The Puffer Forum

I will first give my info
125 gallon reef set up 20 month
ph 8.3
salinity
1.025
calcium 425
nitrates 5
ammonia 0
25-30gallons weekly water changes
tank mates volitan lionfish
yellow tang
scribbled rabbit fish
niger triggerfish
leopard wrasse
I added my porc puffer last saturday. Two days later I noticed a grey patch of skin near his eye. The next day it was almost covering 1/2 of his body. he was eating until two days ago. I had been feeding him shrimp and scallops he will not eat anymore his eye today is cloudy he seems more active tody but he is breathing ver heavy especially out of his right gill where he is grey in color. I noticed a white discharge came out of where he goes to the bathroom. I do know that the first day I put him in he got a little to curious with my lionfish and he may have stung him a little. I have him in a 10 gallon I know way to small I need to get to the store tommorrow for a larger hospital tank. I added lifeguard from IO it treats bacterial fungal parasitic and viral. Does anyone know what is going on

Wish I could help...But id love to see pics of your tank/s it sounds amazing

Thnak you, I have alot of torch hammer frog leathers anemones, 150 pounds live rock. I have set up a 4o breeder for any coral this puffer would like. so far he has not been intersted. I hope someone can help me. all of my other fish are fine.

Does it look kind of dust like covering?

I posted this in the other topic that it might be vibrio. Some picture would help.

I was thinking vibrio too. Very quick-acting & very deadly.

What is vibrio caused by. I google it but the only info I can find pertains to humans. Are there any meds for it?

I understand about the puffer needing a bigger tank. I was choosing between a porc and a dog face and my lfs said a porc would be fine in a 125. I also already know I should have researched first. I was planning on rehoming him but this happened. I am just trying to find out whats wrong. I looked on wet web the puffer on this looked the same he thought it was a secondary bacterial infection. I cannot find any info on vibrio on fish this is the only website that talks about it. I also looked on this website and saw a porc puffer with skin that looks just like mine that the person was told it was vibrio and the puffer died quickly. Mine has been like this for 6 days.

Do a search at this HERE about this disease.

OMG I just researched that disease here .. I pray your little porky doesn't have that! If you even think that there is a hint of that I'd serialize anything that goes in there. or keep it tank specific... don't distribute anything between tanks.. nets .. siphons etc..

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16930&st=0&sk=t&sd= ... io#p174725

I don't think it was that. All my other fish are totally fine This disease sounds to me like something that would have also been passed to my other fish. That gray spot appeared after he was stung. I have heard of fish taking awhile to die after a lionfish sting. This pet sotre had him for a month and I have not had another puffer in this tank so I don't know where it would have come from. Unless it does not affect anything but pufferfsih. I have been using the same tank to feed both tanks .

Pet stores are full of diseases.. they constantly have new fish coming in that are wild caught or raised in poor conditions on "fish farms".

It is very likely that your puffer had whatever this is before you bought him, but the stress of being handled and moved and thrown into a new (and too small) tank lowered its immune system to bring it on.

Now, vibro was my first thought as well.. but unless you post some photos we really are just guessing.

See thats the problem with people who think they know it all and have the perfest setup. I hardly threw the puffer in #1 the puffer was three inches long I have a two year old 125gallon 6 foot tank I don't think this would have killed him within a week. That is why people don't like posting on forums like this because the high and mighty "experts" who give smart answers like that. I am fully aware that fish from lfs have diseases this is one that is extremely reputable around here. so unless you have your own private ocean in your backyard to keep your puffer fish I would not be giving responses like that.

lisafoster wrote:See thats the problem with people who think they know it all and have the perfest setup. I hardly threw the puffer in #1 the puffer was three inches long I have a two year old 125gallon 6 foot tank I don't think this would have killed him within a week. That is why people don't like posting on forums like this because the high and mighty "experts" who give smart answers like that. I am fully aware that fish from lfs have diseases this is one that is extremely reputable around here. so unless you have your own private ocean in your backyard to keep your puffer fish I would not be giving responses like that.

I would like to get into the distributor aspect of things .. but it is disgusting. Some distributors care for the fish and their future business.. some do not.

The question "Why?" is a good one. If the board can find the answer to that, then the question "How?" may be answered.

Adding any fish to an existing setup is very likely to cause a mini cycle.. the bacteria is adapted to the current stock.. and puffers are notoriously big waste producers. They can really throw a big punch to a system, even when they are "only" 3" long. Any ammonia or nitrites can really hurt puffers, as they have no scales to protect their skin, even if they only last a little while.

Anyhoo, keeping any fish with a lionfish is risky, and if that's what it is instead of vibro, I guess that's good for you but still doesn't help the porc.

As far as my comment, you're the one who said you had no idea where a disease could have came from.. I was just telling you, that's the main way people introduce nasties to their tanks. The only way you're going to get a guaranteed disease free fish from a local store is if they don't use a centralized filtration system, never share nets or containers between tanks, don't sell fish until they've sat in the store for 4+ weeks with no sign of disease or sickness, etc. I seriously doubt you'll find a store that meets all those requirements.. all the rest are going to spread disease no matter how nice their tanks look.. but if they are good, they keep the fish healthy and happy enough to keep immune systems up, so they can fight off the signs of the diseases.. until the fish gets stressed out by being caught/transported, etc.

And of course, I'm sorry but around here you'll find that most people take the care of their pets seriously. If we can't afford to give them a proper home, we don't buy them, we don't encourage those who can't keep them properly to buy them, and we don't sugar coat proper care (or improper care). There's no way your current tank will have room for the porc, much less the porc and all those other fish, that's a simple fact, so expect to hear that as well.

Again, post photos and maybe someone can confirm it is a fungal or bacterial infection or something like that and let you know which meds to use (puffers are sensitive to meds, so not a good idea to just throw them at them).