The Puffer Forum

I've noticed recently that Puffy is knocking his head against the rocks, shells, and walls of his tank..It seems specifically as if he's trying to bring hard objects into contact with the right side of his face under his eye. Almost like an itch that needs to be scratched. Does anyone know what could be causing this? It seems to have gotten worse within the last 2 days. Today I added some Melafix in case it was a sore of sorts, and vacuumed his gravel as well as performing a 50% water change. The only thing new I've added to his tank in the past week is the addition of a large sea shell which I rinsed off first and which Puffy has been banging his head on, as well as the other decor. I've been feeding him snails, shrimp, crickets (sparingly), and earthworms.

ph=8, ammonia=slightly over 0 (less than 0.5), nitrite=0, nitrate=20ppm, salinity=1.005
tank size=10 gal, no tank buddies except an (as yet) uneaten ghost shrimp
the tank has only been running for 2 weeks now, but was cycled by using an old dirty filter.

Do large water changes daily until ammonia is zero all the time, you're almost there, and ammonia will definately irritate his scaleless skin. He possibly has an external parasite of some sort, if not ich, there are other kinds, "General Cure" from API would work for a fluke or other worm type external parasite simply used according to the package directions.

i bought some general cure and put it in Puffy's tank but i had a question about the instructions. it says to wait 48 hours, then redose, and then after another 48 hours do a 25% water change. ive been doing water changes almost daily to keep down ammonia levels...so would it be safe then (since im assuming the effective concentration of meds is dependent on not changing water and dilluting it) to not do water changes for 4 days and just put in prime to keep levels from becoming toxic? or could i wait the 48 hours and then do a water change before redosing?

If you replace the half of the medicine you take out with each water change, you'll be OK, though it will waste more medicine.