The Puffer Forum

Or does it have to be Aquarium Salt?

I think he has some raised spots on his fins so I am going to be watching him very closely.

Thankyou

Yes, you can. I treated one of my puffers with marine salt successfully.

I know one is often directed to use aquarium salt (NaCl), marine mix and all the additives that are contained within are not needed...but would it be counter productive when treating an F8...that I would be interested in hearing.

Are you sure it is (or could be) ich...I would have thought the brackish conditions would be enough to kill it...what SG are you keeping your tank at now?

He has not been in brackish water yet so it would be like treating him as if he were freshwater.
I'm not totally sure about the ich when I first got him he had what I considered to be a normal scar spot on his tail fin, but tonight I noticed a couple more that appeared could be raised and my hubby noticed one spot on his body side. The spot on his body is very white small but I think maybe a little bit bigger than an ick spot.
I have plants in the tank would it be possible that some of the little seedy things off the plants could stick on his tail? That is kind of what it looks like.
I don't know I just want to be on red alert and ready.

Thankyou for your help

Can you get a picture of it?

It's late the lighting is horrible this one on the fin is showing but there are about 5 more smaller ones as well spattered around it


This picture show the only one on his back


Tomorrow I will get better pictures

It could very well be ich.

Are you planning on moving him into brackish water? He's certainly big enough for it and will have better health in the long run. Plus it will kill the ich.

I would just start raising the SG.

Yes we were going to be moving him up into Salt this week by .001 a week for 3 weeks, as I have some plants too. To .003.
So therefore the only thing that concerns me is raising the temperature that much, I have raised it 3 degrees since last night, I have another 4 degrees to go..

I'd be more concerned about your puffer than the plants right now. Eventually most plants won't make it with the amount of salt you puffer's going to need.

PufferPunk
My puffer is a figure 8 he should do just fine in .003 - .004 and my plants should be just fine, if not obviously I'm going to be more concerned about the puffer than the plants in the long run..
Honestly if you don't' have anything helpful to say on this thread then why say it?
I'm upset and worried enough my puffer has ick, ick could kill my puffer!
You should know it wouldn't' be healthy for me to raise my puffer that was purchased in freshwater a little over a week ago "right now" to anything higher than .001 per week.
That is very misleading for a new puffer owner.

That is all.

Everyone else

He still has his spots no new ones, he is still eating and playing in his bubble wall, probably feels really good.
I'm hoping and praying I caught this early enough..

Actually, pufferpunk is quite right that it's safe to raise the SG more than that... it's perfectly healthy to raise a high end brackish puffer most of the way to it's highest tolerence in an afternoon, if you add the salt water slowly they will acclimate fine, I did this for a GSP I purchased with ich and severe damaged slime coat, brought him all the way from fresh to 1.014 in a long afternoon(7 or so hours) and he's doing great, it's nuked the ich and his slimecoat is back to normal, and his damged fins are healing well with the melafix I added. I'm sure a figure 8 can easily transition to 1.002 in almost no time. You could bring the tank to about 1.002 without hurting your biofilter or fish by removing the water for a 50% water change and replacing it with SG 1.004 water over an hour or so. This will deal harshly with the ich(way nastier for it than just a few tablespoons of aqarium salt) and be fine for your fish and biofilter. I suspect at such a low SG would only minimally effect your plants, that is very light brackish water, my petland keeps bananna plants and swords in that.

Quite right. In fact, the 5 baby F8s I just got were going into a 1.015 SG tank from fresh water. I acclimated them over several hours in a bucket. They did fine and are doing extremely well while I am slowly bringing the SG in the tank down by ~0.002 per week.

Brackish puffers themselves are very forgiving in terms of salinity. The bacterial filter and plants are another story. You could easily start doing some salt water dips with your F8 to start killing off the ick while at the same time you are raising the SG in the tank. The plants will not instantly disintegrate from a 0.002 jump in SG.

Ok my mistake about it bothering them if that is the general consensus I have read that it is best to bring it up .001 I have seen people told they did it wrong if they didn't' (not necessarily here)
But the comment in general was unhelpful and either I took it the wrong way or I'm supposed to be reading between the lines?? With a figure 8 I shouldn't have a problem keeping him at light to mod. brackish and my plants... What this is doing on my ick thread is what I was getting at kwim!
I will come to a time when I need to raise it over .004 and when I do I'll post about it in the general forum or a plant forum or just figure it out on my own.
Anyway obviously I'm no longer bothered by the comment but I want to justify why I wrote to Pufferpunk it was more about the "I would be more concerned about your puffer than your plants" Kinda uncalled for that is all..
I don't' expect anyone to get what I was trying to say or how the comment made me feel, but I wanted to address it or I probably wouldn't feel comfortable posting here in the future and that would be a shame for my puffer.

Don't dwell on it too much, I can guarantee that Pufferpunk meant nothing by it. She's only concerned with the health of the puffer above anything else. Please stick around, you'll find that we generally try our best to be as helpful as possible, but because tone and meaning carry so poorly over the internet, it's always best to take everything with a grain of salt and to give others the benefit of the doubt.


It's true that bringing the salinity up slowly is the best course of action if it can be helped, but in cases of ick, raising the temp and salinity are the only sure fire ways to kill it. We generally recommend raising it in an established tank by no more than 0.002 per week to allow the bacterial filter to adjust. But the brackish puffers can be drip acclimated much more quickly in a matter of hours. And in the case of a parasite like ich, even salt water dips are an option. For plants, a very slow acclimation is the best bet for their long term success, perhaps 0.001 per month, but in your case, with the ich, a more drastic change is needed.

Perhaps we can work out a plan of action that will let you tackle the ich as soon as possible while still taking your plants into consideration.

How many cycled tanks/filters do you have at your disposal? Would it be possible to set up a quarantine tank?

Perhaps you could start doing salt water dips, or acclimating him in a bucket from freshwater up to a higher SG and then back down again over the course of a few hours. In the mean time you could be increasing the SG in your main tank by 0.002 per week.