What is this on my Puffers eyes? Photos......

[berni29]

Hi There

I have cross posted this to the puffer forum.......

I am new to F8 puffers, but not to keeping aquarium fish. This is my first brackish effort, but I have kept marines before.

I had a small tank with pea puffers in but sadly lost these due to an equipment failure. The tank was OK, but it lost heat. So that was corrected, left for a couple of weeks and the water tested. The tank had been going about 2 years, and I am a low maintenance "natural" sort of guy.

So I bought a single F8 and a Khuli loach.

The next day the F8's eyes are like this. He will not eat but swims around happily. There was quite a bit of live food in the tank when he went in, so ramshorns snails and water louse. Overnight the numbers of these seems to have gone down significantly. But his belly is flat. And I have never seen him heat (in the 2 days I have had him now). Big live bloodworm are ignored.

There is a pile of the very rough rock pictured below. Its on the sand to help break up the waterflow from the overflow filter. Its pretty rough and sharp. People use this stuff in sumps and filters. Has he crashed into it trying to chase a water louse?

Advice please! In very upset and worried about him!

Many thanks in advance....
Berni

[berni29]

Hi again, apologies for multiple posts, can admin remove the multiples please?

Also he has just eaten a couple of big live bloodworms so I’m much happier about that. He had trouble seeing them though, so it took a couple of goes.

Berni

[Martinspuddle]

Greetings & welcome to

To me it looks like a bacterial infection. Can you post your aquarium water parameters please.

This is my first brackish effort, but I have kept marines before.

So I bought a single F8 and a Khuli loach.

Please tell us this is a typo error and you've not added a Kuhli loach into a brackish setup?

[berni29]

Hello Martin

Thank you for the reply.

I do not know the SG of the water yet, but there again neither did the LFS who sold me the F8. He puts a bag of marine water in the display tank for his kind. So I did similar, but 1/2 a bag. So not much. By the way, I was served by the same bloke who has been there for 35 years, so he has some experience. My SG meter arrives soon. There is zero nitrites in the water, PH is about 8, GH and KH are high according to the dip tester. Nitrates are about 40ppm, which for the type of fishkeeper I am is not a huge worry for me.

I read that Khuli loaches are fine in brackish and even saltwater. Now you have me worried! I hope I did not read a load of chat GPT generated tripe. I intend for the tank to be low end brackish.

Many thanks!

Berni

[Martinspuddle]

Nitrates are about 40ppm, which for the type of fishkeeper I am is not a huge worry for me.

Little concerned you started a brackish aquarium with without a hydrometer or a refractometer of some sort. 40ppm is very high, is this aquarium planted?

I read that Khuli loaches are fine in brackish and even saltwater. Now you have me worried! I hope I did not read a load of chat GPT generated tripe. I intend for the tank to be low end brackish.

If the loaches come from freshwater, they need to be acclimated slowly over a period of time to saltwater conditions.

[Bluetaurus]

Hello and welcome to the forum.
I had a couple of f8 puffers once, great fun.
Their fave meal was live river shrimp from maidenhead aquatics.

[berni29]

Hi Guys

Thank you for the welcome, and the replies. Just a quick update, although it could be a bacterial infection, I think it may be a mechanical injury from the rocks, although getting both eyes damaged at the same time would be quite a feat. So I have removed them and added some tubes for the loach, or loaches as I added 3 more because they are not solitary creatures. The F8 is now hunting around the tank and actually paying the loaches more attention than I would like. I will be adding some more tubes in a few minutes. If anything his eyes are looking a shade better rather than worse, so that is a good thing. Also his behaviour is now more in keeping with what I would expect. Hunting and looking for food a lot of the time.

If possible I will get a couple more pictures and update them here.

Thanks again

Berni

[berni29]

Hi

Quick update with photos, its a sand based tank, there are some plants, but the moss you can see I transfer back and forth between my snail & bug tank and the main tank once it has been populated by snails and water louse.

Here are the eyes latest...... does look a bit better. The protruding thing is strange.

By the way, I am more of a hands off rather than hands on fishkeeper, so apologies to anyone with OCD!

Many thanks

Berni

[Martinspuddle]

I'm surprised you have a 40ppm NO3 reading with that amount moss.



I'd try a course of API Melafix, hopefully once water quality improves the issue should disappear.