The Puffer Forum

I moved about 3 months ago now and have been battling ich ever since. My puffers apparently did not like the move. My boyfriend is now freaking out because not only has the ich we thought was gone come back but my Stars and Stripes Puffers tail is turning black! It looks pretty bad. It started with just the edge but has now spread all the way to half way down his tail. Thats pretty far since he is about a 14" now. He is swimming and acting fine but Im really worried. Any ideas? I know pics would help but I cant take any right now because our camera is not working.

Heres some other information about the new set up. We upgraded EVERYTHING when we moved.

Custom Acrylic tank 8'x2'x20"tall
90G sump, so total water volume is over 300G
Barebottom (starboard)
200 lbs. LR
Deltec 600 skimmer
Closed loop and lots of other flow

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 15
PH 8.1 (from monitor right now)
Temp 79 (chiller never lets it go past 79)
SG. 1.025

Fish:

14"Stars and Stripes Puffer
10"Porcupine Puffer
5" Green Spotted Puffer
8"Harlequin Tusk
2' Snowflake Eel
6" Kole Tang
4" Spotted Hawkfish


I feed them a mix of clams, mussels, prawn, formula 1, pellets, mysis, brine, live prawns (after QT), live crabs, silversides, once in a while chromis.

All the frozen stuff is thawed overnight in garlic and vitamins.
Water changes once every two weeks of 50G

Treating them has been hard...We decided with the ich the last time, to move the LR into a empty 65G we have and keep it cycled there and do hypo in our display tank as its barebottom. Worked well enough. This time, would like to do the same thing but it may not be a good idea if I have to use medication. I heard it can stay in the tank. But I did hear it stays in the silicone or something and since this is acrylic, there is no silicone. I dont think I can even treat the one Stars in Stripes in the 65G though because last time we tried putting him in there, he went very dark, was breathing heavily and puffing up for the few days we tried. We put him back in his tank and he was fine.

Hope all the info helps. Please let me know asap if you have any idea why my puffers tail is turning black and what to do!

Thanks so much!

Oh I think I should clairify something, the black is on his fin, not his actual tail or body.

What size tank is it? Sounds sort of overstocked. Nice choice of fish though.

Over 300G total water volume. Its a custom tank, so I do not know the exact Gallons but its around 220G for the main display. 90G sump.

Im not so sure its overstocked either. We have had no aggression issues and water quality is always great. Never seen Nitrates over 15 which I think is good for a FOWLR with big fish. I hear of most being more like 30-50. My reef is even around 10.

We are adding a 20G refugium soon too, which will hopefully eliminate nitrates all together. My boyfriend does pretty big water changes every two weeks and lately, every two or three days.

Ok, my boyfriend just told me I got the dimensions a bit off. I really dont know these things! Its 22" high, not 20" and its 220G. So a total of around 310G.

Moving this to the hospital forum.

I PMed our SW puffer expert, Puffer Queen. I hope she can help soon.

Thank you, Im really worried! His tail is still quite black. He does not seem stressed at all or any different than normal but it looks bad. I hope I have not over-stocked the tank like the first reply said...We thought it was a reasonable bio-load, especially with the great skimmer we have. Like I said earlier, I honestly never see ammonia or nitrites and the nitrates are relatively low. Plus there is never any aggression issues. We purposely had a 8 foot by 2 foot tank built, so they would feel like they had a good amount of room. I feel bad now though if its my fault that he is sick.

Your stocking is fine for a tank that size. Howe long have you had him and what meds have you used?

Had him about a year and three months now. Never used meds with him, just hyposalinity for ich. yesterday we started hypo again for bit of ich and today I have noticed that it looks slightly better. It did not spread anymore and its not as black. Kind of like it faded a bit.

Is it the fin only or the "fleshy" part of the tail ?
Can you post a pic of the tail?

Are the spots salt like or dusting? Bigger than salt?

How long did you treat with hyposalinity last time and for how long?

Do you quarantine the live foods before feeding - crabs, chromis, etc??

I will try to get a picture tomorrow. Its just the fin, not the fleshy part. Im really worried now though because it was all almost gone this afternoon and we thought it was finally going but this evening, its back and worse. It seems to come and go quite fast.

Spots are like most ich spots I have ever seen. I guess closer to salt-like. Its not anything bigger like cauliflower disease and not like velvet I dont think. I have seen both and these really look like ich.

Hypo was 6 weeks last time and about 3 months ago. Ich was gone for a while but came back a few days ago. Not really sure why...

I have not fed live foods in about 6 months but yes they were QT'd for a month before feeding. Chromis were not a usual part of their diet, just to get the new porc eating when he was new. Fed them once more after that though about a year ago, none since...

With feeder fish/inverts - all in and all out at the same time - if one is added to an existing tank with feeders, the quarantine period starts over.

Do you quarantine rock, inverts, etc?

We do not QT LR or inverts. We have not added LR for about 2 years now and inverts for about 6 months. The inverts were some crabs for the puffers and eel to eat.

I did know about the QT starting over if you add new fish. I can't remember if we ever added any new inverts or fish when others were already QT'd but if so, it would have been a long time ago.

Could this be something coming up now because of something we did a year ago???

Any ideas what it COULD be? I have not been able to take any pics yet. The back half of his tail keeps getting really dark and then within hours its pretty clear again. Right now its looking pretty good but last night it looked terrible! I dont know for sure, but after he eats, its seems to get darker. But not like how they change color all over, this is not a normal thing.