The Puffer Forum

we have just returned from 1 week holiday to find that our porc puffer has a swollen eye ball and socket his other eye is ok he is eating, no real difference in behaviour our tank is 110gallon tank with emeim filter and protein skimmer we do 50% water changes every 2 weeks the nitrite is 0 the nitrate is 50 ammonia 0.25 ph is 8.2 we set up tank over 1 year ago cycled the tank for aprox 5-6 weeks prior to putting tank mates in we have also 2 lion fish fox face rabbit fish a jeuvinile wrasse maroon clown and some live rock they seem to be fine, salinity is 1.020 and temp is 28 degrees the only real difference i can see is some green algae on the rocks thank you for any help forgot our feeding pattern is every couple of days the large fish get 2 fish or the odd mussel or prawn and peas the little ones get brine shrimp and spinach etc

OK - many problems here. Ammonia .25 means that the tank has lost it's cycle somehow. Anything above zero is too high for a porc. The nitrate is a little high, probably because the tank is overstocked, but I can't know for sure unless you tell us the size of all the fish, if they're anywhere near adults, that's probably the culprit. One of the main problems is probably the feeder fish. Porcupine puffers aren't fast enough to catch small marine fish, so there is almost no fish in their wild diet. If the feeders are fresh water fish, they're even more unnatural a diet, and cause immune system problems and vitamin deficiencies, as well as introduce internal parasites, creating further problems. I"d say a combination of these factors has lead to a a weak immune system and an infection, possibly from a scrape on the live rock or from the lion fish spines. Pocupine puffers have a beak designed for primarily snails, claims, mussels, and similar invertebrates, and that needs to make up the bulk of their diet. First, do at least a 50% water change to get rid of the ammonia, and second, start feeding a higher nutrition diet of mostly mussel, clams, and snails, to boost the fish's immune response. Good luck.

thanks for help we will do water change and feed more mussels our wrasse, rabbit and clown are small young fish the lions are now quite large will keep you informed thanks for advice just want the little guy to be better