Help Please - White Spots on Black Dogface

[caribfan]

This morning when I went to feed my tank, I found a large patch of white raised bumps on my Black Dog Face puffer. I had seen smaller patches like this during the quarantine procedure, but they had always gone away. These may also go away, but the patch is much larger this time. It definitely appears to be something that appears in a patch, as opposed to sporadically appearing C. Irritans. I'll post a picture once I get to work. Does anyone have experience with these symptoms and can you recommend treatment?

None of the other fish are displaying signs of illness, and I definitely have some that would if it were, C. Irritans.

 

[Psionicdragon]

Does it look like salt dots or puffy cotton? If it is salt dots, most likely its ick. If it is more consistent with cotton, then its lympho. Lympho will go away after awhile with good water quality and feeding.

 

[caribfan]

I actually don' t think it's either. I have dealt with lymph and ich on multiple occasions and am pretty sure this is something different. This afternoon when I got home, most of the patch was gone. I think I'm going to do a FW dip tomorrow to see if anything comes off.

 

[hajimetai]

Those patches are not ich. I have the same one. He was covered in ich and all gone after hypo. Those patches appears on and off even after hypo and it's part of skin. always on same spot. under layer of the black coat I think. so nothing to worry about.

 

[caribfan]

You are correct hajimetai, and I probably should have added some closure to this thread and another I had started about my puffer.

My puffer went through a phase where I was pretty sure he had an intestinal blockage and was afraid he was going to die. One of the suggestions from a fellow RC member was to help him "puff up" under water in hopes that the blockage would be expelled. When I did this, I found that the fish is actually covered in hundreds of these little white pointy things that protrude when the fish is puffed up. They seem to retract back into the skin as he deflates, but sometimes they don't make it back into the skin, thus the white spots.

Luckily, my puffer came through with flying colors and is spending some time in QT to get strong and finish an internal parasite treatmenet. Hope yours does well for you.

 

[hajimetai]

I saw bunch of those white spot on his body last week and he was always on the bottom of tank so I watched to see what's up. Mappa puffer started biting him over and over and he went into shock and died!
I got them together and they were like best friend for long time swimming together and sleeping together....Mappa never showed any aggressions anyone in the tank before.
No idea what made him go crazy....:headwally:

 

[caribfan]

That sucks man, I'm sorry to hear that.

 

[sandwi54]

I saw bunch of those white spot on his body last week and he was always on the bottom of tank so I watched to see what's up. Mappa puffer started biting him over and over and he went into shock and died!
I got them together and they were like best friend for long time swimming together and sleeping together....Mappa never showed any aggressions anyone in the tank before.
No idea what made him go crazy....:headwally:

I'm sorry your puffer died, but Arothron puffers CANNOT be kept together! They are highly territorial fish that occur singly in the wild and do not tolerate each other except during mating seasons. While some people have luck mixing species for some time, most end in disaster after the fish mature, except in very large tanks approaching 1000g or so. You should have separated them the moment you suspected aggression from the mappa, which is one of the most aggressive puffer from this genus.

Your mappa got aggressive simply because it's in it's genetics to be aggressive to its similar species so it can protect its food supply.