Dwarf Puffer Sick?

iamntbatman

1. Size of aquarium (# of gallons)
20g

2. Is your aquarium setup freshwater or brackish water?
freshwater

3. How long the aquarium has been set up? 12/07

4. What fish and how many are in the aquarium (species are important to know)
1 Clown Pleco, 2 dwarf puffers, 6 tiger barbs

5. Are there live plants in the aquarium?
Hornwort and Java Fern

6. What temperature is the tank water currently?
84

7. What make/model filter are you using?
UGF and aquatech penguin 100 clone

8. Are you using a CO2 unit?
no

9. Does your aquarium receive natural sunlight at any given part of the day?
no

10. When did you perform your last water exchange, and how much water was changed?
just now, 25%

11. How often do you perform water changes?
weekly

12. How often and what foods do you feed your fish? flakes, frozen bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis shrimp, live pond snails

13. What type of lighting are you using and how long is it kept on?
t8 flourescent 12 hours a day

14. What specific concerns bring you here at this time?
A third puffer died last week. The fish was looking emaciated so special care was given to make sure it was eating (which it did) but the fish died regardless. A second puffer has two raised white bumps 1mm in size, one on its lip and one on its belly. I'm beginning to suspect some kind of parasite is present.

15. What are your water parameters? Test your pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.
pH 7, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20

16. What test kit are you using and is it liquid or test strips?
api freshwater master test kit

17. When was the last time you bought a fish and how did they behave while in the pet store tank?
Clown Pleco was added one month ago. Acted normally in the store tank (and seems quite healthy now)

So my main concern here is the puffer. I don't think it's ich because the bumps are raised. The tank temp is high because that tank is kept in a particularly warm room. Could the bumps be related to an internal parasite? Could they be two unrelated illnesses caused by a fairly long-range move that happened recently? I just don't want another cute little puffer to bite the dust.

1077

iamntbatman,
Were nitate readings you posted before or after water change? I only ask so as to help eliminate any water quality issues. I am sorry to hear about the puffer. It does sound like some type of infection. Bettababy could probably be of more help.

iamntbatman

Those readings were done right before the water change.

okiemavis

Are the bumps completely white? Red around the edges? Do they look like melted wax? Did the dead puffer loose more weight after you noticed he was skinny but still eating? Photos would definitely be helpful as well. It might be worth looking at some photos of TB, columnaris, fish pox and lymphocystis to see if the bumps fit those illnesses.

daisycutter

4. What fish and how many are in the aquarium (species are important to know)
1 Clown Pleco, 2 dwarf puffers, 6 tiger barbs
DPs are not really community matirial and tiger barbs may sress them in most cicimstances they will kill most other fish by persistant fin nipping themselves another problem is that they are scaleless and sometimes diseses can jump ship from the tougher skins of other fish
6. What temperature is the tank water currently?
84
thats a bit on the warm side drop a few degrees woulnt go amiss if possible

apart from that ive had little experence with diseses to give anything definate

iamntbatman

The tank temperature is so high because the room that tank is in gets pretty hot. I moved it to a different room and it has been slowly cooling down to about 80.

I know all of the "rules" about not keeping tiger barbs with much else and keeping dwarf puffers alone entirely, but I couldn't find a single person who had ever tried this particular combination of fish, and because I thought it might work out, I gave it a shot. It has worked, in my opinion. Both species completely leave the other alone. The barbs go wild for flakes and certain other foods, but I'm always sure to let the puffers get their fare share of the frozen stuff. Not to mention the barbs ignore the pond snails, which are the puffers' main food source.

The bumps are completely white. The puffer that died would fill out a little after downing a bunch of snails, but would quickly go back to being thin. I'm not talking "not fat" here...I'm talking starvation-level skinny with a concave stomach area.

I looked up more pictures of those diseases, and they didn't look similar to what the puffer's got, really. The closest looking thing was lymphocystis, but that still looked a bit different. I really wish I could get pictures for you, but I only have a 35mm camera and no scanner. I have a camera phone, but I don't have the cables to copy the pictures to the computer.

1077

are you raising the snails or purchasing them ?

iamntbatman

A combination of both. For a while, I didn't have a tank where I could breed them, so I was relying on the local Petsmart's massive pond snail infestation to supply me. Later I got another tank up and running and got about 100 pond snails from a different Petsmart. The snails have since bred (quite a bit!) but I'm still waiting on the young snails to get to eatin' size, so I've been replenishing my stocks of adult snails with more snails from Petsmart. I also have MTS breeding in another tank so hopefully the populatation there will supply enough to help feed the puffers. Oh! I also have breeding mystery snails now and don't need all those that are hatching. Those will also likely become puffer food.

1077

My LFS lady has one tank with nothing but snails for feeding her pet clown loaches. She puts no chemicals in this tank. I would wonder about other fish stores dumping all kinds of stuff in their tanks to treat fish. It may have no bearing in your case but might be something to consider. :)