Experienced in Puffers and ich? Nothing's working and I need help.

[davina]

Alright guys. This is for those of you who have been following this post. 27 days of Rocky having ich, and he's still fighting it! I have never had a fish last after coming down with it.

Being that I spent about $200 in chems, water, salt...not to mention all my time, my b/f has cut me off on the money. Haha, no surprise I guess. So I was finally able to get a 45 gal. storage bucket and I am taking Puffer Queen's advise and doing hypo-salinity (in a backward way).

As you know, I tried putting Rocky in a 10 gal q.t. but it fluctuated too fast. So last night I took the live rock out and put it in a container so that I could lower the s.g. in the show tank without killing it. I also added sand in with the live rock to start seeding it and threw out all the crushed coral that you guys told me was bad.

He's already doing better. By the end of the day today I should have the s.g. all the way down to 1.009. I am also continuing with daily f.w. dips for a 1/2 hour until I see the spots are completely gone. I set the 10 gal up as a dip tank, which saves me a lot of time. I thought I had to get something out of it! haha.

I'll keep you posted. I am sure the success will be great.

Here is a photo I found on wikipedia.org. It's the best photo I have found of a narrow-line, and he's so stunning in the wild.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arothron_manilensis

 

[SpockthePuffer]

Well it sounds like you're doing the right thing! Puffer Queen is awesome, she knows her stuff

Narrow Line puffers are my favorite puffers I think...

 

[davina]

UPDATE!! Puffer Queen IS amazing. Thank you so much! I know people suggested more options to me that may have worked, but being out of money on this project, I did what was suggested as a proven method and used hyposalinity. It was a royal pain to remove all my live rock and do water changes, but it paid off!

Rocky is on his way to a wonderful recovery! His eyes have cleared up and he's been swimming all day.:thm: He's become aggressive again over his food like he should be. CHOMP CHOMP!

Believe you me...I literally have tears of joy in my eyes right now!! I think back to the posts I read about fish keepers losing their babies and fill so lucky.

Right now we are going through a tank cycle...fully expected since I removed the live rock. But I think over-all, it's going very well.

Thank you guys for everything! I could not have done it without you. I hope that other people can benefit from this post and learn how to deal with that evil devil named ich. I will post again about Rocky's progress as we near the end of the quarantine cycle.
:headbang2::headbang2::headbang2:

 

[davina]

Update!!

Well, as time had gone on, Rocky has been cured from ich. I am so happy. :y220e:

I am now cycling the 10 gal to get ready for a fw dwarf puffer (hoping I won't have problems). At least I can get some use out of that. My friends actually love the look of it now with the way I did the decorations, so I can't wait to bring the fish home.

Well, for educational purposes I wanted to post these before and after photos as proof that the hyposalinity worked...even after his loooong ordeal of going through meds and fw dips and everything else I did (though that probably didn't hurt him, but it sure wasn't curing him either).

Rocky with ich: the only way i really knew him since i only had him a few days before he got sick. Notice his right eye is clouded over. He is dark in color. He has scratches and gashes from thrashing against the rocks. He actually busted out the center of his 2 front teeth hitting the tank so he has vampire teeth now.

Rocky after stopping meds and going to hyposalinity treatment (and saying lots of prayers): acting the way a puffer should be. He is never on the bottom of the tank now unless he goes into his pvc plant bucket to sleep. And he's up swimming in the morning waiting on me to feed him!! Clear skin and eyes and full of personality. I can actually see his spikes now on the surface of his skin.

 

[redskins2647]

sweet

Great job on keeping such a rigid routine to save this big fella hopefully hell reward you with awesome colors as an adult

 

[BToast]

Great job! Good luck with the new tank, we look forward to pics of it.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Fantastic!

 

[Amphiprion]

Always glad to hear it when a fish pulls through. That species is also one of my favorites--we had one at the shop that never sold for well over a year. He became my buddy before moving on to a 300 gallon tank .

 

[chazsgirl]

good luck with him, can't wait to see him when he is better! I love puffers they are so cute, glad I stuck to freshwater ones!! good luck!

 

[davina]

good luck with him, can't wait to see him when he is better! I love puffers they are so cute, glad I stuck to freshwater ones!! good luck!

Yeah that's why my next one will be a freshwater. :crazy: At least with the dwarf puffers most of them are now bred so the chances of getting ich should be smaller than the wild caught marines.

My nitrates are finallygoing up on my f.w. so hopefully the nitrites will filter out soon and I can bring my dwarf home!

OH, and Pufferpunk, if you read this...Rocky is now getting a red spot on one side of his lip area. I know it has to be from swimming back and forth at the top of the tank (most likely because the live rock isn't in there and he's bored). He rubs his face on the tank with each swipe. What can I do about that? I tried feeding him a little more for his feedings thinking he wouldn't be "begging" and doing the motion, but that didn't work. Maybe a little Melafix?