The Puffer Forum

I have a dog-face puffer that is in a 220 gallon tank, he is the same on that got stuck to a power head back in Feb. But he has healed except for the scar on his belly. I noticed last night after I feed him that he had a lump on his side behind his left fin it was about the side of a quarter it looked like a air bubble and he seemed to be having problems swimming without tilting the side that had the lump towards the top of the tank. I didn't see him eat anything off of the surface but I guess he could have swallowed air. when I approached the tank to get a better look,he did the puffer take off all fast and whipping his body this way and that. when he turned around the lump was gone. Later I feed him a snail and the lump appeared again but not as big. But his swimming was a bit off from normal. the angle that he was swimming at was tilted. This is the first time I have seen him like this. The test come out fine on the water, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate, and nitrites,the salinity is just above 1.010. I like to keep them at this level to ward off ick. Everyone in the tank is fine, Niger trigger, clown-fish, foxface lo, and raccoon butterfly fish. I was feeding him shrimp and krill that was soaked in zoe when I noticed his lump/bubble looking spot on his side, has anyone ever heard of this, should I try to catch him when I get home today and rub his tummy towards his mouth while having him face the surface to see if i can get him to burp or just let it alone and see if it happens anymore. thanks

Definitely seems like an air pocket - cause could be many things.....I would recommend trying to put the puffer is a vented container (critter keeper) and weight it down on the bottom of the tank. I have used this technique many times. Air pockets cause stress and increase the puffer's metabolism as it fights to remain neutral or negative buoyancy. Increased metabolism increases oxygen demand which further increases the metabolic rate....end result stress and impaired immune systems which can lead to opportunistic infections.

Excessive rubbing of the skin can cause irritation and damage to skin as well as stress to the puffer - so be careful if you try to manually express.

I don't think it is a good idea to keep your marine fish in such a low SG all the time. The way to ward off ich is to QT anything that you will add to the tank. If you haven't seen any ich in the past month, then there won't be a problem w/raising the SG to more natural levels for your fish.

There is an excellent article in our Library on treating air-filled puffers.

Isn't 1.010 SG way too low for marine fish?

Haha, beat ya!

1.010 is too low for continous "use".....if proper QT not used, resistant parasites could develop in this system.

Well they had ick about 3 weeks ago, one reason why their SG is so low. I didn't know that you can't keep the fish in that water for a long time. I will gradually start raising it back up to the norm then. we had some really bad storms and the power was out for like 6 or more hours. It freaked them out pretty bad then the power went off again like 5 days later for at least another six hours. I think we will be investing in a generator because I'm tired of power outages especially this time of the year. well my little guy can swim all the way to the bottom and stay there no problem he just gets that lump as of yesterday after he ate then he swam around on the bottom tilted to one side. If he is doing it again today I will catch him and rub his stomach to see if i can get him to burp, cause I think putting him in a critter keeper isn't going to get it since he can swim at the bottom and not float up.