Suddenly Ill Freshwater Puffer

Hi,
My red-eyed dwarf puffer (female) is having a sudden health problem, and I have no idea what it is. I'm copy/pasting the template, so details about her condition are near the end of the post.

Tank
-55 gal
-Established tank of about a year
Does it have a filter?
-Marineland 220 canister filter (added nearly a month ago now, had a smaller filter before) and UV filter.
-Tank has a heater, and stays at a pretty constant 74-76 F.
What is the entire stocking of this tank?
-Tank contents:
Red eyed puffer (about 6 months)
Ghost knifefish (about 6 months)
Bala shark (about 5 months)
Angelfish (about 5 months)
Silver Dollar (about 4 months)
Common Pleco (about 4 months)
Pictus catfish (about 6 months)
Fire Mouth cichlid (about 1 month)
White convict cichlid (about 1 month)
1 guppy (since tank set-up, tank-bred from original tank)
1 molly (same as the guppy, also tank-bred)
Ghost shrimp - somewhere between 12 and 20, haven't done a full inventory the last couple cleans, im unfortunately pretty sure at least a few have been eaten.

The Bala and angel are my biggest fish right now. The Bala is about 4 inches long (tip of nose to end of tail fins), and the angelfish is about 4.5 inches wide from fin tip to fin tip. (I do plan on redoing my tank set up when they get a little bigger, but anyway)

Side note: All fish, except for the guppy, Molly, angel, pleco and shrimp are from the same fish specialist in my area, and all of the tank inhabitants are their recommendations based on our specific tank set up already.

Maintenance
Water changes happen either weekly, or every other week. I take out about 10-20 gallons, depending on how long it's been. and how much waste is in the substrate. Vacuuming the substrate (large gravel) is standard with the water change, as well as rinsing the decor, and removing most (not all) of any additional algae the shrimp and pleco missed.

I have hard water that goes through a softener that gets used in the tank. I use the API tap water conditioner- about 1 ml for every 5 gallons of fresh water added. The bottle says 1 ml per 20 gal, but doing it this way seems to keep my water levels the most stable and healthy for the fish.

I also use API Stress Zyme, and add 5 ml per 10 gallons of water, per their instructions. The water conditioner has been a staple since the tank was set up a year ago, and I added the Stress Zyme when I got the puffer and knife.

*Parameters - Very Important
Fully cycled the tank before adding guppy and Molly back when tank was set up. Have tried to add real plants to tank, but with my water source, reacted poorly and ended up needing to remove plants and re-cycle tank, which I did. That was before adding the bulk of the fish. That was several months ago.

API Freshwater Master Test Kit

Parameters as of the evening of 2.21 -all values are PPM (tank is due for a water change as well)

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: .025
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2 -this is high for our tank, it normally rests around 7.6

Feeding
Fish get fed Monday-Friday. I use San Francisco Bay frozen food, and rotate between Bloodworms, Brine shrimp and Beef Heart. I will feed the Emerald entree every so often, but they don't really eat it... They're spoiled. And I drop in 4-6 algae pellets sometime between 2-4 times a week. that doesn't have as set of a schedule- depends om how much algae I see in the tank normally, and behavior of the pleco, catfish and shrimp.

For the frozen food, I do 4 cubes Monday through Thursday, and 5 on Friday. Depending on who all ate what, I might put an extra cube during the week. Have had no issues with food aggression or anything. The guppy, Molly, angel and puffer go first, break into the cubes, and then the others eat what has now been broken apart.

Ok, now you have all the background info on my tank. Onto the problem at hand, my poor sweet puffer.

Yesterday morning (2.21) she was fine. that evening, she was clearly ill. Looks like her tail had red on it that normally isn't there, and her lighter green areas looked like they have a cloudy, puffy film on them. She wasn't moving as much as usual, but did still move with a good amount of energy.

I immediately put her into my 2.5 gallon quarantine tank, with her favorite hide rock. Same water Parameters as above, but with the more normal PH for my water.

This morning, the puffiness has grown, and it looks like she is nearly fully encased in it. she had no interest in food this morning, and is moving very very little, and barely when she does.

Haven't added any medication or anything. did want to make it worse. The closest i found in google searches was it looks similar to an ammonia burn, but that was at 0.

Everyone else in the tank seems absolutely fine. no sign of other illness.

I throughly examine all furniture regularly to make sure it is in good condition and not going to scratch her.

The only other things environmentally that have changed: The new filter that has now been active for a few weeks, and I added one of the Fluval LED app-controlles lights, and they've been getting a bit more light than they are used to as I have been getting used to the settings. these are the best photos I could get of her this morning.

 

When you replaced the filter, this probably caused your tank to recycle. It is a lot of fish.

Puffers are very sensitive scaleless fish to and will be the first to show the effects of the mini-cycle.

Your fish appears to have mold or fungus growing on it. You can do a salt water dip to clear this off the fish.

 

Are you sure that nitrate reading is correct? As far as I know the API kit doesn’t measure nitrate in those increments - it’s 0, 5, 10ppm etc. I’d double check that.

To rule out a cycle crash as being a possible cause, did you run the new filter with the old one for a period of time or move the old cycled media across to the new filter?

 

When you replaced the filter, this probably caused your tank to recycle. It is a lot of fish.

Puffers are very sensitive scaleless fish to and will be the first to show the effects of the mini-cycle.

Your fish appears to have mold or fungus growing on it. You can do a salt water dip to clear this off the fish.

Thank you! Do you have any opinion on how to do a salt dip? I can't seem to find more than one source that says the same thing. are Epsom salts OK to use?

Are you sure that nitrate reading is correct? As far as I know the API kit doesn’t measure nitrate in those increments - it’s 0, 5, 10ppm etc. I’d double check that.

To rule out a cycle crash as being a possible cause, did you run the new filter with the old one for a period of time or move the old cycled media across to the new filter?

Thanks for the correction, I had them mixed up- didn't have the chart on me when I posted, but remembered the color of the test results. NitrAtes were 0, and NitrItes were at 0.25

I didn't, just swapped... our old filter was starting to have a motor problem (it was a little small for the tank size), and they used completely different medias.

Does it make sense for it to be a cycle crash if the new filter has been running for a few weeks? when I first set up the tank, it cycled for about a week.

 

As others have said, you probably crashed your cycle by replacing your filter. I'm also concerned about the stocking. Despite what the local specialist said, your tank is not suitable for most of the species mentioned. Specifically the pleco and bala shark are concerning to me, they both get very large and cannot be kept in a 55, and pretty much every other creature in that tank may predate on the guppy

 

As others have said, you probably crashed your cycle by replacing your filter. I'm also concerned about the stocking. Despite what the local specialist said, your tank is not suitable for most of the species mentioned. Specifically the pleco and bala shark are concerning to me, they both get very large and cannot be kept in a 55, and pretty much every other creature in that tank may predate on the guppy

Sounds like a cycle crash is the general consensus.

I appreciate your concern! I mentioned in my post that I know I will need to upgrade my tank set-up to accommodate the larger fish- but I might not have made that clear enough. Basically everyone in my tank right now (except for my puffer, Molly and guppy) have the potential to get very large. I'm anticipating needing to add probably another 55 gallon tank around summertime to shift around who is paired with who, and plan on continuing to monitor everyone's growth for the future.

 

the bala shark and pleco will both need tanks larger than a 55, I would do them in 125 or larger long-term

 

Just checked on her again, and I think I lost her. When I got home from work earlier, she had no change in her condition.

Now, she's at the bottom of the quarantine tank, not moving at all, her colors are faded, and her eye looks strange.

Thanks for your responses, I really appreciate y'alls efforts to help. I'm planning to keep monitoring my water levels for a while to make sure everything re balances out, and continue to keep a close eye on everyone.

 

Puffer fish are our 'canaries in the coal mine'. They are very sensitive to chemicals especially nitrite and ammonia which is what we usually are dealing with.

As soon as I saw that you had a puffer that was ill but the other fish were ok, I thought it means that there is a chemical in your water - ammonia and nitrite usually. These waste chemicals are actually neurotoxins to your puffer fish. They don't recover once showing the effects. The fungus is just a secondary opportunistic thing on the dying fish.

The 'rules' about toxic levels don't apply to puffers since they are scaleless and are very sensitive.