The Puffer Forum

I need to know what to look for if I suspect that one of my puffers has velvet. One of my suvattii has died tonight and it was behaving really strangely before it died. I didn't notice anything because to be honest, they've been courting (prelude to mating) all week.

I've read a few bits and pieces on velvet and luckily I actually have something for it already in the house, and I've turned up the heat (don't have any salt), and done a dosage of treatment. Some of the symptoms sound like velvet and other things don't add up, so I'm not certain what's going on here. But I need to know more because I've read about how contagious it is and I need to make sure my other tanks don't have it.

Also, there are snails in some of my other tanks, if they need to be treated, what should I do with the snails? I mean, I'm afraid to just move them to another tank because, could they not be affected too?

I'm really stressing right now from losing my suvattii and I've been busy all day and I'm drained, and now to have to deal with this ....!!!

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I don't know much about velvet, but according to this site http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/velvet.htm you are doing the right things in raising the temperature and wanting to add salt. The article says something about treating with a copper-based medicine but I wouldn't proceed with anything like that until you hear from one of the gurus.

I have never heard of fw fish getting Velvet. I thought it was only a saltwater disease. If it is velvet you will be able to see a gold dusty color all over the puffer. The only cure I know of is copper.

Just read that link. I honestly did not know fw fish could get velvet!

Puffers are very sensitive to copper treatments though and if dosed have to be monitored very very carefully.

yunachin wrote:Puffers are very sensitive to copper treatments though and if dosed have to be monitored very very carefully.

Just what I was going to say. be very careful.
can you get pictures?

Sorry to hear about your loss too

Here's some information about velvet.

Well now I'm not sure it's velvet. I thought velvet needed bright light to do it's thing, and the tank in question does not have it's own light source. It gets some natural light in the morning from across the room, then about 3.30pm I turn the lights on to an aquarium across the room from the suvattii tank, so I'm confused if it is velvet about that part. The other thing is that my puffer does not look like the picture that was on that website link. It doesn't look like it's got dust on it.
The puffer that died did act like it had something that it was trying to rub off. But the weird part is that the remaining puffers look basically fine. The only thing I am concerned with now, is that they've not eaten anything for nearly a week, and I know they can't continue like that. So the loss of appetite is a symptom of something. I looked at them to see if they had whitespot, and while one of them did have a few specks of what looked like white (they have a sandy substrate, so it's not always easy to determine if it's sand or whitespot), they aren't speckled like my SAP's become when they've had whitespot in the past.
I've got the thermometer turned up, so that in itself should kill either parasite, whether it's whitespot or velvet, from what I've read, neither of them can live in high temperatures. I've put an airstone in with the remaining suvattii because I know the higher temps make it difficult to breathe. They aren't breathing heavy like they were on Saturday night.
Thing is, if my suvattii have ANY sort of parasite, then theoretically it should have been passed to some of my other tanks from the vacuum that I use everyday on each of the tanks. I didn't know there was an issue, so naturally I just went from tank to tank with it. I've been keeping a VERY close eye on all my other tanks, because I DO NOT want anything to happen to anymore of my puffers.

Question though: Someone told me that their puffer looks like they are shedding their skin from time to time. They said it goes through that every few months and then clears up and is fine. Has anyone else seen this on their puffers? Because I think I've seen my suvattii looking like that in the past, before I moved them to their bigger tank, and when my friend said that theirs looked like that from time to time, I began to wonder if that's not normal. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has had that problem?

I don't think that the skin-shedding think is normal.

If you ever have to treat velvet, I've heard that quinine sulfide is great. It's the only med that I've ever heard of actually working. But you have to start treatment right away, and it's apparently hard to get ahold of. I would try and get some if you can, since the rest of the tank is surely infected, too.

Skin shedding is NOT normal.

Velvet looks like a gold dusting on the fish, its pretty obviously velvet if your fish has it (it stands out).

Parasites could be a possibility, depending on your quarantine procedures.

More than likely the "courting" got a little rough and someone got hurt. What exactly was the fish doing that was "odd"? What are your water parameters?

I don't think it was velvet. My other 2 suvattii are fine, no sign of gold dusting and they aren't acting like the other one -- however, they still aren't eating though. I put food in the tank and they look like they are interested, but they don't eat.
I don't think it's whitespot and I don't think it's velvet, but I'm not sure what to think now. Thing is, I've got issues with another puffer -- I will make another post on that one.

The water parameters are just as they always are, nitrite 0, ammonia 0, with a slightly high nitrate 20 (I've got it coming out of the tap at 40ppm), pH 7.5 again, it's out of the tap high

I'm really down about all of this!

I'm happy to report that my 2 remaining suvattii are still alive and appear to be doing much better. When I was feeding all my puffers today, I decided yet again to try and see if the suvattii would take food. At first, they both ignored it, but then the smallest one (the one that came from Rocker) grabbed up a piece of shrimp and ate it!! I was so happy to see that. That means they are feeling better. Now I admit that I haven't seen the other one eating yet, but I've been talking to my friend who works at an LFS and knows much more about these things than I do, and he reminded me that lurkers, in the wild, would not eat every day, and that they can go without food for much longer than we think they can. So I don't think things are as bad as I had thought they were.

This has not been a good month at all for me. I've lost one suvattii, one female Congo and one of my big Atlantic mudskippers (I actually bought another of those today to replace the one that escaped and died). So maybe things are looking up. I can't change what happened, all I can do is learn from it and hope that I won't lose any more puffers (at least not for a very long time).

So I'm trying to look up and go forward, and also trying to take the best care I can of the puffers I still have.

Sorry about all the fish you lost. That's sad.