Porcupine Pufferfish Sick

[Jeffc15]

Hello I have had my porcupine pufferfish
for about 15 months since she was about 2 inches. She was my first saltwater fish and has been doing very well. She got ich about 12 months ago and was treated with copper power and hasn’t gotten ill since. Yesterday I was feeding her and she seemed to be acting a little different. Still had the appetite of a horse but after wards was breathing a little heavy and was hanging out near the top of the tank for about an hour before going back down towards the bottom but still going back up to the top every once in a while, she was also a little pale but her color came back after an hour. I did not over feed her I believe as there was no deformation of her belly. My main concern however are these tiny holes I found on her right fin. It looks like 2 or 3 of them with cloudy white stuff around them. Her tail also has a very small tear on the end that is barely noticeable. I’m not sure if it’s fin rot or another problem. I just recently lost both of my triggers in the same tank too very suddenly and with little warning. My blue throat started swimming backwards and was dead the next morning with clear goo coming out of its eye and my niger trigger started breathing heavy, I did a fw dip to check for flukes which came up with nothing, ammonia was 0 I moved to qt where he started swimming sideways then upside down, I tried to medicate with antibiotics and he died soon after. I’m starting to suspect water problems. My parameters have been reading
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 15ppm
Salinity 1.024
Temp 79F
pH 7.8
The other day I tested again after noticing my puffer and it was
Ammonia 1 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm
Salinity 1.023
Temp 79F
pH 7.6
The pH is what worries me as I’m not sure what could have caused it to drop I did water change a week ago and tested 2 days later and the pH was 7.8.
My blue throat died in the tank overnight and was starting to decompose when I found him 3 days ago which I suspect is why the ammonia went up but I did a water change maybe not enough. But all of this happened over the last few days.
Also the puffers tank mates are a panther grouper ( medium ) and a snowflake eel ( large ). I don’t believe either one bit the puffer. They all also get fed on a rotation kind of. I feed every other day and it will be silversides or scallops and with every feeding they get a large cube of mysis with spirulina. They also get the ocasional clam.
Also recently I got this weird green algae growing on the glass that won’t come off. Is this a sign of bad water?

 

[ChrisV]

Tagging @Humblefish for his input

 

[Humblefish]

This could be a water quality or bacterial issue (the two usually go hand-in-hand).

The one thing that really concerns me is you said the trigger had "goo coming out of its eye" before it died. Does that mean the fish's mucous was peeling or sloughing off like what you'll see below??

 

[Seapets]

This could be a water quality or bacterial issue (the two usually go hand-in-hand).

The one thing that really concerns me is you said the trigger had "goo coming out of its eye" before it died. Does that mean the fish's mucous was peeling or sloughing off like what you'll see below??

Add to the tank because it keeps all levels of the tank running smoothly look it up.do some research on it. I have it on my tanks. I haven’t done water changes in six months it’s called (Aqua char) and I never had a problem and I do a water change once a month and I have clowns in my system it’s stables the levels of the water column of salt water

 

[Jeffc15]

This could be a water quality or bacterial issue (the two usually go hand-in-hand).

The one thing that really concerns me is you said the trigger had "goo coming out of its eye" before it died. Does that mean the fish's mucous was peeling or sloughing off like what you'll see below??

Hello I thank you for your quick response. I took my water to a lab yesterday to get tested and because of my suspicion it was water quality. The test results were as follows
Ammonia - 0.1
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 180
pH 7.8
Salinity 1.024
I nearly had a heart attack when the test results came back for nitrates I had no idea it was even close to that bad as my api test kit was reading between 10-20ppm not 180
I got some special filtering pads, idk if theyll do much and I preformed a 40% water change. I also stripped down all of my filters that being the aquaclear and the sicce whale 509 canister and cleaned all of the sponges in tank water and replaced 2 that were pretty destroyed my canister had a lot of sludge in it which I believe added to my water quality issue. I’m not sure what could have caused this to happen I do water changes every week but small ones like 10-15% but I have been slacking on filter cleaning. I believe I was able to drop the nitrates down a considerable amount however the tank will probably need another water change soon. I am horrified at how dirty the water was and I just never knew due to false readings but after the 2 trigger fish and now my puffer I knew something was going on but I’d like to thank you all for the extra input cause it helped solidify my suspicions.
Do you think I could have done any permanent damage to my fish with such a high level of nitrates. I am very worried. Also there’s no doubt in my mind now that what the pufferfish has is bacterial but since the water is a lot cleaner now is it possible that it will heal on its own. Thank you - jeff

 

[Sharreef]

Hello I thank you for your quick response. I took my water to a lab yesterday to get tested and because of my suspicion it was water quality. The test results were as follows
Ammonia - 0.1
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 180
pH 7.8
Salinity 1.024
I nearly had a heart attack when the test results came back for nitrates I had no idea it was even close to that bad as my api test kit was reading between 10-20ppm not 180
I got some special filtering pads, idk if theyll do much and I preformed a 40% water change. I also stripped down all of my filters that being the aquaclear and the sicce whale 509 canister and cleaned all of the sponges in tank water and replaced 2 that were pretty destroyed my canister had a lot of sludge in it which I believe added to my water quality issue. I’m not sure what could have caused this to happen I do water changes every week but small ones like 10-15% but I have been slacking on filter cleaning. I believe I was able to drop the nitrates down a considerable amount however the tank will probably need another water change soon. I am horrified at how dirty the water was and I just never knew due to false readings but after the 2 trigger fish and now my puffer I knew something was going on but I’d like to thank you all for the extra input cause it helped solidify my suspicions.
Do you think I could have done any permanent damage to my fish with such a high level of nitrates. I am very worried. Also there’s no doubt in my mind now that what the pufferfish has is bacterial but since the water is a lot cleaner now is it possible that it will heal on its own. Thank you - jeff

I don't know about permanent damage, I would be more worried about those ammonia spikes than nitrate (provided that the nitrate level came about slowly). A 40% water change is a lot, and if it were me I wouldn't shock the rest of the things in there with continual heavy water changes. I would let things adjust another little while, or do daily smaller ones, 10-15%. In my experience, stability is also important.

I've never had a canister, but I've also never come across someone with one that didn't move away from it eventually. Sounds like you have had some of these fish a little while and so I'm guessing you're experienced with it. But the common complaint I hear is that if you don't change filters and clean them every couple of days they're just generating nitrate in your system. If water quality and the nitrate increase is what caused this issue, I'd start my evaluation there.

 

[Humblefish]

Do you think I could have done any permanent damage to my fish with such a high level of nitrates. I am very worried. Also there’s no doubt in my mind now that what the pufferfish has is bacterial but since the water is a lot cleaner now is it possible that it will heal on its own. Thank you - jeff

Believe it or not, even nitrates that high shouldn’t directly negatively affect the fish. What it could do is exacerbate an existing bacterial disease problem.

I would actually be more concerned about the 0.1 ppm ammonia than the 180 ppm nitrate reading. Any amount of ammonia in the water can damage fish, corals and inverts.