The Puffer Forum

I have a 150 gallon tank - been up and running for about 3 years now - all levels are good pH 8.4 - ammonia 0 natrite - 0 nitrate 10ppm (hard to keep that one down) - salinity a little low from the last cycle - which was on Saturday - it is 1.022 - I keep it about 1.023 - I cycle about 15 gallons - this tank has been going good for a long time - I've had my puffer for about 2 years - and all of a sudden tonight when I got home i noticed right away he was on the bottom of the tank his eyes glazed over milky white - and gasping for each breath - I tried to research as much as I could but within 45 mins of me being home he died - When I removed him from the tank he was REAL slimy. I have know idea what killed him and so fast - last night he was just fine - doing his normal excited swimming around and staring at me while I work on the computer -(my tank is next to my computer at home) - I am just trying to understand what could have happened - About 2 weeks ago I introduced a new fish into the tank - a yellow tang - but i havent seen any aggression at all - my puffer is my main display fish - other than him all I have in the tank is 2 blue damsyls a trigger and thats it! - all the other fish have been there for about a year - No other fish are showing any signs of stress -

If you have any ideas of what might have happend - please let me know - I'm rather sad by the loss of E.T.(you can guess why he got that name)

I'm so sorry to hear that I know I just lost 2 f8s in the last week for reason I don't know. I am truly sorry I hope you can figure out what happened

It could be a few things, puffers die much more easily from pathogens that almost any other fish. Did you quarantine the tank (tang, edited by PP) for a month before introduction? Lack of quarantine introducing pathogens is the most common way disease gets into established tanks. Very sorry to hear about your puffer

what kind of puffer was it?

... isn't there a disease that makes fish produce an extra thick slime coat?

Oh, how sad...

What do you mean by: "salinity a little low from the last cycle"? Do you mean water change?

Sounds like some sort of fast-acting bacterial infection. When's the last time he ate? Are you sure he's been acting totally normal?

The following may or may not apply to this situation. It is a list of the things we could think of that could cause sliminess of the skin and death:
Fresh water: Chillodenella, Costia Trichodina, velvet, and ich
Marine: Brooklynella, Benedina (a fluke), Ich, velvet, turbellarian flatworms

In marine systems Brooklynella and Velvet are know for killing fish very quickly (2-3 days). Both often start in the gills.

Other possible causes (again, many off these may not apply).

Water quality: PH extremes, rapid changes in PH, GH, KH, temperature (These can occur with large water changes and with changes in utility tap water)

From tap water: Chlorine, Chloramine, (can occur with a change in use from utility), ammonia (some products break the chlorine ammonia bond but don't neutralize the ammonia), in some areas fish-harmful chemicals are added to water for a short time at certain times in the year.

Poisoning: Window cleaners and other cleaning products, paints and other aerosols where overspray may enter aquarium.

Airborne: Smoke, solvents, paints, and other products that produce fumes that can be picked up by the air pump. (Burnt Teflon from pans is deadly to birds, and perhaps fish also).

Also note that products like Windex may cause a large spike in ammonia burning fish gills and skin but the ammonia may be gone due to the biological filter action by the time the damage to fish is noticed.

Thank you for all your insight - I had a porcupine puffer - I do mean water change - It was only about a 10% change - or 15 gallons to a 150 gallon tank. I checked all my levels the night of the water change (Saturday night) all were as expected and of course when I noticed the problem with the puffer - all my levels are right where they should be - my Nitrate always hovers around 10ppm - everything else 0 with a pH of 8.4 - the salinity was just a little low on that batch after I was all done with the change and I checked my salinity - I noticed it was 1.022 - and I normaly have it at 1.023 - I mix my water using tap in a 20 gallon tub that I put on my padio - I put the water in it - use the declorinator - and let it sit for an hour so the sun can warm it up a little - Its posible that some kind of contaminate could have been introduced at that point. I don't use any of the containers for any other use (the tubs for mixing salt)

My tank is right next to my computer - I didn't notice any real changes in the puffers attitude - so it did happen rather quickly -

thanks for all your insight

The same thing happened to my Porcupine Puffer, he went from fine to dead in less than 24 hours. The unofficial diagnosis was marine velvet. Lesson learned, quarantine all new fish.

My guess is that the tang brought some sort of pathogen (probably velvet) into your system (puffers are extremely sensitive). Velvet is difficult to treat because it's usually too late by the time the fish shows symptoms. The only known effective treatment for marine velvet is copper (must be treated in a quarantine tank as it will kill any inverts/corals/etc in the display tank). Puffers are also extremely sensitive to copper so the levels must be monitored carefully. Seachem makes a product called Cupramine which is a non-chelated copper and can effective at much lower doses.

I would treat the remaining fish in a separate tank and leave the display tank fishless for at least a month.

Ok - its been a week and now I have a visible long stringie substance all in my tank - any idea on what it could be?