The Puffer Forum

hello, I am currently keeping 2 figure 8 puffers, their colour look amazing and eats like a cow, except one issue they have. they sometimes scratch against my plants and driftwoods.

They would always come up to me whenever i get home, begging for food, swim around the tank good, I have a 50 gallon brackish tank, Salinity of 1.008, and when I last checked my water, the PH was 7, and ammonia almost near 0. not sure about nitrite as I haven/t really checked yet, but I cycled the tank for about 5 weeks before adding them.

I am pretty sure it is not ich which causes them to scratch over things, since I've kept them in a cupramine QT tank for 2weeks when I got them from lfs, and showing no white spots at all, their skin looks great. I heard pufferfish's skin can be very sensitive since they don't really have scales, and one of my friends said his puffer (f8) sometimes would scratch too, so i thought fish could scratch sometimes just like any other animals, dogs and cats, but sometimes it just gets on my nerve when i see them scratching. So i put one of them in another QT tank yesterday morning with a bit of Formalin cuz Formalin is exceptional on parasites, the puffer is still showing the same issue, or I'm not too sure it'll get better over the next few days, I'm just wondering anyone would have the same issue like me or had in the past with figure 8 puffers,,,

Thank you!

Welcome!
I would forgo any meds at this point. It could be that the cupramine harmed their skin. Try adding Melafix to their tank. How EXACTLY did you cycle this tank? You should NEVER be showing ammonia. you need to know nitrite & nitrate.

SG of 1.003-5 is best.
library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/

Hi, and thank you pufferpunk, I took both of my figure 8 puffers to the lfs and there is some kind of fish vet there, asked him and he diagnosed that there is a high chance of them having internal parasites, so i got praziquantel tablets today, and start treating them.
about cycling the tank, I added seachem prime, pristine in the tank first of all, and then put some fish food in there, and then let it cycle for 5weeks.
I heard somewhere around 1.008 is the best, but is it really the best at 1.005? then I'll have to adjust it.

LOL, a fish vet working at a LFS? Probably just self-proclaimed "expert". Fish do not "flash" from IPs. In addition, freshwater fish do not drink water, so adding an anti-parasite drug will not help with IPs at all. If anything, it may help ICH which can have the symptom of flashing but I prefer Ich-X for that. Did you get an API test kit while you were there?

Hey there, thank you so much for the advises. This morning I went to the lfs again, cuz your right lol. There's no proof that the vet there has a degree or something in fish but yeah maybe hes a senior fish keeper in the store and I figured out that the staffs just call him 'vet' since he's the most experienced on there. lol
I grabbed the Melafix, and API Nitrate test kit and Nitrite test kit as you've instructed, now i know that Nitrite shows bright yellow which is 0ppm and Nitrite shows bright skyblue which is 0ppm too. tested the PH and ammonia again this morning too, Ammonia is 0 and PH is 7. i dosed the Melafix just now before writing here so it should start working soon, I am not using the praziquantel as yet, since I would like to see how fishes do with it first. thanks again for your advice although it costed me quite bit of $$$ but nothing is important than the lil boys i have at the moment. I'll keep you updated how they do, are there any more tips how you would do at this stage or something? this morning when I was testing the water, i saw them flicking against my driftwood, (before melafix dose) but I'll have to see how the boys do now. thank you

Your nitrate is testing 0?

Yep that’s what it showed on the colour card, correct me if i’m wrong

A healthy cycled tank should be showing some nitrate. Are you sure you shook the tubes exactly as the directions say to?