sick porcupine puffer won't eat

[alyshawn]

my puffer had cloudy eyes so i went to the fish store and bought some fungus medicine she recomended. When I got home I added it to the tank as she instructed. Then I realized the meds were for freshwater not saltwater. My puffer is now breathing heavily, wont eat, is bumping into the glass, he can't swim properly, and has developed white spots on his back. I have already repalced the carbon and lowered the water level to produce more oxygen. His condition is getting worse what should I do to save him????

[wstadnick]

From the symptoms you've described it looks like Ich "DO NOT TREAT IN YOUR MAIN TANK" . But i'd wait until one of the more fish savy people are on. Also if you can take a picture and throw it up it helps them out alot in there diagnosing.

But what i would suggest is quarantine the fish, also helps if you list the inhabitants of the tank, and the parameters.

[reeferguru]

The first thing I will say is be careful when deciding to diagnose and treat your tank!!! Trying to treat your fish with the wrong medication can become more detrimental than the actual disease itself.
Having said this, the best way of treating an ailing fish is to quarantine the fish IN A SEPARATE TANK! Often times, the addition of medication/s to the main aquarium leads to unstable water parameters, death of corals, delicate invertebrates and beneficial bacteria populations.

In your case, I believe that your Porcupine Puffer has a bacterial infection and not a fungus problem, hence the treatment proposed to treat and cure your fishes ailment probably will not work. It would be like treating someone suffering from a potential heart attack with rolaids.

The best choice, in my opinion, would be to treat the fish with a formalin/malychite green or methylene blue solution in a separate aquarium(hospital/quarantine tank)! Hyposalinity also works well while increasing the water flow in your tank to increase the amount ofdissolved oxygen in your water. Reducing the salinity of your treatment water to 1.010-1.012 will help with marine ich, especially when the ich parasite reaches the cyst stage of development.

The addition of a vitamin C/multivitamin and liquid garlic solution to soak food used to feed your fish will also help entice your sick and/or finicky fish to eat while offering beneficial vitamins over and above that provided in the food alone.

Try to maintain stable water parameters, testing your water frequently for ammonia and nitrites, especially and try to provide a stress free environment for your fish.

As with any medication, be conscientious, confident and informed as to how to use and what it is for, any medication used to treat and cure any livestock.
Hope this helps and good luck!

[alyshawn]

Thank you both very much for all of your help however everyone passed shortly after posting this thread.

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of your experience. Things do happen.

I will tell you this so you know what to do in the future: When you realized the error, the thing to do was immediately perform a HUGE (over 90%) water change. Since it was going to be such a large water change, you would have had to follow these recommendations: How to Make a Successful Water Change

You don't mention how long you've had this fish, but you would also like to quarantine all acquisitions before they do into your main tank. There are a lot of good reading and things to learn in this forum. Take a look at this link and see some of the topics covered:
Table/Contents - Link List

If you see spots on any fish, or if there are other fishes that were in with this Porcupine fish, then they still need to be properly diagnosed and treated. Read this post to help you in diagnosis and if it fit, acquire the needed equipment/meds to perform the treatment:
Curing Fish of Marine Ich
Marine Ich is common enough to keep the curing items on hand, as well as a treatment/quarantine tank.

In general, I would not follow the advice of your LFS in the future without maybe posting here first to get others' opinions.

Hope you'll try again and don't get discouraged by this event.

[koopa]

I have a couple of experiences..yeah when the fish shows those symptoms of breathing hard..it's as good as dead..and a puffer you gotta take it out real quick since it has poison.