Pea Puffers Dying Rapidly

[mtex]

Stats:

Ammonia: 0 Nitrite:0 Nitrate:0 Ph:7.8 Temp: 80 Tank: 10Gal Filter: 20gal Aquaclear with a mix of foam, carbon pad, bio max and a foam intake filter. 

Tank Mates: 1 small zig zag eel, 1 small guppy, 1 red band goby

I have a small 10Gal community tank which includes 5 Pea Puffers. Saturday I introduced 3 new pea puffers from my local shop, they were the biggest and healthiest of the bunch and were doing well in the shops tank. I took time to acclimate them to my tank and they were even willing to eat a small snack and explore. Hours after introducing them to my tank one of them just died without reason, another followed in the same manner maybe an hour later. Yesterday I lost another, majority loss of color and sunken in body despite being well fed and fat the day prior, the same happened to two more today. I am down to three left and an desperately trying to find a cause buy they look completely fine external wise and all fish were treated in shop and were perfectly healthy prior. I've tested the water to find nothing, I added Fritz Coppersafe upon initial addition of the fish and as of this evening started a light dose of aquarium salt at 5 table spoons. No external signs of disease, gill issues or weird fungus, their poop is even normal. As of right now I do not have any pictures as i've been balancing this tank issue and work however; if I continue to loose any more i'll get some. 

A note: I added in 20 ghost shrimp two weeks prior and the same exact issue happened where most of them died but only 4-5 remained perfectly healthy. Water stats were the same then, never had this issue before and haven't seen it elsewhere but this tank. 

[Odd Duck]

5 tablespoons of salt in a 10 gallon is above my typical high end dose, that 1 tablespoon per 2 gallons and I rarely recommend more than 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons (2 tablespoons for your 10 gallon tank).  I would do at least a 50% water change.

Your parameters look fine but I do have a question.  Are you testing with API drop tests or strips?  If you’re using the drop tests, do you shake the nitrate reagent solution bottles like mad before every test?  Not shaking enough can get you lower readings than true results.  If you’ve under-mixed the reagent solutions repeatedly, then all nitrate test results become questionable.

Now, what is more likely an issue, is pea puffers are notorious for having intestinal parasites.  They are a species of fish that I always recommend to do deworming since most are imported and have high rates of parasites in the wild since they are pure predators.  Below is my recommendation for deworming for species that are high risk or known to have intestinal parasites.  Pardon the font/format since this is how it copies over from Notes.  First part is explaining everything, last part is boiled down, basic steps.  Hope this helps.

Deworming

Siphon out debris from the bottom before and after dosing to remove any expelled worms, eggs, debris, etc.  Levamisole is inactivated by organic debris and by light, so dose after lights out and black out the tank for 24 hours, remove organics via water changes and cleaning the bottom of debris as much as possible.

It’s likely that levamisole does what it can do within the first hour, but best to follow directions precisely.  If you have a bare bottom hospital tank available, it might be best and easiest to transfer the fish to that tank for the duration of treatment - up to 5 weeks total treatment time if doing 3 doses of praziquantal.

Levamisole treatment should be weekly for 4 treatments.  Praziquantal treatment should be every other week (at least) for 2-3 treatments and it is left in for a week at a time.  It can be dosed the day after levamisole treatment.  Remove any carbon or Purigen from filters before dosing.

Have enough dechlorinated water to do a 50% water change immediately if any adverse symptoms are seen in the fish.

A typical treatment regimen: 

1. 50% water change with careful siphoning of debris from the bottom of the tank.

2. Dose with levamisole and black out the tank for 24 hours.  Then 50% water change siphoning the entire bottom of the tank.

3. Dose with praziquantal directly after the second 50% WC.

4. One week later, 50% water change siphoning the bottom thoroughly.  Dose with levamisole following directions in step 1-2.

5. One week later (start of week 3 of treatment), repeat all steps 1-4 over another 2 weeks time.

6. Repeat all steps 1-5, then do last WC one week later after third dose of praziquantal.

Not all snails will tolerate treatments, so best to remove any snails in the tank.

 

Condensed, weekly schedule:

Week 1: siphon debris and do 50% water change, levamisole x 24 hrs, siphon.  Treat with praziquantal and leave in until next week.

Week 2: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon.

Week 3: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon, then prazi.

Week 4: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon.

Week 5: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon, then prazi.

Week 6: siphon.

[Jennifer V]

How long has your tank been set up? How long have you had the original five? The lack of nitrates leads me to believe the tank may not have been able to cope with the addition of the new fish. Pea puffers are messy little fish that create a large bioload. In addition, eight peas may cause too much bioload for a tank that size. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Jennifer V

[mtex]

19 hours ago, Odd Duck said:

5 tablespoons of salt in a 10 gallon is above my typical high end dose, that 1 tablespoon per 2 gallons and I rarely recommend more than 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons (2 tablespoons for your 10 gallon tank).  I would do at least a 50% water change.

Your parameters look fine but I do have a question.  Are you testing with API drop tests or strips?  If you’re using the drop tests, do you shake the nitrate reagent solution bottles like mad before every test?  Not shaking enough can get you lower readings than true results.  If you’ve under-mixed the reagent solutions repeatedly, then all nitrate test results become questionable.

Now, what is more likely an issue, is pea puffers are notorious for having intestinal parasites.  They are a species of fish that I always recommend to do deworming since most are imported and have high rates of parasites in the wild since they are pure predators.  Below is my recommendation for deworming for species that are high risk or known to have intestinal parasites.  Pardon the font/format since this is how it copies over from Notes.  First part is explaining everything, last part is boiled down, basic steps.  Hope this helps.

Deworming

Siphon out debris from the bottom before and after dosing to remove any expelled worms, eggs, debris, etc.  Levamisole is inactivated by organic debris and by light, so dose after lights out and black out the tank for 24 hours, remove organics via water changes and cleaning the bottom of debris as much as possible.

It’s likely that levamisole does what it can do within the first hour, but best to follow directions precisely.  If you have a bare bottom hospital tank available, it might be best and easiest to transfer the fish to that tank for the duration of treatment - up to 5 weeks total treatment time if doing 3 doses of praziquantal.

Levamisole treatment should be weekly for 4 treatments.  Praziquantal treatment should be every other week (at least) for 2-3 treatments and it is left in for a week at a time.  It can be dosed the day after levamisole treatment.  Remove any carbon or Purigen from filters before dosing.

Have enough dechlorinated water to do a 50% water change immediately if any adverse symptoms are seen in the fish.

A typical treatment regimen: 

1. 50% water change with careful siphoning of debris from the bottom of the tank.

2. Dose with levamisole and black out the tank for 24 hours.  Then 50% water change siphoning the entire bottom of the tank.

3. Dose with praziquantal directly after the second 50% WC.

4. One week later, 50% water change siphoning the bottom thoroughly.  Dose with levamisole following directions in step 1-2.

5. One week later (start of week 3 of treatment), repeat all steps 1-4 over another 2 weeks time.

6. Repeat all steps 1-5, then do last WC one week later after third dose of praziquantal.

Not all snails will tolerate treatments, so best to remove any snails in the tank.

 

Condensed, weekly schedule:

Week 1: siphon debris and do 50% water change, levamisole x 24 hrs, siphon.  Treat with praziquantal and leave in until next week.

Week 2: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon.

Week 3: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon, then prazi.

Week 4: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon.

Week 5: siphon, levam x 24 hrs, siphon, then prazi.

Week 6: siphon.

Appreciate your help, did exactly what you posted and so far so good I still have my remaining Peas and tank inhabitants. Only thing that's changed is I got cloudy water about 12 hours after adding the Expel-P. Is that normal for this med? As for the testing I use the API drops kit, I tend to be aggressive shaking the vials but i'll do it again to see if I get the same results for peace of mind. 

[mtex]

18 hours ago, Jennifer V said:

How long has your tank been set up? How long have you had the original five? The lack of nitrates leads me to believe the tank may not have been able to cope with the addition of the new fish. Pea puffers are messy little fish that create a large bioload. In addition, eight peas may cause too much bioload for a tank that size. 

My tank has been set up for almost two years now, the original 5 have been in there for almost a year without a single flaw so I'm sure they were clean prior to introducing the newcomers. Since they were the first to go within hours i'm thinking they carried in parasites that spread to the rest of my community. You may be right about the bioload for the tank, though I do overfilter for this purpose and gauge feeding so I don't have scraps floating about. I did have several other fish with the 5 Peas months prior to adding the new Peas before being moved to another tank and I had perfect water at the time. For the future I may keep the amount small just to keep it within safer parameters. Appreciate all the advice, this was pretty stressful trying to figure out.  

[Odd Duck]

That is a lot of peas for that size tank.  I had 9 that were raised together that got moved from a 20 long into a 29 gallon, heavily planted, and they still did the murder bean things so I’m now down to 2 in a 10G.  Little buggers!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I think that in the end always qt. Having a quarantine tank is the key to safe addition of fish to your systems and with puffers they always need another treatment. I’ve always gotten mine from the Coop, a very legitimate well known seller who has a presence on YT or from a local wholesaler and know their process for handling puffers - meds, feeding, husbandry etc. However, I always put them through another deworming in qt before adding to the tank. I’m sorry this occurred. 

In addition, adding puffers to an existing group of puffers is never easy as I’ve done it with peas and with red eye red tails. Last time I did it I had them In adjoining tanks in my fish room so they got used to seeing each other. When they were no longer trying to kill each other through the glass and showing genuine interest I finally added them together. I still lost one of them during the introduction but it could have been worse. 

[mtex]

20 hours ago, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

I think that in the end always qt. Having a quarantine tank is the key to safe addition of fish to your systems and with puffers they always need another treatment. I’ve always gotten mine from the Coop, a very legitimate well known seller who has a presence on YT or from a local wholesaler and know their process for handling puffers - meds, feeding, husbandry etc. However, I always put them through another deworming in qt before adding to the tank. I’m sorry this occurred. 

In addition, adding puffers to an existing group of puffers is never easy as I’ve done it with peas and with red eye red tails. Last time I did it I had them In adjoining tanks in my fish room so they got used to seeing each other. When they were no longer trying to kill each other through the glass and showing genuine interest I finally added them together. I still lost one of them during the introduction but it could have been worse. 

It was my mistake thinking I could do this without going through the QT process. I quarantined when adding to my other tank of amazon puffers when I introduced just one, thought i was safe with the Peas because of their health in shop. Everything will be going through the QT tank from now on no matter what so I have better peace of mind and hopefully less destruction. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’ve learned this lesson over and over in the last couple decades. Even someone with 37 years of doing this makes this mistake - led to my last crash and $500 worth of rainbows and other fish poof! - so don’t beat yourself up too much!