The Puffer Forum

Just picked up a Figure 8 yesterday, seen him at the LFS about a week ago and saw him again yesterday still looking very active. Picked him up for my empty 29G (the fish I had in there passed away due to a malfunctioning heater, which has been replaced).

The LFS were helpful, and had been keeping him in 1.003 brackish conditions, so that is what I am aiming for. Kind of tough figuring out the salt at the moment, and not wanting to shock the bacteria in my tank. Anyways, here are a few pictures:







As you can see, he (I am saying he, but have no idea on sex) has ich, so I will be raising his temperature (currently at 80F) and adding extra water changes to my schedule. Apart from that though he is incredibly active, hungry and curious. There were some snails in the tank, within minutes of him going into the tank he was eating them. I had to remove a bunch (along with the real plants) in order to stop him eating them.

I also plan to add some more caves/rocks/fake plants to his tank, and maybe a 2nd F8 (unlikely though) or some bumble bee gobies. I am VERY tempted to just keep him in the 29G on his own though.

You bought him sick?

Get the SG to 1.003 NOW, it won't hurt your bacteria. Raise the temp to 86 ASAP. Keep a LOT of 1.003 BW on hand, you're going to be doing a lot of large water changes, every other day.

When this is all over, change his substrate to aragonite sand.

Pufferpunk wrote:You bought him sick?

Yes, he was the only one anywhere local, and with how active he was, and how straight forward ich is to treat, I was not worried. I actually only noticed the level of ich once home and under good lighting, in the LFS it was difficult to tell. So I made my judgement on his activity.

Pufferpunk wrote:Get the SG to 1.003 NOW, it won't hurt your bacteria. Raise the temp to 86 ASAP. Keep a LOT of 1.003 BW on hand, you're going to be doing a lot of large water changes, every other day.

SG is already 1.003, I gave up trying to increase it at 0.001 increments. The temp is currently 80F, but I will increase that in a few minutes. Got plenty of salt and water ready to go.

Pufferpunk wrote:When this is all over, change his substrate to aragonite sand.

How come? If it's better for him, then I have no issues with it, just curious why though?

Thanks, I have that link bookmarked, but will read it again in case I missed something. Temperature in his tank is now heading towards 86F, I changed 20% water yesterday, and 50% today, and can easily do 50% tomorrow and Wednesday.

Hopefully in a few days I can post a new picture of him ich free.

Very low SG such as F-8s seem to do well in does not offer enough buffering in the water itself to keep the water well buffered without alkaline substrates. Aragonite is the most responsive of the alkaline substrates, so it is the best to use for these fish.

Thanks RTR.

Quick update, the puffer is doing well. It looks like the ich is clearing up, I did a 50% water change yesterday and will be doing another tomorrow. He is still super active, curious and eating readily.

Keep an eye on his respiration - if he is breathing too hard or fast back off on the temperature a bit - just so long as it is over 80F, 10 days treatment will do the job and a bit more is cheap insurance. Remember that Ich is a gill disease, so you cannot see the primary infection site (the gills).

HTH

Will do, right now he is going a bit crazy, but I think that is due to the fact its his first meal since he gorged himself on snails at the weekend. Just also got done with another 50% water change today.

This fish is fascinating, I am slowly trying to figure out what decor to keep in his tank, and since getting him I added a couple rock caves, and then a branch of driftwood I have that has a ton of Java Fern growing on it. He is so curious, as soon as I put something in the tank, immediately he is checking it out, swimming over, under, through it etc. His activity level is crazy.

If I had to guess 75% or more of the white spots you can see on him in some of the pictures are gone, he is happy to come out and beg for food, and the green/yellow on his markings are getting really bright.

Great job, and congratulations on the good recovery. You have a beautiful f8!

G S P Freak wrote:Great job, and congratulations on the good recovery. You have a beautiful f8!

Thank you! Here are some updated pictures:






As you can tell, compared to the first set of pictures the ich is clearing up nicely. Here is also a picture of his tank:



I don't expect the crypts to survive, but am hoping all the Java Ferns on the wood will grow in brackish (as far as I can tell they should). Once he is healed I will switch out to aragonite sand, and then maybe rescape a little. But, I like how things are so far, and he appears to be happy finding various things to explore.

Much better! I love my curly Java fern.

Looking good. His ich is clearing and he looks nourished and heathy.

Treat for IPs just in case.

Total *thumbs up*

JRC3]Looking good. His ich is clearing and he looks nourished and heathy.

Treat for IPs just in case.

Thanks, what do you recommend using to treat for IP's as a precaution?

Next thing for me is to go and re-read the feeding puffers article, seems like it should be fairly easy to get him a varied diet. I just need to figure out the best way of keeping food available (frozen by the look of it).

Most people here use the jungle parasite clear fizz tabs, remember to treat the food not the water.