The Puffer Forum

In the space of the last few days I've lost a pair of clowns, small box fish and finally my kole tang.

I have remaining a goby, pj cardinal and my valentini puffer (say 1.5 inch long).

I'm setting up a hospital tank as we speak and although none of the remaining three fish have whitespot on their bodies, the cardinal and puffer have what look more like scars on their fins rather than spots. Under blue lights last night I thought I could see perhaps 4 spots on each of the fins but now it's more a scar.

I'm just wondering what is the best plan of attack - freshwater dip? copper? Hospital tank with hyposalinity??

I will introduce myself and do some searching but I'm just concerned that I act as quickly as possible.

Many thanks,

Larry.

Hi Larry, Sorry this had to be your 1st post but you've found the right place!

Start here: library/hospital/swich/

It would help if you answered all the Qs above in red, too.

Apols,

Calcium = 450.000 (02-05-2010)
Carbonate = 12.300 (13-05-2010)
Magnesium = 1,380.000 (02-05-2010)
Nitrate = 0.000 (24-04-2010)
PH = 8.000 (24-04-2010)
Phosphate = 0.000 (24-04-2010)
Sg = 1.026 (24-04-2010)

55 gallon tank 10 gallon sump

twice weekly 10% changes

Running 3 months

Stock:

1 x Randalls Goby
1 x Valentini Puffer
1 x PJ Cardinal
2 x Crabs (Blue legged)
Assorted snails

your nitrate should not be zero..Is that typo or confused with nitrite?

I'm a fan of hypo myself. How do you test to the .000?

With a low stocking level, live rock, live sand & a good working refugium, It's easy to have nitrate of 0 in a marine tank. Why do you guys think we keep telling ya to put GSPs into SW???

As above really, I am very low stocked and I have the whole middle section of the sump with chaeto and calurpa.

Equipment wise I have a phosphate reactor, calc reactor and am now running UV.

The tank is mainly aimed at SPS corals with as I said a low stock to support that.

Last night I had no option but to break down the whole tank in order to catch the remaining fish. I managed to get the puffer out and fw dipped him for about 10 minutes (perhaps a little less) he really didnt seem to mind it at all after the initially few seconds.

He still has marks on his fins but less (i think). I got him in the hospital tank and did lights out, this morning I was please to see him still with us, if not a little sulky.

He is sitting on the bottom of the tank just looking round, he didn't take any food this morning and I'm hoping that's just down to the tank move and the dip.

I'm planning on a round of hypo as I think copper treatment is a very last resort. Do I start it now or give him time to settle and start eating again?

Many thanks,

Larry.

I shouldn't really be sticking my oar in here as I only have one 30g trop marine tank at the moment but I think hyposalinity is a very good way of getting rid of marine ich.

I used it on my longnose butterfly when the Cuprazin copper treatment I tried first didn't really work. I did what you did - fw bath then hypo (30ppt salinity) for a couple of months. It worked.

Slightly off topic, pp, I've got 40kg of LR and one half inch yellow tail blue damsel just now. And an empty 240l tank. And two nearly inch long GSP's. Good idea?

My Gsp get along with those damsels

Hmm, thanks for that

Maybe this would work for a year or so. I've three scats that I'd like to add. They are at two inches and accelerating, if I add those too I'm probably looking at least a five by two by two foot tank. Big FOWLR

Might as well build another pond

soggydrysuit wrote:I shouldn't really be sticking my oar in here as I only have one 30g trop marine tank at the moment but I think hyposalinity is a very good way of getting rid of marine ich.

I used it on my longnose butterfly when the Cuprazin copper treatment I tried first didn't really work. I did what you did - fw bath then hypo (30ppt salinity) for a couple of months. It worked.

Slightly off topic, pp, I've got 40kg of LR and one half inch yellow tail blue damsel just now. And an empty 240l tank. And two nearly inch long GSP's. Good idea?

Do you mean 10ppt salinity? 30ppt is full marine. I have a yellow tail with my stars and stripes. I know it's not the same as a GSP but the yellow tail is a great cleanup crew. He catches all debris from the puffers sloppy eating. I would recommend hypo for a solid 8 weeks of being spot free as i did it for 6 weeks after spots were gone and about a month later, they made it back.

Just as an update,

The puffer has spent most of the day on the bottom of the tank. I just fed some garlic enriched brineshrimp and he came round and ate some of it. I'm taking this as a good sign although he soon went back to the bottom where he is now.

Is this normal after the stress of a tank move and a dip?

Thanks,

Larry.

btw the three decimal places was just the way the software I use to log my data reports it.

Could just be sulking after having been moved and dipped. Taking food is a good sign though so cant be too upset.

FW dips need to be done for 30 minutes or they are pretty much useless. I'm glad he's eating though. Keep up with the hypo. What SG are you at now? Are all the fish in there? DT needs to remain fallow for 6-8 weeks.

Thanks,

I'm in the process of lowering the Sg now. I wish I'd of kept him in the dip longer then, just conflicting info around the net and I thought I'd play it a little safe.

Don't want to dip him again unless I have to though.

I'm slowly bringing down the Sg, again I've heard a few different variations of how low i need to go without actually causing harm to the fish.

I have 2 fish in the qt, the puffer and a pj cardinal.

Thanks.

Larry.