The Puffer Forum

hi...water levels are all normal.

my f8 seem to be rubbing their eyes / heads on objects and flicking off of them. I'm not sure if they're just itchy and are trying to scratch or if it's actually something else that I need to help with. Tried to get enough footage but they see a camera and start begging for food so this is all I got:


any opinions?

ehz_148 wrote:hi...water levels are all normal.

If you could answer all the questions above in red, that would be awesome.
Thanks

Yes, knowing the parameters, etc, can help us rule some things out. Is only one puffer doing this? Do you see any white spots that look like salt on him?

it's hard to tell...

water parameters are the same as last time i posted.. 0 ammonia&nitrite; nitrate below 20; not sure of salinity yet cos my lfs has ordered a hydrometer for me and it hasn't arrived yet. temp is 25. i added rocks and shells that i disinfected at the last water change on the weekend. been feeding snails/bloodworm and some krill every now and then. I have aqua organic in there (it's a water parameter maintenance solution) and I've been putting a smaller dose of anti parasite / fluke meds in the water (i'm the one that has the lumpy tummy f8 named Fig).

I've noticed little white spots but they are minute and are spaced evenly over their whole bodies - guessing it's their little spines. So far I've noticed 2 of them flicking. Fig is the only one that is dull in colouring, but all 3 are eating normally.

Puffers are scaleless and have no gill covers, they are very sensitive to medications. That medicine is probably bothering them. Internal parasite medication needs to be delivered internally by soaking their food. Do a large water change to get most of the medication out of the water and add carbon to the filter.
The parameters need to be posted each thread; not everyone has read all of your posts and things can change.

+1 to above get rid of meds and chemicals to maintain water quality are just junk. A regular water change schedule is far better than a chemical

they were doing it before i even added the meds, and i'm putting in half of the allocated amount for a 30g tank. I double checked the adding meds to the water thing with my LFS by mentioning the no gill covers and scaleless skin and they agreed about soaking in the food with other meds but told me not to do that with this one. They told me how much to put in the tank I have for the puffers specifically and said they'd be fine.

Dont always believe what your lfs tells you. They often dont know best.

well..I'll do a water change now anyway, a day early can't hurt them, and I'll soak their food tomorrow since tomorrow is meds day anyway. The guy at the LFS just seemed to know a lot about puffers since someone else called him over to chat to me about it more in depth, so I trusted him.

What do you think about the fact they were rubbing themselves before I added the meds anyway?

Adding less than recommended dosages of meds, only makes the pathogen resistant to it, when absolutely necessary to use.

If he said this medicine cannot be consumed, then it's probably not safe period. I wouldn't soak the food in it. I'd get praziquantel and metronidazole.

Perhaps they have a mild case of ich, and it's only on the gills.

well, unfortunately where I live in South Africa, we are pretty limited to what there is to offer. I've been going to the only pet store in my area that specializes in fish (mainly tropical fish) and this medicine was the only thing they had to offer me. So I don't know what else to do other than what the puffer forum experts and my LFS are telling me. Is it true that if I increase the salt temporarily it will help? The LFS guy said to dump extra salt in and if it's itch it won't survive and my fish will be better.

fyi...the meds I got is Waterlife Sterazin for flukes and worms. "Treats gill & body flukes which causes flicking and scraping; Internal worms"
Ingredients: malachite green 0.08% w/w; Piperazine Citrate 0.34% w/w; Acriflavine hydrochloride 0.055% w/w; Formaldehyde 0.2% w/w

if you're unfamiliar with this and would like a close up photo of all the text on the bottle let me know.

and thanks again for all the help. I feel like a bug at times but I just want to keep these guys healthy and happy...i caught them all bunking together in one of the caves after dinner time. so cute!

I dont believe malachite is puffer safe to be honest.