The Puffer Forum

'ello lets just dive right into this.

This puffer has had a horrible life. Sitting in a fish store for almost a year, no one buying him, and recently to try to get him to sell the fantastic fish manager decided to start making him puff for customers in order to try to get some interest in him. This puffing stressed the bejesus out of him, then she introduced another fish to the tank (he was in a 40 with 4 other fish, then adds this wrasse...) the wrasse had ich and gave it to the whole system.

So the Puffer was not eating, hiding at all times, laying on his stomach all the time, and pretty much totally covered in ich.

I was asked to take the fish free of charge with a few things included in order to try to get this fish into a happier situation. I couldn't refuse because I felt bad for the poor thing. I got him home, put him in a newly set up QT tank (i know, not good, but I had no options) got his SG down to approx 1.009 and kept him at about 82f to try and increase the life cycle of the ich. he was like this for 2 weeks, I got him eating, swimming around and in general being very happy aside from the fact that he really does not like only having 10g of room. after the 2 week mark he had absolutely no signs of ich and was healthy. I syphoned the tank down, gave him yet another water change and slowly raised the SG back up to normal level.

I left for work the other day, he's happy and healthy and shows no ICH. I get home, and he is absolutely just plastered in ich and a very unhappy puffer yet again, barely will eat anything and is mostly just lazing about. So he is back in the exact same situation .

Did I not lower the SG long enough? Far enough? is the higher temp bad? Is there another treatment I could use? I have cured FW ich with success before, but never played with SW ich.

And on a side note, He will eat nothing but rosie minnows. If its not moving he doesn't want it. I know he needs harder things to chew on but I cant get him to munch on anything that's not attracting him with wiggling. Any suggestions there as well?

He will be going into a cycled 75g when he is healthy. The QT tank is bare bottom, I heard ich lives in sand so there was no way i was doing that.

If you made it all the way through this, thanks for reading, please for the love of the poor little puffer, HELP ME!

you did everything right except for two things. 1. you took him out of hyposalinity way to early, if even one cyst survives and you put it back up to normal salinity then you'll go right back to the start, as you experienced. 2. puffers should not be fed fish, he should be fed market shrimp, cockles, mussels, clams, invertebrates of this type, and soak all foods in a vitamin supplement like selcon to boost his immune system while he fights this disease. other than these things i mentioned you are on the right track

How long am I supposed to keep him in Hyposalinity then? Is this a 4 week process? 8 week? My main concern is that he seems kind of stressed when he's in this hyposalinity state.

If he wont eat stuff that doesn't move, how do I feed him market shrimp and such? What vitamin supplement would I use? Would ghost shrimp that swim around in a vitamin supplement for a while be a viable option?

im going through the same thing you are right now, but it was basically in all my tanks! Leave him in the qt for at least 4 weeks. Theres an article in the library that helped me alot as well. I also did freshwater dips which really helped and i had my temp at the 74 to 76 range. I use vita chem for vitamins. Try getting some ghost shrimp and have the shrimp eat some food loaded with the vitamins. It will def work. Oh, and u could add an air stone that will help as well. Good luck!!!

Thanks dab,

I added in an airstone to hopefully help him breath a little easier. I will be dropping the salinity again and keeping him at 1.009 for 4 weeks this time to hopefully get him better. I read through the library, lots of useful information here, glad I found the site.

This site is great, you will find alot of people that know a ton of stuff. Good luck, dealing with ich does get frustrating but if u keep doing what your doing all will work out. Dont forget to do water changes and check your ammonia and nitrite levels. Again, good luck!!!

I am definitely doing a water change at least every third day. that seems to be when nitrates get measurable and such. This is going to cost a fortune in salt. Lucky for me he is only in a 10g.

Do you have any idea as to how long a ghost shrimp will be able to live in salt water? I know the rosies only typically made it approx. 5 minutes in full salt, probably better in lower SG. I will have to see if my pet store will be able to order me ghosties since they dont typically carry them. once the 75 is up and I have a little 10g set up underneath I figure I could order 100 at a time for cheap and just keep them alive as needed. How many should he be eating a day do you think?

ghost shrimp have the nutrition of a cheeto, you can feed him gutloaded ghost shrimp, but i would keep trying dead foods, a lot of people here thought that their puffer would only eat live foods but you just have to keep trying, wiggle the food around, tie it to a string and make it dance, in the long run teaching the puffer to eat dead foods will be easier for you and healthier for the puffer

i understand about the salt, its insane how fast u can go through the stuff. I had a freshwater fiddler crab last weeks in my all salt tanks. If u cant find the ghost shrimp try fiddler crabs and i've done live crayfish and prawns that my lfs had in stock. I agree that even if u gutload the ghost shrimp their isnt much nutritional value in them but if the fish has ich and u can get it to eat something, i think thats good enough, when the puffer gets better you can try to get them off of the live food. Let us know how hes doing!!

Just a morning update.

He is doing well, a lot of the ich is falling off, it has finally cleared off his eyes. He is much more active, but still very very upset with me, it may just be my imagination, but he seems to glare at me more than smile at me.

I can see the Ich just laying on the bottom of the QT tank, lots and lots of white powder/sand stuff, Kind of disturbing really. He refuses to eat though, nothing I wiggle at him, nothing dead, and not even the rosies (yes I know they arent great for him but some sort of food is better than death by starvation.) I will hopefully be picking up some ghost shrimp tonight to try and entice him, otherwise I will possibly try some earthworms when I can find some, its fishing season, shouldnt be difficult.

I found a place around here that I could get some marble crays for cheap. I have been told they breed/clone (no males involved in reproduction, just single organism self cloning) super easy and pretty often. If I keep two tanks of these going and keep raising and feeding them myself, does anyone see an issue with feeding a puffer some healthy home raised crayfish loaded with healthy plants and stuff before being eaten?

crayfish would seem fine to me as long as you know where they come from.. and taht they won't bring anymore bacteria into the tank....

well done with everything you've done so far... gut loaded river shrimp/ghost shrimp are definitely teh awy to go with getting him/her eating.. and just keep trying with other food...

garlic enhanced brine shrimp seem to work well, and may trigger this little ones appetite.

Keep up the water changes and keep the temperature at normal levels, do not raise them. Saltwater ich reacts differently to freshwater, and according to PQ (our resident SW puffer expert) raising the temp does not help the condition, infact it makes it worse as the fish finds it harder to breathe, combined with the fact ich attacks gill first, means the combination of high temperatire and marine ich can be fatal.

Oh, and if the LFS treats it's puffers like this... find another LFS. I woudldn't buy anything wet or dry from a shop like that.

Keep us updated.

crayfish are fine, i fed mine them all the time. Let us know if he eats one!

Thanks t1gerbee.

The crayfish are from a good local breeder person, he takes good care of everything he has and I would just get the initial few from him and start breeding them as a permanent food stock.

I noticed him finding it a bit hard to breath so I already lowered the temperature back down and tossed an airstone in for good measure. He is about 77f now.

It isnt quite a LFS, just a pet store, fish arent their main focus, I go there for my cat food, much cheaper. A lot of the people there are very nice to the fish and very knowledgeable about them, the main issue lies in the "fish manager" who is about to get a size 14 to the back of her head. I will have to pick up some ghosties tonight and try to gutload them and see how long they last in... well I guess its just kind of brackish water now lol.

When you say garlic enhanced brine shrimp... what do you mean? Am I adding garlic somehow or do some companies sell it with garlic mixed into the cube?

garlic is supposed to be great for increasing appetite .. no idea why, you can search for forum for more references, it's always cropping up...

the ones i have are cubes of frozen brineshrimp with added garlic.. i got them to tempt two new clowns who were stubbornly refusing to eat... i had tried mysis, prawn , mussle.. even went out and bought flake! Nothing, but they went for the garlic brine straight away...

I guess DIY garlic is the same, maybe post it though, just to see how others have done it... you can also buy ready made 'garlic extreme' i think it's called... does the same thing, soak food in it for 15 / 20 mins and try it.

May not work, but it's another trick to try...

My porc wouldn't eat anything but live river/ghost shrimp... but managed to get her to try mysis, then brine ... then everthing came slowly after that.

Can s/he see? Does s/he have clear eyes?

Yeah, I know garlic is supposed to entice them, I have never used it so I have no experience with it, but I might have to give that a shot.

He (is there a way to tell porc sexes?) can definitely see, he watches them swim by him, he just doesn't care, you can see the eyes follow them. His eyes are pretty clear, has the typical bit of opalessent sheen to them, but they arent cloudy.

I will definitely have to give some ghost shrimp a shot. What kind of vitamins is suggested to pick up to soak the shrimps food in to gutload them? I have some sinking wafers and some sinking pellets I can soak in it, just need to know the soaking agent.