Puffer / Skin Disease Experts please help

[caribfan]

Several days ago, my black dog face puffer developed a patch where it appeared the outer layer of his skin was missing. The patch appears white and sunken below the normal skin layer of the fish. I did a small water change last night (25%) and fed a piece of shrimp that was heavily dosed with Vitachem. The patch has gotten progressively bigger and I am not sure what is causing it or how to remedy the situation.

I don't believe the fish is being picked on, but I can't watch the tank to be sure.

Does anyone have any recommendations or know what this disease is?

My water parameters are good, with the exception that I am finished a cupramine treatment.

I plan to do a 50% water change tomorrow and put a fresh bag of carbon in to help remove any cupramine that could still be in the system.

Please please help me on this.

Thanks

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[caribfan]

Should have added that cupramine is 0.3 mg/l and the fish is eating.

 

[caribfan]

Anyone? Fish still eating,but has developed another small spot.

 

[Terrance]

Yikes it does not look good.

I think you should QT your puffer. I am not good at disease, but maybe consider using Pimafix or Melafix after you QT.

 

[caribfan]

Thanks for the input at least, he went to the QT as soon as I saw it, I just need to know how to proceed now with a treatment.

 

[caribfan]

So the fish is still eating well and it appears the spot has stopped increasing in size, however, I still don't know what caused it or how to make it go away. I had really hoped to hear from Las or Sandwi54 on this, maybe I still will.

I did a 50% water change last night and added a new bag of carbon, so hopefully most if not all the cupramine should be out of the system, I'll test it again tonight.

Anybody have any thoughts at all on this skin issue? If I need to be treating for a bacterial infections, i'd really like to start doing that, but i'm an admitted novice when it comes to treating bacterial infections.

 

[caribfan]

Figured I'd update this thread since I had some success.

The spots continued to spread, almost in a diagonal line down the body of the fish, but eventually stopped. Another small patch appeared on the other side of the fish, but it was more of a patch opposed to a line.

I think the cause was one of two things, copper poisoning or a new kind of shrimp that I had tried. The shrimp was particularly red in color, which is why I purchased it, however the skin issue started just a day or so after I started feeding the new shrimp.

I had also treated the tank with cupramine and thought I had removed most of the chemical after a 4 week treatment through water changes and the use of Carbon, however after retesting, I found that I had maintained a concentration of 0.20 for almost 8 weeks.

So here is a video of him now, on the mend. I've done nothing outside of some heavy water changes and a lot if GAC. He's not perfect, but he seems to be healng slowly.

His diet now is mainly little neck clams, although tonight I fed the tank two oysters so he's a little lumpy/fat. I try to soak the clams in Vitachem and Selcon three to four times a week.

<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fvid1297.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fag26%2Fcaribfan%2FIMG_1535_zpseb4e276f.mp4">

 

[sandwi54]

caribfan, sorry I missed this thread back in April. I was preparing for my June wedding at the time and simply didn't have time to cruise around RC much...

Discolorations/patches are sort of normal for puffers as long as they are not actual skin diseases. My golden puffer developed a faint black splotch on the back which never went away, and I actually suspected he was transforming back to the guineafowl stage, which luckily he did not.

The white splotch may be allergic reaction to the new shrimp you were feeding, and I'm assuming you already stopped feeding that, right? Try to feed Mr. Puff more variety of food if he accepts them. I feed my puffers clams, scallops, large shrimps, krills, and sometimes mussels. Mr. Puff looks pretty healthy in the video. If he's eating well and remaining active, I wouldn't worry about it.

I just showed my wife your video, and she's mesmerized by Mr. Puff. I think we'll have a sixth puffer in the near future which means my 110g that currently houses two dogface puffers will become a 200g!