The Puffer Forum

Hi everyone, I've also posted this on another forum that many of you frequent, but, being a first time puffer (or rather, any fish that's lived over a day) owner I'm a little on the paranoid side. Much of what I'm about to write (tank conditions, size, etc) may seem really irresponsible for one who has never kept a fish alive over a day (although, to be fair, last time I had fish was when I was about 3 years old...), but as some others can hopefully attest to, the conditions we got them at were far from ideal and I'm trying very hard to learn as much as I can. So onto the problem:

I noticed yesterday that my puffers (2 Ceylons, in 20 Gal tank, will upgrade to at least 100gal in a couple months) have little white shiny dots on their caudal fins (they look a bit like scales on "regular" fish). I'm not sure if they're raised, and only one of them will come up to the glass when I'm there. The other one's a little on the shy side and will come to the glass to get a better look if I'm farther away. Since the white dots are really small, and not sure if they're raised, I'm going on other symptoms to diagnose them.

They're really agitated lately, taking quick little sprints once in a while, and wiggling their caudal fins a lot more than usual. They were a little darker this morning and more agitated than usual, so I'm a little worried. I think I even caught one of them trying to rub up against one of the ornaments in the tank, but I can't be sure. They seemed ok when I went to test the water just now. The little white specs seem more like long white strands now on their caudal fin?

Edit: Water parameters:
nitrite: 0.3mg/l
nitrate: 0mg/l
ammonia 0mg/l
pH: 7.0-7.5 (will be raised after cycling)
kH: 5 dkh (will also be raised after cycling)
sg: 1.000-1.001 (was 1.002 until the emergency water change a couple days ago)
temp: 27-28C, 82-84F

As for water changes, because of a power outage (again, due to weather), their water temperature dropped down to 20C (72F, i think?) a couple days ago (Friday). When I found them, I panicked, and put in 2 gal of hot, conditioned tap water, without any salt, as it wouldn't have had time to dissolve. I managed to get the water temperature to about 22C, and by adding more conditioned hot water, managed to keep it around there until the power came back on later that day.

We also recently put in a couple of new decorations, as they seemed to be getting bored, and an air stone just in case, since the water temp is usually around 27C (82F?).

I can't really remember what else I was supposed to put...but I'll check back after doing some water tests. Unfortunately, we are cycling the tank with the fish in the water, as we didn't have enough time to do a fishless cycle, and I have no spare tank available to quarantine them at the moment. Hopefully it's not because of that...*nervous*...

Food: frozen brine shrimp and frozen blood worms. We're working breeding snails for them. And may give them some prawn tails and clam shells to let them wear down their teeth in the mean time.

I've had them at home for about a week, and have put some water and yarn from their previous tank to help with the cycling.

I can't remember anything else for now, hopefully someone can help. Maybe it's just the decorations? Any help would appreciated, hopefully this wasn't too long to deter people from reading the whole thing

I have a new symptom

One of my puffs has some more white spots on his dorsal fin that I noticed yesterday. He doesn't like to come close to the glass, so I can only get a really good look when he's begging for food, which doesn't last long. He doesn't seem to eat as much as the other puff either, who is smaller.

The other puff also has something on the dorsal tip of his caudal fin. Depending on the light, it looks either white or light blue/lavender/purple? Could this be fungus? I'm planning to head off to the local LFS later today. Is there anything I should keep an eye out for?

I'm also still prepping for the water change which, unfortunately, won't happen until tomorrow earliest, unless either salinity or temperature isn't correct.

I've raised the temperature since yesterday, it's now 82F, and the salinity of the change water is 1.002. It won't up the tank salinity that much, but I'd rather take that slow, anyway.

Anything new: we put in some oyster shells last night for them to play with and to raise the hardness. We also fed them shrimp soaked in garlic juice last night for the first time. I also had some shrimp later with my dinner, and they smelled/tasted fine to me, so hopefully it's not that?

Anyone have any idea what's going on?

any picture?

Finally, I have a picture that shows what I'm talking about! (So I deleted the post saying I didn't )

http://www.angelfire.com/moon/nusquam/Donkey_small.jpg
Unfortunately, for some reason just clicking the link won't work. Hopefully some of you will take the time to have a quick look and let us know what you think?

You can see the white dots/streaks on his tail, as well as the little washed out/white splotches on his side...

As well, I've put in some MelaFix and PimaFix, and on the advice of Callen, I'm planning to change another 50% of the water tomorrow.

I'm getting a better (unresized) version of the picture right now, so if people can't see detail, let me know, maybe the bigger file will have more details.

But for now, thanks to anyone who has even read this, we really appreciate it!

Hey, here the picture but I put it into my user gallery. Thanks for your help.