Porcupine Puffer is sick

[DaddyFish]

New fish that was doing well in quarantine. Moved him to different tank yesterday and tonight he's lethargic and has these "bubbles" in his corneas.
Not sure what I'm dealing with here. Just snapped the pic and gave him a 5-min FW dip. He ate a small amount of food the moment I returned him to the tank, but is back to laying around on the bottom.

Advice appreciated. Meds can be more harmful than beneficial to puffers sometimes, so I want to proceed cautiously.

@Jay Hemdal

 

[DaddyFish]

Short video of the little dude...

 

[vetteguy53081]

Those dots on eyes look like flukes in which fW dip should have helped with. Unless my eyes are deceiving me, I believe I see what looks like ich on the puffer also especially noting his labored breathing.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Wow, an Ich / Fluke combo would be tricky with a Puffer I suppose. We are all pulling for you!

 

[DaddyFish]

Wow, an Ich / Fluke combo would be tricky with a Puffer I suppose. We are all pulling for you!

Thank you!

Those dots on eyes look like flukes in which fW dip should have helped with. Unless my eyes are deceiving me, I believe I see what looks like ich on the puffer also especially noting his labored breathing.

The FW dip definitely improved his activity. He was mega lethargic when I captured him for the FW dip. Afterwards when I went back in the tank I had to actually chase him down a bit.

I have no way of knowing if he arrived two weeks ago with the Ich or contracted it from one of the other two fish with whom he was QT'd. So I had to scramble and assemble a fresh QT tank tonight. A 10-gal will have to do for now. He's now QT'd (again) in fresh sw with Ich-X.

I bleached the original 20-gal QT and have it drying. Tomorrow I will repeat a FW dip, do a 50% wc and redose Ich-X. Once he's completed the Ich-X treatments I'll do a QT tank swap and put him back in a 20-gal for observation.

Any other suggestions??? (I keep Formalin, Ich-X, Melafix and General Cure on hand at all times)

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Porcupines are prone to eye damage/bubbles when being moved, however, the bubbles from that are typically larger. You should still be able to discern - bubbles will be shiny/blue, while other eye issues will be cloudy/white. Was it breathing this labored before you moved it? Another cause of gas bubbles is supersaturation - are there any unaffected fish in the new tank? If so, that would rule out supersaturation.

I know people use Ich-x because they want to avoid copper, but I've had more issues with malachite green than I ever had with copper, even on puffers. The trouble with malachite green is that it is a cumulative poison - with copper, if you overdose it, you can just change the water and reduce the dose. With malachite green, if you overdose, or dose too long, it builds up in the fish's tissues. The old advice about puffers being sensitive to copper was when people were using copper/citric acid products like Seacure. I have a one-eyed porcupine fish that I use to keep a quarantine system biologically active and it has gone through many coppersafe treatments and never had an issue.

Jay

 

[DaddyFish]

Porcupines are prone to eye damage/bubbles when being moved, however, the bubbles from that are typically larger. You should still be able to discern - bubbles will be shiny/blue, while other eye issues will be cloudy/white. Was it breathing this labored before you moved it? Another cause of gas bubbles is supersaturation - are there any unaffected fish in the new tank? If so, that would rule out supersaturation.

I know people use Ich-x because they want to avoid copper, but I've had more issues with malachite green than I ever had with copper, even on puffers. The trouble with malachite green is that it is a cumulative poison - with copper, if you overdose it, you can just change the water and reduce the dose. With malachite green, if you overdose, or dose too long, it builds up in the fish's tissues. The old advice about puffers being sensitive to copper was when people were using copper/citric acid products like Seacure. I have a one-eyed porcupine fish that I use to keep a quarantine system biologically active and it has gone through many coppersafe treatments and never had an issue.

Jay

The puffer seemed fine before being moved. He was in QT (for two weeks) with a Cleaner Wrasse and a Powder Brown Tang. The other two fish remain healthy so far.

I have looked at the 2018 treatment chart on this forum and noted that it says "absolutely not" for all types of copper treatment and puffers. I do keep Cupramine in stock and my local Petco is showing Fritz Coppersafe in stock. I'll purchase that today.
Fish and Treatment Guidelines chart

Q. I realize this is a loaded question, but do you have a recommendation specifically for puffers of Cupramine vs Coppersafe or Copper Power?

Q. Now that the puffer is in Ich-X, would it be okay to do a 50% water change and immediately start dosing copper? Or should I do back-to-back 50% changes (in 24 hours) and then wait some period of time?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Coppersafe on puffers is better tolerated than Cupramine. Because chloroquine is not currently available, copper is the only option. Copper sensitivity is hugely subjective, don’t forget, many of the signs of copper toxicity mimic that of protozoan infections. I want to clean up some of the references here, but haven’t had the time yet.
Can I guarantee that the puffer won’t die during a copper treatment? Nope- but the fish is sick going into it, and that is always an uphill battle.

Jay

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I use this method to treat puffers with great success. Here is a link to the method from @Humblefish and a link to where I document it on some puffers. I have also used this on numerous other fish without hypo. Hypo may also not be needed.

Method:

Hybrid TTM to treat all parasites!

10/9/2022: Jay Hemdal and the current Fish Medic staff are suggesting that people find other treatments rather than TTM. It has some substantial drawbacks: “Tank chasing” method (Tank Transfer Method - TTM) A mostly theoretical method for treating Cryptocaryon infections takes advantage of...

www.reef2reef.com

My experience:

Hybrid TTM Treatment - Puffers

So we got our sons 2 puffers he ordered. As with all the other puffers we have ever received, they have ich for sure, and this time, it does not appear flukes are present. Still not 100% on that though. The porc looks to have velvet, but after shipping, the bath and acclimating will not come out...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[DaddyFish]

Managing TTM with H2O2 is beyond my currently available time and available space. Forced to stick with OTC meds for now or resort to Formalin.

Picked up Coppersafe and will perform 50% wc then dose with Coppersafe this evening. PorcPuff is showing signs of a puffer appetite and has eagerly fed twice today.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Managing TTM with H2O2 is beyond my currently available time and available space. Forced to stick with OTC meds for now or resort to Formalin.

Picked up Coppersafe and will perform 50% wc then dose with Coppersafe this evening. PorcPuff is showing signs of a puffer appetite and has eagerly fed twice today.

For puffers and copper, copper safe is the best option. Just watch the puffer closely and wishing you the best with it.

 

[DaddyFish]

One week update... porc puffer is looking much better. Eyes look clear, has good appetite, no visible Ich, respiration normal, and this morning he spit at me because I was late feeding him.

Doing daily 20% water changes as part of vacuuming his QT. Dosing CopperSafe in the clean water before refilling. So far so good!!!

 

[DaddyFish]

I think I'm still seeing substantial damage from flukes in the eyes? But honestly it's very difficult for me to determine since I'm both colorblind and this is my first Porcupine Puffer.

Now that he's eating well and more active, is this a good time to add General Cure to the meds (with the CopperSafe)?

Would another FW Dip be advisable?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The first picture I looked at seemed worse than this. Diodon puffers naturally have "green eye sheen" as do a few other species of fish. This isn't much worse than would be normal for this species. The sheen varies under different lighting conditions, so perhaps that is making it seem to change over time?

Are there any other symptoms? Is the fish feeding well and breathing normally? If so, I would just stay the course with the coppersafe.

Jay

 

[DaddyFish]

The first picture I looked at seemed worse than this. Diodon puffers naturally have "green eye sheen" as do a few other species of fish. This isn't much worse than would be normal for this species. The sheen varies under different lighting conditions, so perhaps that is making it seem to change over time?

Are there any other symptoms? Is the fish feeding well and breathing normally? If so, I would just stay the course with the coppersafe.

Jay

Fish is feeding well and breathing normally. Thanks!

 

[Deej1534]

Did you use the same dose as in the coppersafe bottle? My puffer just showed signs of both these parasite. Eyes have markings and just started showing

ich. I have two clownfish being qt’d for this for a few weeks now and was going to put the puffer in there with them. They are large clownfish so the puffer won’t be able to eat them luckily. I know this is an old post but any help would be great. About to pull my puffer now

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Did you use the same dose as in the coppersafe bottle? My puffer just showed signs of both these parasite. Eyes have markings and just started showing

ich. I have two clownfish being qt’d for this for a few weeks now and was going to put the puffer in there with them. They are large clownfish so the puffer won’t be able to eat them luckily. I know this is an old post but any help would be great. About to pull my puffer now

Yes - you would use the dose given on the bottle, but you need to treat for the exact water volume of the tank (not its rated capacity) and you need to check the copper level with a good copper test kit (not the API kit - too hard to read).

Jay

 

[Deej1534]

Yes - you would use the dose given on the bottle, but you need to treat for the exact water volume of the tank (not its rated capacity) and you need to check the copper level with a good copper test kit (not the API kit - too hard to read).

Jay

Thanks jay luckily I had the tank already treated so the levels were perfect. I have already seen some color change in his eyes (more clarity) and the white polyps on his skin seems to be dying off. Thank god I caught this early. I have two clowns who have been going through ick (brook) as well so they can all stay together and heal. I plan on doing fresh water dips tomorrow and cleaning out the tank again. Let me know if you think this is too much.

every 3-4 days I have been emptying the qt tank and letting it sit with ro water to kill and brook or ick sitting in the tank. During this time I take the fish and do a 5 min ro bath with a small power head in there to keep the fish moving. I noticed when the water isn’t moving the fish falls to the bottom. Not struggling but just doesn’t move at all which was worrying me. Once that is done they go to a small 1 gallon bowl I have to sit until the qt tank can be filled with water from the dt tank and treated again. I also soak all the fixtures in the qt in ro to make sure everything is clean including heater and air stone tubing. My one clown pictured below jaw been in qt fighting brook for over a month now :/ seems to be winning but just taking a long time. I was adding rid ich for a while which helps but I read some post about the levels poisoning fish so I stopped dosing with it. I may need to start again though if this clown seems to be getting worse. From what I can see she has way less polys on her. But I can see spots on her which still need to die and heal. The other clown seems to be completely healed but I haven’t removed it from qt until I am sure I also am nervous the puffer will eat the other clown if I remove one.