Green Spotted puffer turning white.

Lacrette1991 · Mar 17, 2021

So I’ve had this guy in my tank for a few weeks now. He’s been doing great, eats, swims, regular eye movement.
All my other fish are doing great but after switching salt brands from Red Sea Pro to Seachem I noticed he started loosing his black spots and the white on his belly is rising higher every other day.
He went Mack to normal for a day and I did a 25% water change and again he’s turned white. Salinity is 1.026 and he’s been acclimated in here for a few weeks as I said. My parameters are normal and again my clowns, wrasse, corals, and sea star are doing fine.

Does this look like a sickness or is he just dramatic?
Let me know! Sorry for the poor photo quality.

GillMeister · Mar 17, 2021

Weird. Why would he go from green to white on St. Patrick's day?

Anyway, seriously, fish can change color in an instant. He's probably feeling some stress from changes in salinity or alkalinity. Keep an eye on him and he should bounce back to normal. Give him time to adapt before making any more changes.

CMMorgan · Mar 17, 2021

GillMeister said:
Weird. Why would he go from green to white on St. Patrick's day?

Anyway, seriously, fish can change color in an instant. He's probably feeling some stress from changes in salinity or alkalinity. Keep an eye on him and he should bounce back to normal. Give him time to adapt before making any more changes.

Yep, it's the St. Patty's day illness. LOL
Was this fish brackish or full salt when you got it? I had a pair of those for years.... in brackish. Maybe he is just getting used to the higher salinity. Or it could be something in the room stressed him out. Mine used to follow us when we walked by, then stare at us when we ate dinner at the table.

GillMeister · Mar 17, 2021

CMMorgan said:
Yep, it's the St. Patty's day illness. LOL
Was this fish brackish or full salt when you got it? I had a pair of those for years.... in brackish. Maybe he is just getting used to the higher salinity. Or it could be something in the room stressed him out. Mine used to follow us when we walked by, then stare at us when we ate dinner at the table.

They're like little puppies.

vetteguy53081 · Mar 17, 2021

Assure youre not getting false salinity. Either calibrate your salt tester OR take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test for you to verify your reading.
Stress will also trigger this - Check ammonia-nitrate and Ph levels.

GillMeister · Mar 17, 2021

vetteguy53081 said:
Assure youre not getting false salinity. Either calibrate your salt tester OR take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test for you to verify your reading.
Stress will also trigger this - Check ammonia-nitrate and Ph levels.

That's a really good point and definitely worth looking into.

Lacrette1991 · Mar 19, 2021

CMMorgan said:
Yep, it's the St. Patty's day illness. LOL
Was this fish brackish or full salt when you got it? I had a pair of those for years.... in brackish. Maybe he is just getting used to the higher salinity. Or it could be something in the room stressed him out. Mine used to follow us when we walked by, then stare at us when we ate dinner at the table.

He was in fresh. I had him acclimated to brackish “1.010” and monitored him and he was doing very well. Slowly acclimating him in his tank to 1.024. Then when he was transferred into my reef aquarium I brought the salinity back up from 1.024 to 1.026. Again he was doing fine for about 3 weeks until I switched to sea chem vibrant sea. Someone suggested my alkalinity was high but I’m testing 10dkh 24 hours after a water change.

Lacrette1991 · Mar 19, 2021

vetteguy53081 said:
Assure youre not getting false salinity. Either calibrate your salt tester OR take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test for you to verify your reading.
Stress will also trigger this - Check ammonia-nitrate and Ph levels.

Levels are all tested. I calibrate my refractometer every time I use it. This is why I’m confused.
I did recently test the water from the LFS after getting a sea star and it tested 1.027...not sure if they keep it higher for illness prevention but even still my refractometer would only be off by 1.001. The calibration fluid was purchased from the same store as well.

vetteguy53081 · Mar 19, 2021

Lacrette1991 said:
Levels are all tested. I calibrate my refractometer every time I use it. This is why I’m confused.
I did recently test the water from the LFS after getting a sea star and it tested 1.027...not sure if they keep it higher for illness prevention but even still my refractometer would only be off by 1.001. The calibration fluid was purchased from the same store as well.

Illness prevention would be be lower such as 1.023 which is hypo salinity
1.024-1.025 best for puffer