puff bite the smaller puff in the white area on the side. I did not take a picture. The wound had 2 very small holes with a speck of red and a medium white ring around the hole. No blood was flowing. We posted here and was advised to treat with melafix. We did and it healed up fine. Our gsp's are in a 55g tank. This happened at feeding time. Since the bite we have been very careful at feeding time.

Another occasion the smaller gsp had what we thought was another bite on her back (no visable holes just a white looking ring) Look here at the pics: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vie ... 27#p110827

This happened when no one was looking so we have no idea what happened. We treated w/ melafix again and all seems well.

No other signs of biting since. The weird thing is they always sleep together. It is one of the risks when you have multiple fish in the same tank. I would like to take one gsp back to the fish store but my husband does not.

It is hard to tell what the mark is on your puffer. It looks bruised in the picture. It does not look like ich to me. Ich is small white spots covering parts of the fishes body.

You might look into getting a tank divider at least temporarily. Sometimes they're hard to find because they can also be sold as a rolled up piece of clear plastic in a long thin box. Should be under $10.

I'll go get malefix and look into the separator. thanks guys