The Puffer Forum

Hi there,
We recently adopted a large MBU, since being put in our tank he has developed white area's but it isn't like individual spots.
I really don't know what it could be or what to do to help. The tank is fairly new, although i ran the pump from my old tank (which was mature at the time) so that it was filtering the water in my new tank and got the bacteria in there...

Any ideas anyone
I will try and get a picture to give you some idea...

Here's a pic.. There are 2 white areas to the left and above his eye and another futher along near his tail...

I moved your post to the hospital section for you.

Can you post your water parameters and other tank details?

Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph readings would be helpful

tank size, dimensions, fish length, approximate age

tank mates? decore? filtration? plants? substrate?

any water additives?

we need more information.

Thank you for moving it for me.

The tank is a juwel Vision 450.
We have sand and 10 plants, the other fish we have in there are 15 neons, 2 pleco's a silver shark and a 3 other friendly fish (i can't think of their names at the mo)
Decoration is a ship wreck and a tree like ornament in your first picture (sorry my memory is useless tonight)
We have the juwel internal filter aswell as a aqua one external filter with Nitrate removal and carbon this filters 1200 litres per hour.

Nitrate is 20ppm
PH is 7.2
The Nitrite is quite high at about 2.0ppm
And the ammonia is also a bit high at 1.0pppm

This is still a relatively newish tank, but i was told that if i put the bacteria in it from my previous tank then it would be ok to put the fish in.

I hope this gives you a bit of an insight to our set up..

The bio load is very high for a newly establishing tank. What sort of bio-load was in the old tank the filter was running on?

If at all possible, try and locate some Marinelabs Bio-spira. It is a live bacterial culture that will let you cycle your tank completely and immediately.

In the meantime, you need to get those toxins under control. Meaning frequent large scale water changes. You can also use large doses of Seachem Prime to help detoxify the ammonia and nitrites.

You need to take action fast, fish loss is imminent at those levels. How long ago did you add the fish and the Mbu in particular?

Do you have another established tank you could move the other fish to?

Oh and Moby (the mbu) is about 18months old and he was serious overfed with his previous owners (6 muscles a day) anyway the couple before have now split and gave Moby back to the shop where they bought him and because he knew that we had a larger tank than most he asked us to have him.
We are now feeding 1 large muscles a day and a cockle in a shell to keep his teeth down.
He still has a very good appetite although isn't that lively, I know that MBU's are well known for sulking especially when their surroundings and rountines change...

The Mbu has only been in there a week tomorrow.
Unfortunately the other tank has now gone so we don't have anywhere else to put them.

Well, given the circumstances, your plan of action should be as I described above.

Water changes, Prime, and hopefully bio-spira.

That looks like a fairly large puffer. How many gallons is that tank?

450 liters, or close to 120 gallons.

Much too small for a Mbu long term. 1000 gallons is recommended. Mbu puffers are riverine fish, meaning they spend the majority of their time fighting strong river currents. They are very active fish and need a lot of room to move around in, especially turning radius due to their very large caudal fin.

Keep an eye and ear open for anyone with a very large 750g+ tank that may be willing to take this very large fish off your hands.

So how big is this puffer?