Valentini Puffer breathing fast

iretthepirate · Feb 2, 2015

My valentini puffer has been breathing fast for over a week. Today he is even worse. can't find anything on him other then his Lymphocystis which comes and goes and is just a very small spot on his upper fin. I don't know if he has a new disease or if its due to the problem I have been having with my tank. My urchin, mantis shrimp and dartfish all died within a week of eachother. So I knew there was a prob. Took water in everything was fine except a ginormous amount of copper that seemed to have magically been introduced to my tank some how. After much detective work we came to conclusion it was because of the metal wire brush my husband used to scrape a couple rocks that have hard hair algae on them over a month ago. perhaps some metal broke off in rocks?. However if it was truly copper that was registering on the test the fish should technically be fine and all my coral and hermits would be dead as well and they aren't they are doing well. So we are thinking it might be some other type of metal showing up on the test. my angelfish and long nose hawk seem perfectly fine so I don't know what to think for sure, so I would appreciate any advice and thoughts on maybe a disease it could be or even how to handle the mystery metal problem. Currently we have a phosphate reactor running to help algae prob, the media says it helps get metal out. for the past 3 Weeks we have done 50% water changes cause we were trying to get rid of phosphates to help hard hair algae problem. The latest large water change was sat when we found out we had the metal problem. Also added the media cuprisorb to hang on filter to help absorb the metal.

Humblefish · Feb 2, 2015

I moved your post to it's own thread, so it could get more attention from other users.

Now, about your problem... Puffers are a known "copper sensitive" species. So IMO, it's logical to conclude they might also be sensitive to other metals as well. I would remove him to another tank (or even a bucket) with clean SW until the problem in the DT has been resolved.

iretthepirate · Feb 2, 2015

Cool thank you. I didn't know that about puffers. I have a empty 10 gal that i'm gonna put fresh sw in and a couple pieces of live rock from a diff tank which are unfortunately very small but all I got to spare right now. Only have a couple bubblers no filter and a extra heater thankfully. not the best quarantine tank but will have to do for now. Hoping the little Guy won't get too stressed from the move and die on me.

Mike J. · Feb 3, 2015

Had to do a quick search to find your post. I'd invest in a copper test kit. It seems that you are doing everything right to get it under control though. Good luck.

Red Sea Copper/Cu Test Kit - 100 tests

iretthepirate · Feb 5, 2015

Mike J. said:
Had to do a quick search to find your post. I'd invest in a copper test kit. It seems that you are doing everything right to get it under control though. Good luck.

Red Sea Copper/Cu Test Kit - 100 tests

yeah i probably will. my local fish store has been testing it for free but its pain to always have to drive there. i don't even know if the media i bought is working it says it will turn a dark color and considering how much copper the test said i had in my tank i was expecting it to turn pretty darn fast. the puffer fish ended up dying last night in the quarantine tank

now my question is whether or not i should scrap the main tank and start all over new sand, rocks and water or just take out the rocks that my husband scrubbed with the wire brush an see if water changes and the media will eventually work on getting it all out. if i scrap the tank i want to save a couple pieces of nice coral and put them back in when the tank is ready but i'm scared they will recontaminate it. do you think they will have absorbed the metal a slowly let it loose into the new tank?

Mike J. · Feb 5, 2015

There are several makers of copper tests and they are reasonably inexpensive. I'd do some tests and see what exactly you're dealing with. You could also take the scrubbed rocks out and put them in a bucket with a power head and test them. Using carbon and water changes will also help. But you need to know what you're dealing with.

Humblefish · Feb 5, 2015

How are your corals/inverts doing? They should be looking bad if any measurable copper is in the water. Do you still have the wire brush? Any way of telling what type of metal it is?

I would run a polyfilter on the tank (see link below). It will turn blue (or green) if copper is present - red if it's iron.

Aquarium Water Quality: Poly Filters Filter Media