The Puffer Forum

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...

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...

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.

Melafix reduces O2, so be sure to add an airstone & turn off the skimmer or it will bubble over. Expect a lot of sudz!

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

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!

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

Kind regards
Marius

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.

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.

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.

We have all our fins crossed over here.
Hope they all get better soon.

All fins and fingers crossed for you. Hope the problem resolves soon

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



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... ?

Bacteria can often acclimate to some extent... depends on what the infection is.

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