The Puffer Forum

I brought home a new puffer friend a couple of weeks ago and I think he's sick. He was hiding last night, and this morning when I turned on the aquarium light, he flashed or scratched his body on a plant leaf and the side of the aquarium. His color is dull. I think he has ich, althought there are no white spots on him (yet).

He is in a 10-gallon aquarium with a big log that covers most of the gravel in the tank. Before I left for work this morning I dosed him with Herbtana and added two tablespoons of salt to his water. The temperature of the water is about 82 normally since I live in Texas and it gets pretty hot in the house during the day even with the AC on. It goes down to about 80 overnight.

I will do a water change and clean the aquarium this evening. My question here is about cleaning... The log in the aquarium has many crevices and is partially hollow, and he lives in it. So how do I go about cleaning the tank as the first step in treating him? Do I have to take out his log to get to the gravel underneath, or is the gravel protected from ich cysts by the log? Do I have to clean the log? If so, wouldn't it stress him out big time to remove the log from the aquarium, especially if he is hunkered down in it?

The neons that are his tankmates aren't showing any signs of disease.

I really don't want to lose this puff since my first puff died about a month ago and I took it really hard.

Just lift the log & siphon under it. If not using a gravel cleaner/siphon, stir the substrate thoroughly & do an 80% WC.
What kind of puffer?
library/hospital/fwich/

Hi Pufferpunk,

Thanks for the quick reply. He's a freshwater dwarf puffer, a Carinotetraodon irrubesco (red-eyed red-tailed puffer).

About the water change, you said to do an 80% but I'm concerned about the warning at the top of this page, which states: Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.

I gave him a 40% water change about 8 days ago. I normally do that once a week but just didn't have time this weekend. Should I still go for an 80% change anyway, even though he's not used to such a large change every time? I use RO water on him.

Pufferpunk, are there some diseases that are specific ONLY to freshwater puffers?

Thanks so much!

Do 40% today & 40% tomorrow & then 80% every other day, until the ich cysts are gone. Continue treating with heat/salt for another 2 weeks while doing 50% weekly WC for him, cleaning the substrate with each partial.