Can a Brackish water puffer introduce Ich into reef tank

[syrinx]

I understand where you are comming from-but the fish can be kept in pure fresh water-its not the same as hypo for a marine fish. It boils down to what is proper for the individual situation.

 

[Stuart60611]

I understand where you are comming from-but the fish can be kept in pure fresh water-its not the same as hypo for a marine fish. It boils down to what is proper for the individual situation.

Well, in this instance, I think your point is stronger b/c the green spoted puffers naturally live in freshwater to low salinity. However, since he has already placed the puffer into a system with cupramine and has indicated no negative reaction, the bell has been rung so to speak at this point, and I would simply stay on course rather than further stress the fish by dramatically changing treatments. Plus, it appears that the green spoted puffer has been previously acclimated to full marine salinity since he is being quarantined with a clown so I do not think full marine salinity is going to be as much of a problem for the puffer here.

 

[syrinx]

It will remain to be seen how the fish tolerates it. All and all no matter our opinions- we all want the fish to do well. Hopefully the OP will let us know the good news when the fish is healed.

 

[Stuart60611]

It will remain to be seen how the fish tolerates it. All and all no matter our opinions- we all want the fish to do well. Hopefully the OP will let us know the good news when the fish is healed.

Completely agree.

 

[ezhoops]

Fair point. However, hypo is also much more difficult than cupramine to apply correctly. Any slight elevation in salinity will render the treatment ineffective (salinity must be maintained in the narrow range of 1.008-1.009) because otherwise crypt will be able to reproduce (hypo does not kill crypt but only stops it from reproducing). Cupramine, on the other hand, is very easy to apply because it has a very broad effective range of .2-.5 and thus is hard to misapply. As such, careful and frequent toping off is critical to hypo because a failure to do so will ofen result in treatment failure. Plus, hypo is a much longer treatment of 8-10 weeks where cupramine is only 3. I find that the often undersized and poorly filtered quarantine systems cause more stress to fish than chemicals do. As such, I would contend that cupramine is far less harsh on fish than hypo because it allows one to get a fish out of substandard quarantine facilities much sooner, thereby greatly reducing stresss. Also, hypo only cures ich and no other parasites so it has limited application. Finally, because PH is hard to maintain in hypo and the lengthy treatment frequent water changes are often required in hypo which exponentially increase the liklihood that the treatment will not succeed because inevitably salinity gets too high for a period when doing these water changes (only need a brief period of elevated salinity for hypo to fail). Conversely, cupramine can usually be applied without a single water change because of its short treatment duration, and once you reach your target copper level it is pretty much a "set it and forget it" operation.

Very well stated

The puffer so far has been doing fine, I will keep a close eye on the situation though.

Thank you for your advice

 

[Pufferpunk]

since he has already placed the puffer into a system with cupramine and has indicated no negative reaction

I have seen days to weeks later, the puffer's skin (unprotected by scales) will start to peel in reaction to previous copper treatment. They have also gone blind.

I have seen great success with hypo in the treatment of crypt.

 

[ezhoops]

I'm just so angry with myself that I intro'd him without QT. Never that it would cause such a mess. Live and learn