Please help! Pea puffer may have Ich

[eatyourpeas]

Greetings all,
My new pea puffer, Miss Ethel, has been in her tank for two weeks. All fine until yesterday I noticed she started making these jerky moves against leaves as if to scratch an itch. Her tank is a 6 gal. with an Aqueon X-Small Quiet Flow and a Hikari Mini Bacto-Surge sponge filters. Archaea Mini Aquarium Heater 25W.

She shares the tank with one Amano, one Mystery snail and a Nerite. Parameters are as follows:
Temperature: 76F
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: Less than 20 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
pH: 7.5
KH: 40 ppm (currently adding Seachem Alkaline Buffer as it was very low)
GH: 30 ppm
The tank is heavily planted with Anubias, Java Fern, Hornwort, Aponogeton, Cryptos, Chain Swords, Duckweed and a Pothos, with Seachem Flourish tabs (just put them in last Sunday to replace the aging ones). Fluval Stratum substrate, Ohko Dragon rocks, Cholla and Saba wood. Nicrew light on for 8 hours a day.

She is a very picky eater and won't touch anything but pond or bladder snails and ostracoda. I ran out of snails and got some at my LFS (did not quarantine, I know, bad!) and am now wondering if they were carriers. This is the first time I am going through this since I am fairly new, and I am wondering what steps to take. I have Ich-X but would prefer not to get to the point of medicating her or the tank. I do not see any changes on her skin and she seems normal except for the scratching. I will be doing a water change today.



Any advice is much appreciated!

 

[AilyNC]

Lovely tank.

@Colin_T is the ICH expert.

 

[eatyourpeas]

I raised the temperature to 78F for now. Aiming for another water change tomorrow.

 

[Colin_T]

I can't even see the fish in the picture, let alone identify anything on it.

Be careful using Malachite Green on scaleless fishes because it can kill them.

The safest treatment for white spot is raising the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keep it there for 2 weeks.

If the problem is another type of external protozoan infection, then add 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt for every 20 litres of tank water. Keep salt in there for 2-4 weeks.

 

[eatyourpeas]

I will continue to observe her and see if spots appear. I have not added anything to the tank.

 

[Colin_T]

Does the fish have a cream/ white film over its body or is that the picture?
If it does have a cream/ white film, then check the water quality and add some salt.

 

[eatyourpeas]

No, no coating at all. That might be a side effect of the lighting on the phone camera. She is bright and spots are nice and contrasty. I noticed the KH in the tank had gone way down so I am treating with Seachem Alkaline Buffer.

She is active and flirty as usual.

 

[eatyourpeas]

@Colin_T , I got the KH under control, she seems to be acting normal and eating well. I switched over to just bladder snails and ramshorn snails in her diet and followed your advice on eliminating the Lymnaea ones. Thank you so much!

 

[Colin_T]

Does the fish get anything else besides snails?
You need to vary the fish's diet. You can add raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp. If you use raw shrimp, you can leave the shell on it and the fish can bite through the shell. Give it bits of fish, squid, mussel meat or if you find small freshwater mussels. put them in the tank whole and let the fish chew them up.

If you feed snails to the fish, make sure you grow your own so they don't contain worm larvae, which can infect the fish.

 

[Essjay]

GH: 30 ppm

You need to increase the GH as well, and alkaline buffer won't do that. Pea puffers need a minimum of 90 ppm.

 

[eatyourpeas]

I will keep an eye on the GH as well. I believe the last time it was between 80 and 120ppm but I will check once the lights come on. I use the API strips to check.

She won't eat anything that doesn't move, but I will try "dancing" the food and see if that works. The snails I feed her are grown in my other tanks, so no outsiders there.

 

[eatyourpeas]

A sad update on the tank water when noticing Miss Ethel a bit lethargic and not interested in eating: Water supply company did a main flush and with COVID-19 I did not see the warning. Both KH and GH went down to close to 0 ppm, prompting a quick emergency response but still be mindful of not shocking Miss Ethel.

Continued buffering with Seachem Alkaline Buffer for KH. Currently at about 40 ppm.

Added Epsom salts to help with GH until I get Seachem Replenish recommended by @Byron on another post. Should arrive Tuesday. Currently reading between 30 and 60 ppm

50% water changes once a week while amending both GH and KH in small daily doses.

pH sitting at 7

Fingers crossed hoping she starts eating again. Is there anything else I should be doing? @essjay

 

[Colin_T]

Unfortunately offering fish the same food all the time, or keeping them on live foods all the time can be an issue. If they get fed the same item every day, they tend to go on hunger strikes if their food isn't available.

See if you can get some live brineshrimp, live daphnia or mozzie larvae from containers of water in your garden. The wiggling movement usually gets most fish eating.

You can cut up small pieces of prawn or other meat and thread them over a needle. Then slide the food down a thin piece of cotton thread (used for sewing). Tie a small knot at the bottom of the thread and it will help to stop the food slipping off by itself, but if the fish grabs the food, it should be able to pull it off. Then have the food on the end of the thread and slowly lower it into the tank and move it around the fish is a slight jerky motion.

Other than that, it's just a matter of waiting for the fish to recover from the sudden change in water chemistry.

 

[eatyourpeas]

Unfortunately offering fish the same food all the time, or keeping them on live foods all the time can be an issue. If they get fed the same item every day, they tend to go on hunger strikes if their food isn't available.

See if you can get some live brineshrimp, live daphnia or mozzie larvae from containers of water in your garden. The wiggling movement usually gets most fish eating.

You can cut up small pieces of prawn or other meat and thread them over a needle. Then slide the food down a thin piece of cotton thread (used for sewing). Tie a small knot at the bottom of the thread and it will help to stop the food slipping off by itself, but if the fish grabs the food, it should be able to pull it off. Then have the food on the end of the thread and slowly lower it into the tank and move it around the fish is a slight jerky motion.

Other than that, it's just a matter of waiting for the fish to recover from the sudden change in water chemistry.

Thank you, I will try that. It is getting cold now but I'll try to scavenge some larvae. She seems to be looking for ostracods and I put some in the tank, but I can't tell if she is eating them. Got the rest of the things at hand to do the string trick.

 

[eatyourpeas]

Update on Miss Ethel:

She continuous to be fastidiously French about food but I also discovered she does not like to be hand-fed. She went after the mosquito larvae when she thought I was not looking, also ate two scuds. Too cold for mosquitoes now, but have lots of snails in the tank and I put one scud every few days so that they don't overtake the tank and eat the plants. Thanks @AbbeysDad for the advice.

She continues to share the tank with Albert, the amano shrimp, Zimbabwe the nerite snail and two cherry shrimp, Ketchup and Wasabi. I moved Colin the mystery snail out after she decided to turn his foot into a doily. He has recovered and is quite happy in another tank. And yes, he is named after @Colin_T as a thank you for all the help.