The Puffer Forum

Hi, I really need your help, I am new to your forum and tried to put down as much information as I could, by following your directions. Any help would be most appreciated.

We have a 75 Gallon Tank with a Dog face Puffer, Snowflake Eel, and a Koran. (3 days new) PH-8.2, Nitrite-0, Ammonia-0, Nitrate-0. Water Changes 25% once a month. Filtration- 3 power heads, 1 bio wheel, 1-Canister for 150G Tank. The tank has been running for about a year, fish are 2-months new, Koran is 3 days new. (We just bought a new canister filter about 2 weeks ago)

Background: Our tank recycled, so we brought the DFP to our local fish store and they babysat for about a week. When our tank was ready we picked up our Puffer, and also purchased a Koran. (the eel made it thru the recycle so he stayed with us) It's been three days and the Koran and Eel are fine, but today the puffer showed all of the symptoms listed below.

Our puffer has lost his brown color on 3/4 of his body and its being replaced with a white/cream/light grey solid color and he also has white lesion's all over his back. (larger than ich) These symptoms only appeared today, and the Puffer is at the bottom of the tank, breathing heavy, tail is curled. He's not looking good at all!!

I immediately added copper to the tank, thinking it was velvet ich, but now these white lesion's have appeared. Any advice would be helpful! We need to save our little guy.

Copper is extremely poisonous to puffers. There is no way to totally remove copper from your tank. NEVER, EVER, EVER MEDICATE YOUR MAIN TANK with anything other than the all natural Melafix of Pimafix. I'd do a 50% water change immediately & add fresh carbon to your filter.

It seems to me that your puffer must have caught something fro the tank it was staying in, or from the Koran (I assume you didn't QT it?). If your system crashes, you can fix it with Bio-Spira.

Well, if anyone still has any advice as to what happened to our puffer we would be grateful.

He was the most friendliest little guy, he will be missed.

So sorry but the copper killed it... You must get that copper out of there & never put any inverts in there, that you want to live. You will never be able to remove all the copper from your tank--it's in the silicone, gravel, decor, etc.

I also suggest you dump the canister & Biowheel & add (cured) liverock & a protein skimmer. This will make your system more stable.

Sorry for your loss...
It must terrible to loose a special friend like that.

Does live rock need 5-7 watts per gal or is that just for the corals?
Does the live rock require light at all?

live rockl requires variying light depending on whatsgrowing on it. and the watts per gallon rule is not very good.

for copper removal a polyfilter pad will remove quite a bit. that and over several years copper dilutes to safe levels in the tanks silicone so you could pull the substrate and try a reef later.