Hello and thank you in advance for your help! Do you know what this may be on our Puffer and what may help him?
We love our puffer man so much and are perplexed as to his malady that has been developing over the past 10 days. It is a white area on his head. It is not raised, not cotton, but it has spread. It looks as if his color has been erased. The positive side is the white area seems to have faded in the past 24 hours and we can see his black spots reappearing underneath once again. He is eating normally (loves his clams strips) and acts as if nothing is wrong. His personality hasn't changed. The cleaner wrasses pick at his body (he lets them go in his gills for example) and they have survived in the tank over the last 6 months (since we got them and the puffer) because of him. Funny thing is, they hover over his spot, but rarely pick at it- they have picked- but 80% of the time they just hover over the spot and leave. PLEASE NOTE the white spots on him in the photo is the gravel from the bottom and not ich- his skin is clean apart from the white spot on this head. We thought that maybe he hit is head on a rock, scratched it, and this is the result. There is no visible lesion and as I said, no raised bumps- it is completely smooth. All of the other fish are perfect with no problems. We do not have a quarantine tank, and also, we are very very reluctant to bring him to the fish store for rehab as he will not receive the same TLC as at home and the stress from water change, moving around, etc may cause his death and may not eat anymore. We want to take care of him at home if possible.
Here is some background on the tank:
1) pH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite near 0
Nitrates less than 1ppm
salinity 124-125
2) 150 gallons: **orange stellar Puffer (one in question)**, clown trigger, yellow tang, rabbit, clown, blue devil damsel, cleaner wrasses, other wrasses, angler, hermit crabs, cleaner shrimp, corals, green and purple line algae, snails, anemones
3) Feed 2 times daily- smaller amounts more regularly- we are very sensitive to the amount of food given, feeding habits, what they like, don't like, and changing diet as needed to provide an array of nutrients. We only use RO water and nutriwater for 30% water changes every 3 weeks. We believe in keeping the beneficial bacteria. Weekly we add: calcium, iodine, magnesium, potassium, vitamins including c, PH buffer and garlic. We use active carbon, ferric oxide to remove phosphates, and nitrate lock.
4) No changes have been made to the tank
5) We are long time aquarist (years and years) and our last tank, that contained so many rare and beautiful fish, crashed when Hurricane Sandy swept through cutting the electricity in lower Manhattan last year. We were devastated to say the least, but immediately rebuilt. It took almost 6 months for the tank to reestablish itself, but it has been incredibly stable for the last 9 months. We cycled using live rock and starter fish. No chemicals or store bought cycle products. We believe in doing this as naturally as possible.
We love our puffer man so much and are perplexed as to his malady that has been developing over the past 10 days. It is a white area on his head. It is not raised, not cotton, but it has spread. It looks as if his color has been erased. The positive side is the white area seems to have faded in the past 24 hours and we can see his black spots reappearing underneath once again. He is eating normally (loves his clams strips) and acts as if nothing is wrong. His personality hasn't changed. The cleaner wrasses pick at his body (he lets them go in his gills for example) and they have survived in the tank over the last 6 months (since we got them and the puffer) because of him. Funny thing is, they hover over his spot, but rarely pick at it- they have picked- but 80% of the time they just hover over the spot and leave. PLEASE NOTE the white spots on him in the photo is the gravel from the bottom and not ich- his skin is clean apart from the white spot on this head. We thought that maybe he hit is head on a rock, scratched it, and this is the result. There is no visible lesion and as I said, no raised bumps- it is completely smooth. All of the other fish are perfect with no problems. We do not have a quarantine tank, and also, we are very very reluctant to bring him to the fish store for rehab as he will not receive the same TLC as at home and the stress from water change, moving around, etc may cause his death and may not eat anymore. We want to take care of him at home if possible.
Here is some background on the tank:
1) pH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite near 0
Nitrates less than 1ppm
salinity 124-125
2) 150 gallons: **orange stellar Puffer (one in question)**, clown trigger, yellow tang, rabbit, clown, blue devil damsel, cleaner wrasses, other wrasses, angler, hermit crabs, cleaner shrimp, corals, green and purple line algae, snails, anemones
3) Feed 2 times daily- smaller amounts more regularly- we are very sensitive to the amount of food given, feeding habits, what they like, don't like, and changing diet as needed to provide an array of nutrients. We only use RO water and nutriwater for 30% water changes every 3 weeks. We believe in keeping the beneficial bacteria. Weekly we add: calcium, iodine, magnesium, potassium, vitamins including c, PH buffer and garlic. We use active carbon, ferric oxide to remove phosphates, and nitrate lock.
4) No changes have been made to the tank
5) We are long time aquarist (years and years) and our last tank, that contained so many rare and beautiful fish, crashed when Hurricane Sandy swept through cutting the electricity in lower Manhattan last year. We were devastated to say the least, but immediately rebuilt. It took almost 6 months for the tank to reestablish itself, but it has been incredibly stable for the last 9 months. We cycled using live rock and starter fish. No chemicals or store bought cycle products. We believe in doing this as naturally as possible.
