The Puffer Forum

I've got a SAP in a fully cycled 55g tank which is currently light/medium planted (the plants are mostly young and growing), airstone, caves, and an Eheim canister filter.

temp 82 (to speed the ich life cycle)
pH 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20ppm

I also have 6 neon tetras, 5 zebra danios, a rubber lip pleco, some ghost shrimp, pond snails, and a blue mystery snail in the tank.

Anyhow, my puffer has had ich spots on him for a little over two weeks now, and I'm having trouble clearing it up.
After reading tons of articles (yes I read the ich treatment article) and posts on this site about ich and assorted illnesses, I used Pimafix and Melafix. When I'd used up both bottles, and the ich was still there, I switched to Kordon Ich Attack. I've used that for 9 days now, and he's still got ich.
I've done 25% water changes at the end of each week, and I treat the new water with a dechlorinator.

My puffer is still quite active, and I see him hunting the pond snails in the tank regularly. I also offer frozen bloodworms with garlic, and frozen shrimp with garlic on alternating days. His teeth aren't excessively long, and he seems to remain pleasantly plump so I'm sure he's eating enough.

I've only had him for about a month. I'm sure the whole stress of moving is what brought on the breakout.

Ok, so does anyone have any recommendations for further treatment? I don't want something that'll harm any of the creatures or plants in the tank, obviously...

Or should I just stop dosing the water, and do regular changes, and hope for the best?

This medication isn't cheap, and I don't want to go buy more, if it's not gonna clear the spots.

I wonder if the lack of HEAVY planting is stressing him out, but I can't do too much about that since my plants are still growing. I've ordered a Koralia powerhead to give him a strong current to swim into as well. Right now he alternates swimming into the stream created by the airstone and the one created by the filter.

Thanks,

-Rob

what works for me is a medication called
KOI RX
it worked for me and it treates bacterial/fungal/parasites
the name might say its just for koi, but, it doesnt rele matter what you use it forr

but the onlt thing is, you cant have any salt in the water (because it contains fermaldihide* and it will react with the salt and kill everything)
and you cant have any carbon in the filter or it will make the koi rx not work (so just dump ou the carbon from your filter pad or w/e

but i swear on this stuff, its a 3 day treatment
25% water change each day
and you cant rele overdose unless your stupid and dump the whole bottle lol , just watch out to see if they start gasping.


good luck with everything, sap is not a fun thing at all.

Have you tried plain old aquarium salt and raising the temperature? Take a little longer but is much safer for the puffer and is very effective if you do the whole treatment. The aquarium salt won't hurt your other fish either.

I have read on several different forums that adding aquarium salt can harm the pleco and tetras in my tank, so I chose not to use that method. Were those folks wrong, or what? I currently don't add any salt at all. Also I don't run my filter with any carbon in it.

Thanks,

-Rob

No meds please with puffers! Please follow the ich article in our Library. The small amount of salt you'll be adding for the short 21 days of treatment will not harm any of your "softwater" fish.

so pufferpunk, as you can probably tell im still kinda new to the whole puffer world (about 8 months lol)
so might be a stupid question but why wouldnt you treat with meds
i mean im not questioning you but when i treated them with the KOI Rx, everything went very smoothly

I'm not Pufferpunk, nor do I have her vast knowledge, but I think she'll tell you it's because puffers are a scaleless fish and quite sensitive to medications.

Ok, I went out and bought some API Aquarium Salt, and started adding it to my tank according the directions in the freshwater ich treatment article. I'm still wondering what this may do to my plants, though... Most of the articles I've found only say it'll kill freshwater plants, but none say how quickly, so I'm hoping they can stand the salt for a month.

Thanks,

-Rob

1 tbsp/5g shouldn't hurt your plants. thekarens is correct, they have no gill covers & I have seen serious, permanent damage done to them with ich meds.