The Puffer Forum

My wife recently picked up a puffer from a store that we didn't normally use. (she felt the urge to rescue this particular one) It had a little chewed up tail, and slight black discoloration. The black discoloration spread, but would at times almost completely disappear, and when we were on vacation a while back, it died. Well now one of our older puffs is starting to get the same black discoloration on it's belly, and tail fin. It is also starting to act sort of sluggish. I've looked all over the place and can't figure out what it is. I took her to a Saltwater fish store (this guy seems to know everything), and when we got there it had disappeared. He didn't know what it was, and said to bring her back if it got bad, but he's an hour away.

Here is the best pic I could get of her to show it:



EDIT by Phaedrus: I cropped and resized your pic and uploaded it to my own space. You can rehost it if you wish.

Sorry I didn't crop or resize, the fish is super sick, and I just wanted to get it up there asap.

Please answer the questions posted in this thread so we can get a better idea of your situation.

Things like tank size, water parameters, fish size, diet, tank mates, etc. the more details the better.

Puffers do change colour frequently. It's part of their camouflaging and from their "moods", for lack of a better term. They will sometimes flush around the edges when they are happy to see you, or more accurately, expecting food.

Knowing your tank parameters will help isolate any other issues that could be causing an actual problem.

I don't have a tester kit (yeah I know, shame on me, I've been meaning to get one, but yeah I didn't)

We feed once a day, dried shrimp, sometimes ghost shrip, dried tubiflex worms Water change, we don't do this properly either I'm sure, maybe a month or two ago we took out maybe half the water and refilled...

We made no changes to the tank recently, just that fish that seemed to already have the problem, and it just kind spread, I've noticed 2 more of my fish are starting to develop the spots.

The tank has been set up like 6 months maybe. It had one puffer originally, then we added a pleco, then a couple more GSP's, and a couple F8's. It's only a 10 gallon (with a 20 gallon penguin filter), which I know is small for them, we have bought a 29 gallon tank for them, but we dont have any of the other stuff yet, we're saving for it.

This puffer was sold to him by the LFS as a dwarf puffer that just needs some aquarium salt. Those of us on the Dwarf Puffer Forum agree that its almost certainly a GSP though. Would you guys agree?

Your 10 gallon is extremely overcrowded.

F8s alone need to have 15 gallons for the first one and an additional 10 gallons for each other F8 you plan to add.

You have to do frequent water changes or your fish will die of Ammonia and/or Nitrites.

Is it possible that you can take some of your fish back? Therefore you might have enough time to be better prepared.

[Edit by YBeNormal]

The tank is definately overstocked. With that many fish and so few water changes it is likely your nitrates are very high. In this case, the discolouration is likely due to toxic stress from built up organics (nitrate). I suggest you start to do some 50% water changes every day for a while.

Your fish are also incompatible. F8s are low-end brackish, and GSPs are high-end brackish to full marine. And plecos are strictly freshwater.

If at all possible, find some temporary homes for these fish until you can get a proper tank (or tanks setup). That 29 gallon would hold 2 F8s or 1 GSP.

And you really should get some test kits. Flying blind overcomplicates things. It's much better to know so you can address the situation.

So it's rediculously overstocked, but that doesn't explain why the fish (all 5 of them) were fine until the covered in black stuff fish was introduced to the tank. The black stuff spread from said fish to the others. I think the black stuff and the overcrowding are two different problems here.

Boxermom wrote:This puffer was sold to him by the LFS as a dwarf puffer that just needs some aquarium salt. Those of us on the Dwarf Puffer Forum agree that its almost certainly a GSP though. Would you guys agree?

Yes, it most definately resembles a GSP.

Check out the pufferlist to help identify your puffers to make sure we know what we're dealing with.

And to clarify, aquarium salt does not make brackish water. Only Marine mix does.

This leads to another posibility as to why your fish aren't doing well. They require true brackish water.

imweip wrote:So it's rediculously overstocked, but that doesn't explain why the fish (all 5 of them) were fine until the covered in black stuff fish was introduced to the tank. The black stuff spread from said fish to the others. I think the black stuff and the overcrowding are two different problems here.

Not as many water changes. High Nitrites?

Well the overstocking certainly worsens any pre-existing conditions by increasing stress and exposure to built up waste products, thus weakening the immune system.

Try and grab a few more pictures. Maybe even some full tank shots so we can see what's going on. I'm guessing that the darkening is from toxic exposure and stress though rather than an actual disease.

The addition of the other fish that died could have strained the biofilter even more, and if it was dead in the tank for even a few hours it would have started to decompose and release more ammonia.

Even if it WERE a disease, getting your water parameters undercontrol is the first step to aid recovery anyway. Water changes, and lots of them are in your future. Using Seachem Prime as your water conditioner will help as well. Follow the directions on the bottle for detoxifying ammonia and nitrite. (basically just a larger dose)

imweip wrote:So it's rediculously overstocked, but that doesn't explain why the fish (all 5 of them) were fine until the covered in black stuff fish was introduced to the tank. The black stuff spread from said fish to the others. I think the black stuff and the overcrowding are two different problems here.

Its probably just a coincidence in timing. As has been said, its normal for puffers to change color back and forth for various reasons not related to health problems. Whenever I get close to the tank, mine gets a darker belly because he thinks he's gonna get food.

The sickness and death more likely has a lot more to do with very bad water quality due to it being badly overstocked and the water being changed "maybe a month or two ago." With that much bioload, a bare minimum would be a large volume water change once a week and that's pushing it a bit IMO. Basically they are swimming in a toilet and they can't be healthy in that situation.

Let me re-phase the question. Is there any kind of parasite, fungus, or other type of Contagious condition that could be causing the puffers to be so discolored?

Again Sick Puffer:


Healthy Puffer:


thanks.

just to clarify also, the discoloration didn't start as a full body thing, they start as spots. Two of the other fish have spots right now.

No. That most definately looks like stress colours. I often see sickly puffers at the LFS looking like that.

Please have your water tested so we know ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH levels.

And start doing some water changes. Considering the water has been changes so infrequently, large scale water changes may actually stress them even more by radically and rapidly altering the total disolved solids (TDS) in the tank. Maybe start with 25% changes once a day.