BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick... PICS ADDED

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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Read this before posting!!

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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t1gerbee
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BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick... PICS ADDED

Post by t1gerbee »

I have a bacterial infection that is working its way through my FOWLR tank...

I've had an outbreak of whitespot (intro'd through live rock whish i was assured had been cured and fish free
for over 8 weeks!!!!)

and where as the only other time i've had whitespot i removed the rock, hypo'd tank + contents with great success..

i decided (stupidly) to try the 'reefer' way of just working really hard on the water quality and vitamin soaking all food etc.. in the hope that the fish would rebuild their own immune system and fight it off themselves...


Well that seems to have failed, and i now have a really nasty bacterial infection as well...

It is a 4 x 2 x 2 tank, three puffers Tetraodon nigroviridis, (2 inches) Tetraodon fluviatilis (4 inches) and a small (4 ish inch) Arothron hispidus, stars... (who will be upgraded when the time comes)

I also have a banner and addis butterfly, and a drawf angel

Bacterial infection hit Tetraodon nigroviridis and Tetraodon fluviatilis first, causing patches of their skin to fall off and become infected... so i quarentined them and treated with Bactocide. This seems to have halted the progression, but i've only been treating for a few days so i do not know how well it is working...

Today i came home and saw not only had the whitespot still not begun to improve, but my Arothron hispidus, stars is now missing a patch of skin, and his eye has clouded over, and my addis (!!!!!!!) has pop eye of some description..

Enough with the not treating and all that, i've pulled out all the live rock and put it into the (cleaned) quarentine tank, i'll put the two puffers that were in the Q tank back in the main tank and am dropping the whole 4 x 2 x 2 into hypo...

i'll do 30% daily water changes to keep on top of the cycle and clear the whitespot....

BUT, i need a really good med for sorting this bacterial infection, and have no experience of it. I only used bactocide as it was recommended by LFS some time ago, but this is a big problem, and i fear i'm gonna lose my first fish in about 8 months... and will do anything to avoid it...

any advice appreciated, please remember i have puffers who are very sensitive to copper...

please help me, i can't bear this... :(
Last edited by t1gerbee on Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
1 x 90G Juv stars and stripes puffer, Ceylon Puffer + GSP + 2 black clowns
1 x 30G LPS Reef
1 x 30G 1 x Blind goldfish :-)
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t1gerbee
Fahaka Puffer
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My Puffers: 1 x Ceylon + 1 x GSP + 1 x stars and stripes (juv) -Marine
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1 x Oscar-Tropical
3 x Convicts-Tropical
1 x Map Turtle-tropical
2 x Plecs-Tropical
2 x goldfish
Location: london

Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by t1gerbee »

on the plus side, all puffers eating well... king prawn all round pre-soaked in vitamins... as are the rest....


ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20-40, ph 8.2, temp 25c, salinity 1.023 and dropping...
1 x 90G Juv stars and stripes puffer, Ceylon Puffer + GSP + 2 black clowns
1 x 30G LPS Reef
1 x 30G 1 x Blind goldfish :-)
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edmlfc1
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by edmlfc1 »

Melafix makes a marine version. I've never tried it but it's worth a shot. Sorry your having so many problems. Hope it get's better soon.
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by Pufferpunk »

Melafix reduces O2, so be sure to add an airstone & turn off the skimmer or it will bubble over. Expect a lot of sudz!
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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Tender
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by Tender »

Hi!
I`m pretty new when it comes to puffers. (I have had a suvattii for some months). But I`m somewhat experienced when it comes to fish-keeping and in particular Loaches. Loaches have a major problem when it comes to secondary bacterial infections, so I know what you`re going through. There is a really good antibiotic called Maracyn. Maracyn 1 treats Gram-Positive bacteria (not so common in fish) and Maracyn 2 treats Gram-negative (very common in fish). These medications have been highly sucsessful in treating secondary bacterial infections caused by "skinny disease" in Loaches, something which was quite difficult in the past. The good thing about Maracyn is that it is filter-safe, and does not cause problems to the Nitryfying bacteria. Also the product targets sinlge bacteria-types, and is not a "combo"-product which promises to cure all sorts of bacterial infections. Something which is not possible. Maracyn is also ment for marine tanks. Maybe it`s worth a shot?

Kind regards
Marius
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t1gerbee
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Location: london

Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by t1gerbee »

Well all still with me this morning, keeping the tank lights off so haven't had a good look at eyes/fins/skin etc.. was just pleased that everyone was still alive..

just bought two lots of Myxazin and am going to start treatment tonight with that...

and keep on dropping into hypo, and topping up meds as go along...


thanks for the tips marius... been looking into it... trying to source some.

totally unnerving!
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Tender
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by Tender »

Hi again!
If you decide to try Maracyn this can be purchased from Petco.com.

Kind regards
Marius
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by Corvus »

Any chances for pictures?
Bacterial skin infections typically show significant growth and often reddish colors.
Maybe protozoan parasites have to be considered, too.
I agree with the recommendation of Maracyn by Tender in the case of bacteria.
Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a fish a man, and he'll eat for weeks.
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t1gerbee
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Location: london

Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by t1gerbee »

have the camera at home on thursday so will try and get some shots then...

no growths, just the skin flaking off, and leaving white patches underneath with some red/blood areas...

Lost my addis butterfly last night... gutted.

Stars not looking good, very laboured breathing. Other two puffs look better, swimming, white bellies, but with large patches of skin missing...

Meds in, salinity now at 1.015 .. 30% WC last night before adding meds...

powerheads pointing at surface... skimmer still on, bad for meds but leathal without..

As i'm UK based, not sure I can get the meds you suggest. :(
1 x 90G Juv stars and stripes puffer, Ceylon Puffer + GSP + 2 black clowns
1 x 30G LPS Reef
1 x 30G 1 x Blind goldfish :-)
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t1gerbee
Fahaka Puffer
Posts: 831
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:10 am
My Puffers: 1 x Ceylon + 1 x GSP + 1 x stars and stripes (juv) -Marine
(Non puffs-)
4 x clowns
1 x Oscar-Tropical
3 x Convicts-Tropical
1 x Map Turtle-tropical
2 x Plecs-Tropical
2 x goldfish
Location: london

Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by t1gerbee »

well i've lost no more fish, but not much of an improvement... down in hypo now, stars ate some prawn last night, but still sitting under a rock 90% of the time breathing hard.

Other butterfly looking really ropey, just hoping the meds and hypo have killed the bad bacteria and that now it is just a slow recovery process.

Fins crossed. :(
1 x 90G Juv stars and stripes puffer, Ceylon Puffer + GSP + 2 black clowns
1 x 30G LPS Reef
1 x 30G 1 x Blind goldfish :-)
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edmlfc1
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by edmlfc1 »

We have all our fins crossed over here. :(
Hope they all get better soon.
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by recombinantrider »

All fins and fingers crossed for you. Hope the problem resolves soon :(
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t1gerbee
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3 x Convicts-Tropical
1 x Map Turtle-tropical
2 x Plecs-Tropical
2 x goldfish
Location: london

Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick...

Post by t1gerbee »

pictures... rather depressing i'm afraid..
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Image

as you can see ceylon is very bad, others have varying degrees of the same problem...

i'm keep convincing myself that ceyon is on the way out, i'm down in hypo now, and have been treating the whole tank with meds for 6 days now, but the condition is worse than at the beginning...

During the 'day' cceylon is balled up onder a rock, black as death, and wont move... however at 'night' she gets up and swims about, belly whiter than white... ! I managed to get her to eat a little prawn last night whilst in the net...

any advice welcome, but i'm guessing hypo is my best shot here... cant see how a bacteria can surviive 1.009 anymore than a parasite can... ?

:( :cry:
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick... PICS ADDED

Post by Nick »

Bacteria can often acclimate to some extent... depends on what the infection is.
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Re: BIG PROBLEMS... all puffers sick... PICS ADDED

Post by Agnate »

My fins are all crossed! I hope this turns into a speedy recovery!
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