The Puffer Forum

so i was getting crickets yesterday at petco and as always i look at their marine fish. well i see a dogfaced puffer in this tank(MAYBE, and i mean a big maybe in a 20 gallon tank) in their display unit. he was with a yellow tang and a few other fish. one problem... this dogface had white spots(like salt) all over his body(face, torso, fins, tail) i mean all over. he was clearly irritated as you should have seen the way he looked at a tomato clown in the tank, i swore if he was healthy he was going to eat it right then and there in front of me! well him being infested with ich im guessing, he is low on the chain of fish in the tank so he was getting bullied by a tomato clown, yes a tomato clown! and i also saw the yellow tang go up to him, flash his tail at him and basically whip him with it. after that the dogface curled his tail to the side of his body and swam over to this decoration and stayed there for a good ten or fifteen minuts while i was still in the store. so i told my roommates im going to try and get this fish from them for free because its obvious its going to die before it gets sold and really well taken care of. i cant house him right now in anything other than(at the largest if i steal it from my roommates lol, not really steal but take to use for a little while) a 45 gallon rubbermade bin. i have extra filters and established media from my 54 i can put for an instant BB population. so i can add him. he was only like 3 or 4 inches long. nice belly on him, didnt seem like he has IPs but you cant judge a book by its cover. i just wanted to think what you guys thought. i feel i have been on here long enough and read/learned enough, even if he is close to being a goner, to try and take this on and have learned everything i know from puffs to filtration from who i think is the best to learn from(PP, RTR, JP, Corvus, sorry if i forgot to mention anyone) by reading and posting on here pretty frequently if not daily. i just felt really bad about him, no one will buy him looking like that, and you know petco wont treat him properly with meds, let alone give him a good enough diet to help him overcome this. i will not buy him at full price($60) just for him to possibly die. i plan on calling the store manager as the manager i spoke to yesterday told me to because she didnt have the authority to make this decision, and that "he has been like that since they got him, and ive been keeping an eye on him". i was in there about a week ago for crickets and they had a not so healthy porc, obvious eye issues from what i saw and now hes gone and a dogface in his spot in almost the same if not worse condition. i will attach pictures of how he was after the tang messed with him and he curled up to hide. it was pretty sad to see this, and my heart felt like it jumped up into my throat. i have always, always wanted a dogfaced, and even though equipment wise i dont have the appropriate sized tank, i already started looking on craigslist for good deals on at least 100 gallon fish tanks just incase the store manager agrees to let me take him or at least a high discount on him

it is absurd that a puffer fish dogface is under these conditions, the discount is obvious ... ch etu I hope I can get it and treat it ... =)

No LR, sponge filter, lots of WC & get that fish into hypo ASAP!

make that 2 rubbermaids. 1 to prep the water and 1 to contain the fish.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21024

I'd be more inclined to go with a larger cooler myself, it retains the heat better and usually has a little spout at the bottom to drain the water. Heavy, yes; easy to flush, yes but expensive.

That is how I transport my fish long distances. Water changes made easy

i have called and called. no response back. i talked to inventory manager the day after i posted this and was supposed to hear back after he talked to someone else. the day after i stopped in and posted this thread i called and they said "he was moved to another tank to keep an eye on him" and that "i will hear from them the next day" which to no surprise no call ever came. today im stopping in there to get crickets again and im going to look out for him and possibly get him if the right price is there. i want to get him regardless but 60 is too much if they want full price in the condition hes in. given the condition of the fish and petco's care i was hopeful in getting a faster response on here so i can really try and push them to give me the fish to bring back to health(hopefully), as i have been on here for quite some time and feel like i could take this on but i wanted some opinions on whether people felt(from my current puff and care) if i seem knowledgeable enough and if you dont think he was too far gone. he seemed ok other than the stress and spots, but looked hungry the way he looked at that tomato clown

J-P wrote:make that 2 rubbermaids. 1 to prep the water and 1 to contain the fish.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21024

I'd be more inclined to go with a larger cooler myself, it retains the heat better and usually has a little spout at the bottom to drain the water. Heavy, yes; easy to flush, yes but expensive.

That is how I transport my fish long distances. Water changes made easy

thanks for that thread link JP. that will help if i wind up getting him tonight when i stop for crickets. i have 3 or 4 other tubs i use for WC's and mixing salt, i would just get something a little bigger since they are only 10-15 gallon tubs. for the dogface i would get a bigger one like 45 gallons(which i might already have from moving recently, you just reminded me) for more water volume/dilution

would i want warmer water with him along with hypo? i just read the cooler comment, dont know how i passed over it before, probably cause of the link and reading that. i will have to see if a LFS has brackish media i can buy/take. unless i can rig something up similar to Nick in the thread to basically drip acclimate the BB so there is no crash, but that seems a little over my head and i wouldnt want to mess anything up and crash the tank, then killing the dogface i want to try and help...

Nope, that's for FW ich. You start the BB with the same SG the fish is in & bring the SG down over the next few days. No media needed other than a sponge filter (it would crash anyway), as you will be doing HUGE WC on there. Did you read the article on treating crypt in our Library? Read the one on QT too.

i probably have at one point read the crypt article, definitely read the QT from when i had a lemarks angelfish with slight "saddleback" disease, i forget what it was exactly called. but i will read again to refresh myself with the crypt. i like the idea of the article by nick on lowering the SG quickly but doing frequent daily changes. i can handle taking the time to do the changes, but then when it got to the sump setup and his way of getting a lower SG water in there just seemed a little bit much from what i can provide, but after reading again i thought that if i start it with him in there at his SG, and lowered it over a few days with big WC to comp for the die off, he might be ok and the levels might not raise much if any at all. i would like to do it but would feel really bad if he dies in my care, thats if hes still alive when i get there tonight. so no media like no rock rubble or anything? when i did my QT for the angelfish i put a brand new sponge with some squeezings from my established tank in the HOB along with a few rock rubble pieces for surface for BB and he cleared up and healed pretty well. but i also wasnt doing hypo at that time which might make the media useless if i understand correctly