Hello and thank you in advance for your help!
We love our puffer man so much and are perplexed as to his malady that has been developing over the past 10 days. It is a white area on his head. It is not raised, not cotton, but it has spread. It looks as if his color has been erased. The positive side is the white area seems to have faded in the past 24 hours and we can see his black spots reappearing underneath once again. He is eating normally (loves his clams strips) and acts as if nothing is wrong. His personality hasn't changed. The cleaner wrasses pick at his body (he lets them go in his gills for example) and they have survived in the tank over the last 6 months (since we got them and the puffer) because of him. Funny thing is, they hover over his spot, but rarely pick at it- they have picked- but 80% of the time they just hover over the spot and leave. PLEASE NOTE the white spots on him in the photo is the gravel from the bottom and not ich- his skin is clean apart from the white spot on this head. We thought that maybe he hit is head on a rock, scratched it, and this is the result. There is no visible lesion and as I said, no raised bumps- it is completely smooth. All of the other fish are perfect with no problems. We do not have a quarantine tank, and also, we are very very reluctant to bring him to the fish store for rehab as he will not receive the same tlc as at home and the stress from water change, ext and may not eat anymore etc etc.
To answer your basic questions:
1) pH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite near 0
Nitrates less than 1ppm
salinity 124-125
2) 150 gallons: **orange stellar Puffer (one in question)**, clown trigger, yellow tang, rabbit, clown, blue devil damsel, cleaner wrasses, other wrasses, angler, hermit crabs, cleaner shrimp, corals, green and purple line algae, snails, anemones
3) Feed 2 times daily- smaller amounts more regularly- we are very sensitive to the amount of food given, feeding habits, what they like, don't like, and changing diet as needed to provide an array of nutrients. We only use RO water and nutriwater for 30% water changes every 3 weeks. We believe in keeping the beneficial bacteria. Weekly we add: calcium, iodine, magnesium, potassium, vitamins including c, PH buffer and garlic. We use active carbon, ferric oxide to remove phosphates, and nitrate lock.
4) NONE
5) We are long time aquarist (years and years) and our last tank, that contained so many rare and beautiful fish, crashed when Hurricane Sandy swept through cutting the electricity in lower Manhattan last year. We were devastated to say the least, but immediately rebuilt. It took almost 6 months for the tank to reestablish itself, but it has been incredibly stable for the last 9 months. We cycled using live rock and starter fish. No chemicals or store bought cycle products. We believe in doing this as naturally as possible.
Please Help! Puffer Malady
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
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.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
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.
Please Help! Puffer Malady
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Re: Please Help! Puffer Malady
That does look very odd... Where do you observe him sleeping at night? Could it be a heater burn? I'd try treating at least with SW Melafix.
Please see: ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Marine/A_Stellatus/
Please see: ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Marine/A_Stellatus/
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"