The Puffer Forum

My GSP has ich. Its pretty obvious that he contracted it from that hell hole called wall mart. Anyway I purchased some salt water ich remover and started the treatment for it. It requires 5 days of strait treetment (its called life gaurd). Im beginning to have second thoughts on this stuff. First and most importantly because my GSP started acting wierd once I started using it. He will run and hide and turn very dark when any of my family comes into the room, versus him always running out to greet us just days before I started the med. Also I'm not sure that he has saltwater ich or freshwater. He came from a FW tank at the LWMHH and this ich was probably picked up there.

My questions are this, will treating freshwater ich with sw ich medicine be a bad thing? Second it told me to remove my carbon bio filter which makes me nervous consider its for 5 days!

Right before I put the meds in the water levels were fine PH at 7.8-8.0 (Substrate works nicley) 10 Nitrates 10 nitrites 0 (Or vice versa The good one was at 10... sry Im at work and dont have the info infront of me) and his ammonia was at 0. This was all tested with a liquid test kit so its pretty accurate.

He eats so that makes me feel good and I definatly am going to check the parameters when I get home, but I was hoping one of you had exp with this and could help out.

Thanks!

Here is an article about treating saltwater ich from the library:
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... tal/swich/
Do you have your gsp in saltwater? What is the sg?
I don't know too much saltwater ich but I do know if you have your fish in saltwater then freshwater ich will not survive and vice versa. Hope this helps. I'm sure that someone with more experience will chime in soon.

Ok, so he's still in freshwater right? Or have you started the raise it to brackish?

What is the current salinity of your water?


Puffers are VERY sensitive to meds, and the meds either have to be used with extreme caution or not used at all.

The best way of removing ich is to either raise or lower the salinity to the point that the parasite can no longer survive....

If you have him in a freshwater tank (with no freshwater tankmates)then slowly raise the salinity by 0.002 a week... that will kill off the ich...

If you raise it above 0.002 a week you will kill all the good bacteria in your tank, and create more problems for yourself..

so in the mean time, keep the parameter impeccable, feed a good, healthy varied diet and slowly raise the salinity...

If he's in salt, you'll have to lower the salinity to 1.009... but it's more complicated than that.


Need to know answers to all the questions in red to work out exact course of action to take...

The problem I have is that I dont have a hydrometer that can measure as low as I have the salinity. The salinity should be at 1.002 because I followed the instructions here and am slowly raising his salinty.

Im looking for a refractometer but I cant find one here and Im loath to use my CC online. I might just have to.

Either way the salinity should be no higher than say 1.003 since I added very little sea salt.

What Im wondering is since he probably contracted it in fresh water should I treat it as fresh water even though Im trying to change the water to brackish, or should I just feed him well treat him well and keep raising the salinity?
Thanks for the feedback guys Im new to puffers and brackish water so Imm trying to suck up as much knowledge as possible.

You puffer has FW ich. Please do a HUGE WC & run fresh carbon on your tank to remove the meds. You do not need meds to treat this & SW whitespot (Cryptacaryn sp?) is a totally different parasite than ich.

Read the article on Treating Ich in our Library.

just keep up the water changes, buy a hydrometer ASAP and raise the salinity. That will be enough to wipe out the ich.

Thanks ALL!!! Will do my Puffer senses were going wild!

Well, I followed all your instructions and it only got bigger!

Im pretty sure that it is not Ich now. The white fuzzy sot is almost covering his entire rear dorsal fin (The upper fin on his lower back).

Im wondering if this is the SW white spot that Pufferpunk wrote about. My Params last time I checked two days ago, read well Ph ~8, amonia at .~025-0 nitrites 0, nitrates 5 SG 1.002.

I am trying to get a picture of it, but the Camera I have is not nearly good enough, so Im going to try and borrow a better one and post some pics.

Either way, it looks like a fungus to me, and its white and its pretty large now.

Any help would be apreciated. Thanks!

It's HIGHLY unlikely that it will be any sort of SW disease. The amount of salt you have in your water is extremely minimal, and you should consider any tank with a salinity less than about 1.015 as freshwater. If it looks like a fungus/infection (which is quite possible if he was in poor water conditions and there were a lot of other puffers with him at the store), then the easiest and safest way to treat it is by using a combination of Melafix and Pimafix. They are a natural oil (I believe Melafix is Tea Tree oil), so the puffers aren't adversely affected by this treatment. Also, pick up some Prime water condition, as it helps to detoxify the water (such as the small reading of ammonia, even though your tank appears to be cycled well enough). You don't need to use Prime all the time, but it is significantly better than standard water conditioners and is well worth the additional (minor) cost.

If looks fuzzy, then it's most likely a fungus of some sort or a type of fin rot. I'd do a 50-75% water change and immediately start treating with Melafix and Pimafix (which should be readily available and isn't all that expensive, especially since it lasts for quite a while). Even if it isn't fungus/rot, using those two won't bother the puffers, as they aren't really a medication, more so an herbal remedy. Also, keep checking here for some more info, as someone else might know exactly what it is.

Is his appetite still good, and does he still have a white belly? Pictures (like you mention) will definitely help deduce what exactly it is, but I agree that it sounds a lot like a fungus of sorts. Hope he gets better!

Thanks Agnate. Well his apetite is still fine, althought he wont eat snails anymore, he only eats krill, which he hated before and he only eats it for a long time If I hold it. Hes very picky wont eat bloodworms or plankton but he will nip at ghost shrimp (Which my wife "rescued" and put in her goldfish tank...)

But I digress, his little tummy goes to white to dark to somewhere inbetween. I would say most of the time he has a darker belly with some white showing.

I have some Prime, since PP recomended it. And I'll check my local Petsmart to see if they have some Mela and Primafix.

I"d try to physically remove the white stuff if reasonable to do so, I've had plenty of betta that get a rot like that, and unless I manually remove it, it never seems to stop spreading.

Yeah, the fungus will only get worse unless you treat it, unfortunately. You should be able to find them (and they aren't all that expensive, since you don't need to use a lot of it). One trick for getting them to like certain foods is to soak it in liquid garlic (which you can get from a pet store or food store, just make sure it's liquid). The garlic makes them go crazy for it. Also, try picking up some seafood from a local grocery store. I found some "sea food medley" for about $4-5, and it has raw pieces of octopus, clam, scallop, shrimp, oysters, and squid! My puffers love it, and since they don't eat *that* much, it will last quite a while, and I can see which ones they like the most! Then again, my puffers aren't picky at all, but it takes them a while to identify new things as food, but once they taste it, they devour it, heehee!

One of my two Ceylons is so inquisitive that he nibbles on any new object in the tank, which means he probably won't do so well with corals in the future, haha!

Also, he might become less picky once the fungus goes away, as he'll feel a little less stressed/uncomfortable.

I have heard of the garlic deal and they have some at my LPM but I didnt know if I should get it or not. I personnaly would rather get live food for him, since it exercises him as well as feeds him.

I will try removing it from him bodily and then keep treating him with the primafix and melafix. Hopefully that works.

Thanks for the advise and I'll key you in on the results.

How's the puffer today? Did you get the meds?