The Puffer Forum

I'v done alot of research about ich over the last couple of days since I'v noticed my spiny puffer with small little white dots all over his body. It looked like grains of salt. Other than having the spots he has been fine, still eating good. Iv been feeding him vitamin supplements with garlic guard, because I heard the garlic can help.
The problem is that I know that a quarintine tank is the best solution, but the tank is FOWLR only with a couple of crabs and a few snails. He is a pretty good sized fish and I dont have a quarintine tank big enough to quarintine him in. I'v thought about a rubbermaid container, but I can't get one big enough for him where I live.

I bought this medicine called (NO-ICH) produced by Fish-Vet Inc. Has anyone ever heard of it or used it. It says it is completely safe for fish and for reefs and treats ich. The active ingredient is 5-Nitroimidazoles, whatever that is. I have'nt been able to find information on this stuff any where. I seen where you can lower the salt levels down to 1.009-1.015, but I don't have a good lab grade hydrometer. All I have is those plastic lever arm types. I read not to try this type of treatment without a good hydrometer. All I am left with is ordering a big rubbermaid tub which is pretty expensive or finding some type of medicine that is safe and works. What should I do? I also have some formalin for a dip if he gets to acting to bad. I read somewhere not to use formalin on puffers that they are kind of sensitive, and I didn't want to take him out of the tank and stress him out if I can cure him in the tank he's in. Could someone let me know if they have ever tried this medicine, and if it worked. Thanks

Raise the temp to around 86, lower the SG to around 1.018 & do FW dips on the fish.

One way of being a little more certain about the SG is to leave the new water aerating and heated over night, then testing a few times and taking the average if the readings do vary. Then add it to your tank.
But deffo raise temp and do FW dips...that way you CAN be sure of the SG.
Hope he gets better.
Pami.

Pufferpunk wrote:Raise the temp to around 86, lower the SG to around 1.018 & do FW dips on the fish.

Is 1.018 low enough. I'v read if it is not a least lowered down to 1.009 that it wont kill ich. [/quote]

Pamela wrote:One way of being a little more certain about the SG is to leave the new water aerating and heated over night, then testing a few times and taking the average if the readings do vary. Then add it to your tank.
But deffo raise temp and do FW dips...that way you CAN be sure of the SG.
Hope he gets better.
Pami.

The thing is that the hydrometer I got takes the same readings, but it is not a lab grade hydrometer so the readings are going to be off. The average isn't going to matter because it is already off.

I only mentioned 1.018, cause this is your main tank & you don't want it to crash. If you had a QT, I would have said to make the SG much lower.

Is salt water ich a bit more challenging that FW...I'm sure I read that it takes longer to get rid of.
Pami.

Pufferpunk wrote:I only mentioned 1.018, cause this is your main tank & you don't want it to crash. If you had a QT, I would have said to make the SG much lower.

Can it still cure it with the SG being this high? I also noticed today that the ich has almost completely left puffy. From what I'v read that is the time to kill the ich when it leaves the fish and is in the cyst state. I thought I would do a couple of water changes to try and vacuum the cyst out. I couldn't hurt. After the water changes I'll try lowering the SG down some to see if that helps. Since the SG isn't going to be that low then I beleive it will be alright using the hydrometer I have. I definiately am going to invest in one.

Pamela,
From what I have read the SW ich is definately much worse and harder to get rid of than FW ich.

Kman, you didn't mention what the actual water chemistry is like. Nitrates? Nitrites? Ammonia? A sick fishes immune system cannot kick in and fight off a disease if the water chemistry is bad. (frehwater dips and meds can alot of times make it worse, so lets hope its perfect Second, cranking up your temp to 85 will not do you any good if 1.) the water chemistry is not good, and 2.) (just as important) If you do not have enough dissolved oxygen in the water. The warmer the water, the less oxygen for your fish. And if you have more than one fish in there, thats more than one guy using oxygen and a greater chance of killing your fish from a lack of oxygen. 86 degrees is hot hot hot for a stressed out fish , so proper water circulation is a must. Throw a few extra powerheads on the tank or a few extra airstones. Not to metion medications (depending on the type also cut back on Oxygen. So if your tank is at 76 or 78, turining it up 10 degrees without everything else being 100 percent perfect is pretty risky. Also, please read up on actual procedure for a fresh water dip. If you are unsure, just going ahead and doing it and not knowing how is silly. You need to know what you are doing. I would suggest the following.

2 buckets on hand. (3 to 5 gal size, use your judgement) You didnt say how big your guy is. Bigger fish will scrape their eyes on buckets if not properly lined. (with a big fish bag or garbage bag) This is up to you.

1 bucket salt water, one freshwater, dechlorinated. I like to use a bit of calcium in the freshwater to bring up the pH to match the salty water. I can do this by eyeballing and I use Kent Calcium Reactor (calcium) BUT... If your tap comes out close... please use that. And I mean if your tank is 8.2 and your pH is 7.8, use it. A lot can happen in a bucket in a few minutes if too much calcium is used.

3 and a half minutes to 4 in the freshwater. (your fish will look stressed, but should be fine unless he is so covered in ich that a freshwater dip is going to stress him out until the point of death, which I am sure is not the case.) Now what happens is that those parasites fill with freshwater and are not liking it. After the freshwater dip, put your puffer in the second bucket of tank salt water. Now the parasites will fall off into the bucket. Dips do no good if the fish just goes back into the tank, where the parasites fall off and will jump right back on your fish again. So, I would say about 8 to ten minutes in the salt bucket and then back into the tank.

Keep an eye on your guy over the next day. You should see an improvement given that everything else is perfect and you didnt wait until he was super covered in ich to do something about it. Wait 24 hours and do another dip IF NECESSARY. If the ich isnt getting worse, your water is good, then his little immune system should kick in and hopefully you caught it in time, and the medication will also help.

Then, get a UV sterilizer so this never happens again. Good luck.

Wow. That procedure for FW "dipping" is intense. I would like to respectfully suggest to the moderators that mcats' description of this procedure be appended to the sticky on "Treating Parasites."

Thanks, Peter. It's not intense, it just looks that way because I typed so much.

Mandycat,
"I like to use a bit of calcium in the freshwater to bring up the pH to match the salty water. I can do this by eyeballing and I use Kent Calcium Reactor (calcium) BUT... If your tap comes out close please use that. And I mean if your tank is 8.2 and your pH is 7.8, use it. A lot can happen in a bucket in a few minutes if too much calcium is used."

I don't under stand exactly what you mean by the tap water unless your saying to use it. I use distilled water or RO water only in the tank. Can I use some type of pH and alkalinity buffer like (Sea Buffer) to get the freshwater pH up.
And so you are saying along with the freshwater dips that I can use the (NO-ICH) medication and it will be ok. Since he has been eating really well, and not acting sick other than the ich being on him, I'v been trying to let his natural immune system fight the ich off as long as it don't get to bad. I never said that I was going to do any type of dips without knowing what I was doing. I want to make sure I fully understand before doing anything like that. I don't want to stress him out by taking him out of the tank.
The tanks water conditions are fine. Ammonia is 0, pH is 8.2, and the Nitrite's are 0. The nitrates were high until recently. I finally got them down to under 10 ppm. I haven't tested since the water change last night, but most likely the nitrates are now 0.
My puffer is fairly large for a 75 gallon tank, that is why I am in the process of setting up a 180 gallon, and will be ready by spring. Puffy is at least 10 inches long and probably 4 inches wide. So he is big. To big for the 75 gallon.

I am going to get a rubber maid container to do the dips in. I'v already got a 35 gallon, and I will get another one for the fresh water dips. I'll use one for the tank water and one for the fresh water. And please let me know if I can use any type of marine buffering agent that I can get at my LFS to raise the pH of the fresh water.
Also I have not raised my temperature up except for 2 to 3 degrees, which I wanted to raise it up a little any way. I was running the temperature at 77 degrees and I raised it up to between 79 and 80 degrees is all. I also have not lowered the SG.

Please mandycat let me know about using the pH buffers like (Sea Buffer), and using the rubbermaid tubs besides 5 gallon buckets since puffy is pretty large.

Also I ordered a UV sterilizer from (window to the sea) back in january, and I never received my product or got my money back. I reported them to the BBB, but it makes me mad knowing that if I got my UV light besides getting ripped off that my puffer possibly wouldn't have ich right now. I am getting ready to get another one. I was just trying to wait until the 180 gallon was set up, because I will be running ozone in that tank. Thanks for your help

I wasn't for sure about doing fresh water dips before. I'v heard from some that it helps and others it don't. Check out this web site.
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevo ... neich.html

Kman... I hope your puffer is doing well. Its hard to tell you what the actual ratio of buffer to freshwater that I use since I just 'eyeball' it. I can also cook an extravagent meal and make it the same over and over and never use a measuring cup. Point being...dont use that method, its just something that I found works well for me. But what also works just as well is if you were using your actual tap water, dechlorinate it, and if the chemistry with you pH kH and Gh were pretty close to what is already in your tank, use that. Dont use RO, that would be completly the opposite of what your salt tank is at. When you are dipping a fish, it is stressful enough, you wouldnt want to put them into a different temp,pH, etc. to what they are already used to. I hope that was a little more clear.

mandycat,
Yes I understand now. Thanks again.