The Puffer Forum

hi!
i just bought my gsp a week ago yesterday(most expensive 4 dollar fish I've ever bought) and long story short did everything wrong because the lfs didn't know it was brackish water/not community friendly. i put him in my freshwater/70 degree/6 gallon community tank but fixed that potentially disasterous situation after 20 hours of online education and now he is in a 10 gallon (a 20 gal tank awaits but i don't wanna stress him out with a move right now since he's sick!)with sg 1.005, ph 8, no nitrites (I've been doing ~20% daily water changes) The temp is 82 (we bought an airstone for him) and as you can quite clearly see his appetite is...shocking. He seems active, he's bright green and his belly is pure white. But his fins lead us to believe he has ich. He has coral gravel (we heard that helps maintain the PH) he has a big rock for hiding. We heard that raising the salinity (we bought marine salt) and increasing the temperature would be the best way of helping puffy overcome his ich. But I don't know how to weigh the stress from inc temp/salinity/using meds vs. the danger of ich and of puffy's bottom fin shrinking further. Also, yesterday I caught him stuck to the filter, dark grey in color, but when I tapped it he darted away. He's undergone so many housing changes lately that we don't want to move him unless we absolutely have to. is the 82 degrees 1.005 salinity good enough treatment or should I be taking further steps?
ps. is the darkish ring beneath his eye in the 1st pic an internal parasite?
pss. what kind of bottom cleaning tankmate can i give him that he won't eat or harass? (the ghost shrimp are no more)

There is a good article on treating ich in the library, I can't help you out with that because I've never had to deal with it before *knocks on wood*

There is also an article on melafix and pimafix which could help with repairing his fins, though if you keep him healthy they will grow back on their own as well.

I'm not sure what you're referring to as a darkish ring around his eye... If he had internal parasites, which many puffers do when first bought since they are wild caught, his belly would get big after eating and then shrink soon afterwards and he would look thin.

How big is he? GSPs under 2 inches are alright in a 10 gallon tank but the 20 would be even better.

Also, there aren't any tankmates he could have. There aren't any that can withstand the brackish water and he would probably kill them anyways.

Aww, poor baby! That does look like ich. The artical in the library should help you: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... /hospital/
I can not see the dark circle you speak of. I would keep the puff in the 10g until it feels better.

Wrong info from the fish stores concerning puffers is very common. Happend to me as well.

I hope the tank is cycled.

Really, There are no tank cleaners that you can keep with puffers unless you get very lucky. Like Spock said most would become a meal. Another GSP or aggressive brackish fish might work out in a much bigger tank.

Hope all goes well with the treatments. Also, welcome to the forum.

Have you read the GSP article in the library?
oh and

if you've only just put him into the 10G i'm guess ing it's not cycled. Also if you've raised the SG to 1.005 in less tahn three weeks then you will have killed all your good bacteria....



can you answer any more of the questions above? Ammonia? nitrates?

The only way to stop real problems is to keep up big daily water changes... otherwise your fish will be poisoned by the ammonia that will build up at the beginning of your cycle...

leave the temp, raising it only causing them to breathe harder, and as ich attacks the gills first then the fish will already be having problems breathing...

just keep up pristine water conditions, use melafix for his fins, and raise the salinity again in a weeks time by 0.002... then no more.. he's too young to go any higher...

that should wipe out the ich assuming its freshwater ich... although the ich life cycle is four weeks, most of which is invisible...

good luck

regarding the ammonia and nitrates i don't actually have a method of measuring them and would really like not to have to buy anything else right now...i wasn't expecting to have already spent $300 on the little guy. before my gsp i stuck to tetras and cory catfish in a 6 gallon tank and that was about as adventurous as i got so i had to recently buy EVERYTHING for my gsp to check any water parameters. i thought that since i do 20% to 30% water changes a day they should be under control (ammonia and nitrates). i did read that changing the salt quickly would kill off good bacteria. when i set up the tank i added a plant and some gravel from my old freshwater to introduce bacteria and added some liquid Cycle. and i added more Cycle just yesterday because they say you can't overdose (but i only added 2 capfuls...one dose worth...just in case). so should ammonia and nitrates due to the water changes still be a concern? should i do bigger daily changes? should i still assume my good bacteria has died and is there any way i can fix that? if Cycle isn't a reliable source?
oh, also the lfs i bought him at kept him in local tap water (+conditioning) so that's what i first had him in and the sg was between 1.001 and 1.002, i dont' know how much of a difference that makes except that i might have only raised it 0.003 over the past week rather than 0.005.

If you can't afford to get a test kit right now then you will have to keep doing your daily % Water changes for the next few weeks... as you can't tell where the cycle is without testing the ammonia/nitrites/nitrates

I'm confused as to what your saying about the local fish shop.... they had the puff in freshwater, but when you measured the SG it was 1.001 or 1.002....

If i'm reading that correct then your hydrometer is out.... it should read 0 if its tested on tap water... there is no salt in tap water....

or did I misunderstand?


It's now at 1.005.. right? Either way you raised it by more than 0.002 so it will have at least damaged your good bacteria... it will cycle again, so big daily water changes are essential if you are going to try and get puff through the cycle...


As far as I know the product cycle is useless, it does not contain LIVE bacteria, only dead... it will add to your bioload, and increase your ammonia... which will be detrimental to your puff...

It is advised that you don't use it... just keep up the big water changes, matching the temperature, and salinity (pre mix the salt, never add it directly to the tank)

and avoid over feeding, a cycle will create potentially leathal spikes in ammonia and nitrites, you want to avoid these, and that is only possible by doing water changes.


Let us know how you're getting on... and get a test kit after pay day, if you're going to keep puffs, you need one!

Please try to buy yourself ammonia & nitrite liquid test kits ASAP. They are fairl inexpensive & very important. I mean, you already have a $300 fish in there.

ok, yeah stupidest 'smartest' decision of my life. i figured with daily 30% water changes, the addition of Cycle, and vacumming Puffy's gravel that the water quality would be super duper, especially because water changes are the cure for out of wack ammonia/nitrite/nitrates. but i did ultimately decide better safe than sorry (especially because i haven't researched the nitrate cycle yet and don't really know what im doing) and bought the kits plus melafix plus this "Ich Attack" stuff made 100% organic from natural herbs...anyone know if that's worthless or not? i figured organic=not deadly at the very least, but will wait for a response before i put any in. i probably wouldn't have bought the Ich Attack except i went on my university's scientific database and read an article that walnut extracts supposedly cure ich...so figured this stuff may be worth getting?
but THANK GOODNESS i got those kits...it turns out Puffy's nitrite was between 1.0 and 3.0 mg/L which is classified as stressful. His nitrate was 40 mg/L which were classified as the end of okay, but I think ive read it should be much lower, such as less than 20? and his ammonia was about 6.0 mg/l!!!!! which was the end of danger classification! i feel so stupid not testing earlier but am SO GLAD i didn't wait any longer, as when i came home with the kits he was gray in color. since ive been doing massive water changes has turned bright again with the glowing green dot!
after water changes the final results were: nitrite less than 0.5 mg/l, nitrate is 20 mg/l, and im actually confused about how to read the Ammonia Quick Dip strips by Jungle...it says to dip them for 10 sec and take it out and IMMEDIATELY read and compare to charts...it was ideal (0) when i took it out but then within a minute darkened to between stressful and harmful (0.5 to 1.0 ml/l). so then is it ideal or harmful?
i was wondering if Ammo Lock is worth anything, I was going to put it in but i'm learning to ask before doing things that will later prove me stupider than stupid. i also wanted to get bio spira but at sg of 1.005 would that still be freshwater bacteria im wanting, or should i get the saltwater kind?

Well I have somewhat bad news for you. Its good that you got the test kit but the test strips are quite inaccurate and it would be much better to get liquid tests!

Just keep on doing water changes though and eventually the numbers will even out and become safe.

I don't know about the Bio Spira but I know that recently people have been saying that hasn't been working either because it needs to be refrigerated and LFSs aren't keeping it cold, resulting in it not working.

I'm also not sure about the ich treatment you spoke of. There is an article on treating in ich in the library though that you should check out.

seacowz, how's your puffer? are you following the instructions from these smarts guys from TPF?

much better, thanks for asking!
Puffy has been ecstatically swimming around his tank and looks bright green, with hints of yellow, and the brightest little belly ever. he LOVES water changes, id say they are his third favorite thing right behind earthworms and the airstone. lol, i wish i loved water changes half as much as he does...there's something about lugging gallon upon gallon of water up the stairs, warming them in my bathtub, and then calibrating them to the perfect sg that seems a little less fun than lounging around watching tv, though it is definately worth it to see the end results!
i really do appreciate the input here as well, if i had not been told to keep the temp at 82 degrees i most likely would have brought it up to 86, and Puffy doesn't need to fight for air right now on top of everything else! same with the salt feedback, i did go a little crazy with the instant ocean, trying to make it 'instantly' brackish, but was glad to be told that is a huge no no! although depressed that my bacteria probably perished. im defiantely learning the hard way.
but i did do my homework, and found out the ammonia is supposed to spike for the first 2 weeks, then the nitrites the next 2, and then both the nitrites and nitrates the 5th and 6th weeks...is there anything i can add to the water to minimize these peaks? im willing to do water changes like crazy but even after adding 22 fresh new gallons to his 10 gallon tank (yesterday emptying and replacing 8 gallons, then 5 gallons, then another 5, and today replacing another 4) there is STILL potentially stressful ammounts of ammonia. it doesn't seem humanly possible to get it any lower, so is ammo lock a possibility? is there something i could get that would keep all three elements in check for the entire 6 week cycle? just as a way to keep the little guy alive and as unstressed as possible, as he is still recovering from his ich infestation as well?
oh! and i almost forgot to mention...ich spots entirely gone! but will definately keep temp up for the 4 week period to get it all! (and the 0.002 sg increase)

I've had good luck with using prime to detoxify between daily 75% changes, it detoxifies every major poison and doesn't seem to hinder cycling. Feeding very sparing during this time will keep ammonia more under control. If you can get a nasty, dirty filter cartridge from someone's tank(even a FW tank would be fine at this SG) and adding it to your filter would nearly instantly cycle the tank. If you don't know anybody, you could probably stand around the filter cartridge aisle in your pet store and offer to buy someone a couple 3 packs of their cartridges if they'll just get you their old gross one and give it to you then might actually work... cute pictures of the puffer you want to save will help, especially if the customer is a softy or a girl.

THANK YOU so much for your reply! That was just the answer I needed!
I have a freshwater 6 gallon aquarium with an outrageously nasty and fantastically dirty filter (I definitely thought ahead) standing literally inches from Puffy’s tank, just awaiting discovery. You have no idea how relieved I am! I think I already used up my “I didn’t do my homework because my puffer fish is sick” excuse points in most of my classes!
I will definitely look into getting some prime for future emergencies (knowing me…there will be several).
Thank you thank you thank you. You, and everyone else on here, have been very helpful and are the reason Puffy is still alive!

I'm happy to hear good news from Puffy!!! Agnate told me about Prime stuff to keep ammonia and others poisons low. Do you know a product called Nitrivec (SERA)? Works very fine for me to low nitrites reading when I was fishless cycling... helps a lot. But I really don't know if this german (I guess) stuff is easy to find around there.