Sad but good ending

well for most guys that dont know me i picked up a puffer last week. I like to get my fish from different Fish stores just because they all have a defferent selection. Well the puffer i picked up was in really bad shape he had his top fin bite off and wasnt really eating. I made a deal with the owner and said ill give him $10 bucks for it. He said sure( The fish was on his way out) so i bought him home did a very long accilmation process for him..he took well to my water. He was actually starting to eat almost 1 ghost shrimp a day. Untill 3 days ago i noticed he was dead. I felt really bad for the guy he was getting stronger by the day. but i guess to much is to much. I returned him to the LFS and he said " i told you" i said "i dont care i like to save a fish and bring him back to the glory world"....so he gave me the $10 credit after checking my water which was perfect. He said u want another fish thats on his way. I said sure why not...it was a Niger Trigger. owner told me he hasnt ate since he got him in for a week now...i gave him back the $10 dollars. Now this fish was really skinny had ick etc...i setup a 10 gallon QT tank just for him...and now the ick is gone, and he is eating like a monster out of hell i been soaking my little brineshrimp cubes with garlic and feeding him for the past 2 days he is doing really well its like he almost got alot darker then when i first got it...Iam so pround of myself that i actually SAVED A FISH'S LIFE i never did that before i was always to late or never tryed...i cant wait for another week or 2 before he can swim with his new freinds.

Now my question should i slow down on the eating or continue the 2 cubes a day till he gets even better?

 

As long as your keeping up with the water quality and not letting food sit and rot in the tank theres nothing wrong with him eating a couple of times a day. The garlic should help him to fight the stress and ich. Are you medicating the ich?

 

Just raised the Temp to 82 and been haveing the lights off, is pretty much all i did for the ich iam pretty sure the garlic has alot to do with it.

 

That may not fully cure the ich. Is it a bare bottom tank? You may want to do hyposalinity. That will be the least stress on the fish.

 

yes bare bottom, ill look into that.

 

Im with you though I like saving the underdog. I frequent Petsmart cuz they dont know what there doing.

 

Raising the temp will only speed up the Ich's life cycle, meaning it'll only reproduce faster. This isn't freshwater ich you're dealing with.

Get a refractometer and do the hyposalinity method. Do significant water changes every other day to control ammonia and nitrite (because you're denitrifying bacteria will not be working at hyposalinity). Eventually you'll "cycle" at hyposalinity but it's a good idea to keep doing water changes. Maintain for 4 weeks and you should be good.

 

Congratulations on the rescue! good to hear stories like this

Ivan

 

Hope everything works out. Good job on the rescue.

 

Very well done.. !!
And I'm glad the guy at the LFS is sort of working with you..
Alot of places, if you bought a sick fish and it dies,, You would have just lost 10.00.
K to you, Larry