The Puffer Forum

Had a problem w/ my water, so I was advised to do several water changes.
As of today: PH avg's 8.1
Water temp: 80-81 Degrees
Nitrite: Nh3 + NH4 omg light color
Salinity: 1.21-1.22
Ammonia: NO2- <o.3 mg light color yellow

Feed krill/shrimp/Brine (morning & evening) 55 gal. tank 30 watts of light, 20 pds of Live Rock, Water changes once a week, have done twice a week if the Nirite or ammonia spikes. Salt Water Tank. The tank is about 10weeks.
I made the mistake of letting a friend bring in the Damsels after about 2 weeks. Then He brought in the Blue-line. Thus it started to recycle. Things started to even out. Then the puffer came in at about 5 weeks. The Blue-line has never had any problems, He always eats and swims. The puffer had one problem after the first week. Then We were told to do an extreme water change so We did. After that all was good. At about the 7thweek the puffer got stuck in the filter. He stopped Himself by puffer up. It was so sad. It happened fast but I was right there so.... Well about the 8th week it happened again. After I had made it I thought impossible for Him to get stuck again, but He did. Well for a whole week 1/2 no problems and then it happened, After the Trigger was pretty much trying to get all the food from the Puffer. I noticed white spots. I contacted Our pet shop and they asked all the questions and said just let it be. Then He started laying down more for two days. We went this weekend to try and find some stuff for Him, new people told us to let it be. Well....... I did a water change on Friday and by Tuesday He was laying around way more white spots and like burping and kinda blowing up. But every time there is food. He sure enough eats..... His color is good, but all the other stuff. He doesn't look good. Please HELP ME!!!!!!
Sorry for it being so long
Fish in Tank
Star & Stripes Puffer
Blue-line Trigger young
1 green Damsel
2 Blue Damsels

Get the ammonia down to zero with another water change. Are your nitrites at zero?

You shouldn't ever be seeing ammonia and nitrite - your tank is probably overstocked, and it can't handle the amount of waste your fish are putting out. You need to get rid of most of the fish - someone else here can tell you what you can keep in there long-term. (I don't know the answer to that.) How big is the puffer?

Do the white spots look like grains of salt? Are they blotchy? Are they raised, or do they seem to be part of the skin?

This article will tell you a bit about the stars and stripes puffer. ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Marine/A_Hispidus/

Also - are you using live rock? How much?

It seems like every time I turn around I'm changing the Water. I think My fish are flipping out because of that. My tank is a 55 gal. 48" x 13" long. I have 20 pounds of Live rock. I'm going slow on that. It's pretty expensive here. I'm pretty sure the nitrite's are O right now. I have a test kit, but Your suppose to look at colors and that is difficult sometimes.
The Fish are small like 50 cent pieces (2) 3 damsels like a dime 1/2.
The white spots are salt like. They seem to be just on Him. He has tons of bubbles on him and right now when He swims up to eat pieces of coral are hanging off the bubbles. He's not happy! I have 2 pumps/filter's, 1 Protein Skimmer, 20 pounds of Live rock in a 55 Gal. w/ 5 very small fish. I'm pretty sure over crowding is not the problem. =)
He has really blown up not puffed up the last two days. But he EATS! He is breathing hard and laying down , and rubbing rocks when He's not eating........ The Blue-line is fine!
If it's ich, whats the most effective w/o using copper? Thank You!

I have a Blackish Tank w/ a f/8 and a Gr/sp. Puffer plus snails and ghost shrimp and it took time to get it right, but nothing like what this full Salt Water tank. Even when I think it's perfect, it's not!

Water changes are one of the keys to getting over at least one of the issues. Your ammonia and nitrites should read 0, your nitrates should be 10-40 with below 20 as optimal. I honestly would be doing roughly 50% water changes daily until that starts to stabilize. Did you cure your live rock prior to adding it to the tank? If you didn't that more than likely is adding to your water parameter issues. If live rock is removed from water for any length of time (even an hour, it does occur in harvest and shipping) you can have organism die off and then decay once it get added to the tank, decaying material causes ammonia. No matter where you get it from and despite claims of LR being "pre-cured" it still needs to be cured by you before it goes in the tank. This article (I know, not another one...) explains it better than I can. http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/gene ... pagesid=59. Seeing as the main biological filter in a SW tank is live rock/live sand you need to add more rock. The stuff is expensive! A good tip for getting around the expense, buy some "dead" rock or lace rock and add it to the tank with your current LR (once it's properly cured). The current LR will slowly seed the lace rock for you. Takes longer but much cheaper in the long run!

What kind of filter do you have running right now and how was it cycled?

From what you are describing with your Stars & Stripes it sounds like he has SW Ich. Medications, chemicals and Puffers really don't mix. Puffers are scaleless fish and do not have gill covers, making them extremely sensitive to water conditions and chemicals. The best treatment to get rid of SW ich is putting the puffer in hypo-salinity in a hospital tank. Directions for doing this can be found here: library/hospital/swich/. The reasoning behind the hypo-salinity is: Basically there is a tug-o-war going on between "pull" pressures inside and outside the ich cells. In SW, this pull is even. If you make the outside "pull" weaker, fluid floods the ich cells and they explode. Have to keep the fish in those conditions for a while to make sure all the cells die off.

Now, the over stocking question posed by another person. Yes, you are over stocked and it's not really a space issue, it's a waste issue. Puffers put out a high amount of waste, not only in visible waste, but in metabolic wastes. Hence the reason for the large tank sizes recommended in the pufferpedia. Add in the Trigger and the Damsels and this goes way higher than what you have available for filtration right now. These fish are very messy eaters also and create a large amount of waste when they eat, ie: food stuck in rock crevices, bits that don't filter out, etc..... I would honestly get rid of everything but the S&S and even then he's going to need a bigger tank in a while as you saw from the link LGP sent you.

Listen to Dado4, he's spot on! Live rock is your very best method of filtration (coupled with powerheads to move the water thru them). Considering you really need 1-1.5lbs/gal, you have way more rock to go. Try http://www.reefcentral.com & scroll down to tohe bottom to find the local reef clubs & see if there is one in your area. There are always folks tearing down their tanks (especially in these tough finantial times) & are offering LR for as cheap as $2/lb. Also try Craigslist.

Please look at the profile for your puffer in our Pufferpedia to see the eventual adult size & tank size necessary for your puffer. It may shock you & if you are tight on $$$, it might be best to return him while he is still small enough to re-home. Larger puffers are difficult to place. He's gonna grow fast!

If you are unable to find a reef club, you can find pretty good prices on drsfostersmith.com. Someone else may be able to reccomend a better store, too.

I second the idea of returning the puffer if you can't make arrangements for a larger tank soon. You may have to give him up. They grow quicker than you think...