poorly cow fish - peeling skin?

Hi Guys,

i got rid of ich outbreak and am just back up to almost normal salinity - however my cow fish no has weird white spots on his tail - and where his tail joins his body he looks like he has a round patch of peeling skin?

 

p.s. i had him since he was this big

 

Are you feeding him mysis? Try soaking his food in garlic and selcon to boost his immune system. A box fish holds very potent toxins that can ruin a tank. I had one that was about 1" square, so a little guy, and he wiped out all the inverts in my tank when he died.

 

how low did you drop your salinty and how fast did you bring it back up? Did you dose anything? Cowfish are like puffers and dont do well with meds.

Make sure he is eating well!

 

well, it could be several things.

ie: secondary infection of some kind, could be fungal or another parasitic infections such as brooklynella. hard to tell from a picture w/o doing a test on the tissue/ white growth itself.

I would suggest lowering the salinity back down for a bit (and be careful when bringing it back up) and feeding foods laced with anti-biotics / anti-fungal meds for roughly a week to see if there is improvement. If there are no results, change the meds you are lacing our food w/. There are no anti-biotics that treat everything, so rotation might be necessary.

 

I think it was just him growing - he gets it from time to time - don't think its anything to worry about

 

Not to go too far off topic - but i find cowfish really intriguing - has it been a difficult fish to keep? I would love to maybe have one someday - but not for a while.

what an awesome fish! I hope it recovers soon.