The Puffer Forum

I have been posting on my thread on Aquaria Central and was urged to post here for better advise. I started treating my narrow line dogface on the 4th of July for ich after having him for only 3 days. He was the only fish in my cycled 60 gal tank (cycled for 1.5 years) after removing 3 damsels and exchanging them in for him. A few days before that I purchased a blue tang that ended up with stress-induced ich, and my LFS told me that there was no need to treat the tank because I caught the fish the day the ich came up. I've been told that that was wrong advise. Anyway, the owner took it back and treated it for me and I picked it up in 3 days. It was fine when I returned it to the tank, but died the next morning...he told me the damsels most likely killed it. I was a little po'd because he knew I had the damsels and has been helping me for a few years, but didn't tell me that the damsels could actually cause the other fish to die. I have spent so much money at this LFS for the past few trying to be successful at s.w., but I end up time after time losing everything to ich. I'm getting so discouraged. Note: all water values tested normal.

...So the new puffer ended up with ich in about 3 days after putting him in the tank...and the long painful story starts.

I started treating him first with 1/2 doses of Rid Ich + (3 teaspoons) each day and 6-9 gal water changes. He got better for a few days, but then yesterday his gill closed up on one side. I went and bought a 10 gal set-up, which Pufferpunk has told me was not enough for a puffer, but anyway, I put in all new water and made the s.g. 1.022 to match the show tank. I didn't use Rid Ich, but rather used Pimafix and Melafix as Pufferpunk suggested. His gill opened up immediately and he started eating again. I was so happy and full of hope....

BUT....I got up this morning and he was on the bottom of the q.t. His slime coat was destroyed and his eyes were cloudy. I checked the ammonia and never would have thought in my mind that after only 2 feedings and less than 18 hours, the ammonia would go through the roof.

I added AmQuel, then did a 3 gal. water change in the 10 gal q.t. and as he started getting worse and turning dark, I rushed him back into the show tank. Unfortunately I had just treated the show tank with full strength Rid Ich (6 teaspoons for 60 gal.) because I didn't think I'd be putting him back in there for a while. Maybe that had something to do with it, maybe it didn't, but after about 45 minutes, he again settled to the bottom and seemed worse.

NOW...back to the q.t. we go! I dumped all the water from yesterday and started over fresh. I kept the s.g. at 1.022 because he's been stressed enough and I didn't want to start lowering it yet. I added the Pimafix and the Melafix, and the API Stress Coat + ("repair" dose amount to try and repair his lost slime coat from the ammonia damage). I also added AmQuel to hopefully stop an ammonia spike again.

He perked up a little and swam SLOWLY at the top of the q.t. for a while. He recently settled into the plastic plant bucket I put in there for him to hide in. The cloudiness in his eyes seems slightly better...but he will not eat and his breathing seems stressed a little. He has not eaten for 28 hours now. I am hoping he just need rest and recovery time, and that it's not too late to save him. He's tough and has hung in there, and it's going to crush me if he dies.

Any suggestions at this point? I've spent so much money already, I'm going broke. I'm thinking of just changing the q.t. water every day since the tank is so small and hoping for the best. He almost died twice today and by putting him in the fresh new water, he's lived.

Here are the new photos I posted on Aquaria Central of his q.t.


And here is the cloudiness on his eyes

if you keep loosing everything to ick in your 60g then why havn't you emptied your 60g cleaned it gotten new media and re-cycled the whole tank? You obviously have ick that just thrives in your tank. If I were you and I was spending all this money I would make sure that I new my tank was free from disease.

you might try turning the temp up to speed up the process. Keep doing LARGE water changes every day. I had a puff with ick a while back and I put him in a QT but he didn't get any better. I then put him back into his large tank and just treated him there and he finally got better. In actuallity I don't think the meds helped one bit. I believe it was more of me doing large water changes daily and turning the heat up. I just gave him as much healthy water as I could and his immune system did the rest.

You have got to figure out whats goin on with your 60g though. If every fish you put in there gets ick and dies then you need to do something diff. Also maybe your LFS doesn't have a very healthy water system either and you are getting junk fish from him.

I know what you are saying. I couldn't go into too much detail about the history of my tank. I posted so much info on the other forum. It's too much to go back over, but you can get an idea if you read it and feel like reading a LOT http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/sh ... p?t=158983. What someone suggested on the other forum was the reason I kept getting ich in the 60 gal was that perhaps the damsels I cycled with that lasted many months without any ich or diseases were stressing the new fish I would finally put into the tank and causing them to have "stressed-induced" ich.

My tank was fine after I let it sit for 1.5 years with only a cc starfish and some crabs. The ich was gone because I put in damsels this last Feb. and they never got sick. So at the end of June I decided to move on to the blue tang and add that. Then in 2 days he had ich. The store took it back and treated it for me for 3 days. Then I brought it back home where it seemed to do wonderful for that day and night, but was dieing the next morning. Whether it was a sick fish from the LFS or the damsels intruding and biting at the blue tang...I have no idea.

I agree with you about the puffer not doing good in the smaller tank. He seemed to get worse in there over night, so I'm thinking about staying up for a while and changing out 30% of the 60 gal water and putting him back in there. Yeah, I was making water changes every single day since I've been treating him. What scared me was when his gill closed up and he didn't eat that one day...I then got the q.t. out of desperation. And that then lead to the slime coating being destroyed, etc. I wish now that I had have just gotten the Pimafix and Melafix and put that into the 60 gal. He does do better with those meds being that they are natural. The Rid Ich seems to do nothing and he just sits in his corner. Maybe there is more than just the ich going on too. It could be any parasite.

come on now, if you've done lots of reading aboout SALTWATER ich you should know that itts life cycle is well over 6 weeks long...

the tang had ich from the shop you bought it.. it transfered it to your tank, not the other way round, the fish did not catch ich from your tank, your tank caught ich from the fish...

and the LFS saying it was treated in three days proves they do not know what they are talking about. The tang most probably died from a combination of the ich and the stress of being transported backwards and forwards twice in three times in a few days.. the damsels may have finished him off..

the correct advice, and by far the best way of dealing with ich is to leave your now fishless main tank EMPTY of all fish stocks for 8 weeks.. this will starve the parasite of food and it will die. You may not be able to see it but it will be hiding in your substrate, on your rocks etc....

all it would have taken is one spot to fall off the tang, and it can split and multiply a 1000 times over...

Main tank empty, 8 weeks... feed the tank occasionally to keep the healthy bacteria alive..


Now your puffer... small uncycled tank, puffer, over feeding... massive ammonia problem = cloudy eyes...

If you have a fish in Q tank, you need to change out 50% a day to keep the parameters right as there is no nitrifying bacteria in there... that's why the ammonia spiked so quickly. And only feed once every other day.. your fish will not die of starvation... i promise you..

this will be a long hard road back i'm afraid, and pristine water conditions are going to be key to making this work.

You need to read up on the life cycle of SALTWATER ICH, and on HYPO... a method of dropping the salinity of saltwater tanks to 1.009 exactly and using that to explode the crust (spots) of the ich

It's easy to do, just change out 25% of the water with fresh, matched temperature, buffered to match your tank (8.1-8.4) water twice a day.. slowly pouring the freshwater in over a bit of time.... twice a day eases the shock, rather than one 50% change..

Keep doing this until you reach 1.009.

If you are not used the the idea it sounds bizarre.. marine fish in brackish water, but it is a proven method, and if you google it you'll see its a popular method with med suseptible fish like puffers.

i currently have 4 puffers, both my marine puffers were given to me separately encrusted with ich.. it took 8 weeks to fiix one, and three months to fix the other, with two spells in hypo.. but months on both are beautiful, healthy and the tank is ich free.

ps.. the cloudy eyes is a problem, they may heal on their own with PRISTINE water conditions, it may be a bit of a battle, with varying degrees of success..

I did some talking with friends and thought that maybe the fluoride and other heavy metals they are poisoning our water system with maybe contributing to my fish loss. Yesterday I put all distilled water in the 10 gal tank with fresh meds, pimafix and melafix, and he perked right up and his eye cleared for a little while. He ate for the first time in 2.5 days, so I was pretty happy. But of course the ammonia went back up even though I put in AmQuel, and today he seemed bad again. His slime coat has come back though.

I decided to empty the 60 gal almost down and add fresh distilled water. I have nothing to lose at this point because I simply can't keep up with the 10 gallon fluctuations. I did changed 40 gallons and left the rest to recycle the tank with. I did lower the s.g. gradually in the q.t. and made it down to 1.014 before I did all this, and he just isn't doing well. I matched it in the show tank, but I'm thinking of taking it back up because he did better in the higher salinity.

I know he has something, but it may not be ich. What causes the gill to close up? I've read that it's parasites and that's why I'm using the pimafix. He originally started with one gill and switched over to his left. It has been closed for 2 days and I tried really hard to get him to eat today. He's weakened so much. Is there any liquid nutrients that would give him energy back. Also, should do any more freshwater dips? I'm not sure if that would open his gill or if he's too weak to even handle one now. Is trying to get him in the bucket and massaging it a stupid idea? We have both put up such a fight and I don't want to give up now.

I"d do no further freshwater dips until you're more sure of whats causing the problems. Try placing him back in the main tank and treating with metrodiazole, flubendiazole, or both. They're VERY mild on fish's systems compared to many other meds and take care of a range of parasites.

Thanks Nick. I'm sure now that it is ich. I went back and forth between tanks, and finally his slime coat healed and I could tell the spots were still there (plus his eyes are clouded over now). It was throwing me off because they looked like salt on a pretzel so-to-speak, and didn't look burried in the skin. They just looked like they were floating on the coat.

So here is my lasted post I'm doing here and on Aquaria Central. Thanks for all the help!
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Ok folks. Rocky is still alive!! Man is he a fighter?!?! I dumped most of my old cycled tap water (40 gal, and left 20 gal to cycle the tank) because I figured the poisons such as fluoride and other harsh metals our government is now putting in our water systems, was doing harm to all the fish I have lost. I mean, if fluoride is rat poison it can certainly kill a fish. It causes brain cell loss and cancer in people and animals, and all kinds of other things. We can't swallow toothpaste because it's in there, then why on earth would we drink it in our water and use it for our pets? No more for me or my pets.

So, after doing some research, I found that distilled water is the only safe water (other than buying ocean water from a store or buying expensive filters that filter out fluoride). The water companies get subsidies for putting the powder form fluoride in most of the bottled water, so that's not even guaranteed safe. (It actually costs the government $7,000 a barrel to dispose of it). Once I put Rocky in the decontaminated water, he came alive. He now hovers and swims around slowly. He's still sick with ich no doubt, but he's not at the bottom of the tank with heavy breathing and dieing on me!

I took Pufferpunk's advise on doing 1/2 hour f.w. dips, and also contacted Puffer Queen. Her posts on ich are very good. Here is our post on my situation. She put a link on there to the ich page that you guys should read.

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic88....aspx?Update=1

I am waiting on a response right now from her. The best way to treat the fish is what everyone is saying...take the fish out for 6 weeks. My problem is that I'm running quickly out of $$$$. The q.t. I had to buy was only a 10 gal. and Rocky, being 4" long just can't make it in there because the ammonia spikes within 6-8 hours. I can't keep buying salt and distilled water to do 6 weeks of daily water changes.

So, I figure that if I can't take the fish out of the environment, then maybe I can take the environment away from the fish?? I want to know how long the ich can remain in the water alone with the fish. If I take the live rock and crushed coral out which harvests the ich, and just treat Rocky in the water in the 60 gal, will that be feasible? Will the live rock live with just an air bubbler and no heater or filter? I can put it outside, but it gets up in the 80's here in So Cal right now. I keep my AC set to about 74 in the house. Let me know any suggestions!!

P.S., I'm using the Melafix on him daily (for the 7 day treatment), but now both eyes are clouded over. Will that go away, and can he still see to eat? If it's the ich attacking his eye it probably won't leave until I kill that off.

Duh! I never considered using your main tank for QT. You'll want to use a sand substrate anyway when you're done & just put the LR in the 10g with a pump, to leave it fallow to use later. Then hypo the fish in your main tank. I really do suggest getting yourself an RODI filrtation system. For a fish like that & the crap water you get from your tap, you're gonna need one. I got a nice, used 4-stage system for $50. Look on the Used Equipment forum & your local reef club forum at Reef Central.

great idea... if you have no corals/inverts then you can drop the main tank into hypo...

just throw the live rock into the 10G .. but keep an eye on it, as i did that and ended up nuking the love rock as i forgot to account for evaporation in the 10G (was too busy concentrating on the ich problem in the main tank)... and when i checked the 10G two weeks later it was up to 1.040 .... i probably killed that piece of live rock. Do'h!

You'll also need to feed the live rock every so often so the bacteria don't starve...


let us know how you get on.

Davina wrote:My tank was fine after I let it sit for 1.5 years with only a cc starfish and some crabs. The ich was gone because I put in damsels this last Feb. and they never got sick.

This is too common a mistake, some fish are immune to the ichthyophthirius parasite (ich) and can thrive in a tank with fish who have it and never get it. Its' primary cause is stress, and it can attach itself to all sorts of things within a tank and will spread like the black plague to any additional fish who are added (especially because of the stress caused by transportation) or build stress (caused by a number of things, included aggressive tank mates).

Actually, in SW it's not ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis) but a totally different parasite called crypt (Cryptocaryon irritans) but commonly referred to as Marine or SW Ich.

Pufferpunk wrote:Actually, in SW it's not ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis) but a totally different parasite called crypt (Cryptocaryon irritans) but commonly referred to as Marine or SW Ich.

Well, you've got me on that one. I've never kept a saltwater tank, simply don't care for the fish... and now after reading marine ich lives longer, and is harder to get rid of... won't be getting one anytime soon! My existing responsibilities - due to the amount of stock I have - are more than a part-time job, but I love it and wouldn't give it up for anything in the world.

=)

Yes, marine ich is a real curse! You can't just add salt, heat & large WC to get rid of the stuff.

UPDATE!! Puffer Queen IS amazing. Thank you so much! And thank you too Pufferpunk for your knowledge and for getting me in contact with Puffer Queen. I know people suggested more options to me that may have worked, but being out of money on this project, I did what was suggested as a proven method and used hyposalinity (in my main tank). It was a royal pain to remove all my live rock and do water changes, but it paid off!

Rocky is on his way to a wonderful recovery! His eyes have cleared up and he's been swimming all day. He's become aggressive again over his food like he should be. CHOMP CHOMP!

Believe you me...I literally have tears of joy in my eyes right now!! I think back to the posts I read about fish keepers losing their babies and fill so lucky.

Right now we are going through a tank cycle...fully expected since I removed the live rock. But I think over-all, it's going very well.

Thank you guys for everything! I could not have done it without you. I hope that other people can benefit from this post and learn how to deal with that evil devil named ich. I will post again about Rocky's progress as we near the end of the quarantine cycle.

I'm very happy for you & Rocky! You deserve each other & I hope he lives a long life in your care.