Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:43 pm
- Location (country): United States
Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
I've had a porc for for about 4-6 months now and he was eating healthy and doing fine. I fed him last night his feeding of shrimp and he seemed to eat a bit more then he usually does. So, I went to bed and woke up the next morning and found him bloated.. laying at the bottom of the tank. So, I thought perhaps he was having a bladder problem so I went out to get some treatment for him and when I came back he was just dead.
Now, another fact is that yesterday one of my green spotted puffers that lives in the tank with him... they are all around the same size suddenly went missing. I'm wondering if perhaps the porcupine ate a GSP and the poison killed him? But, from what I've researched puffers are immune to the poison. Does anyone else have any takes on what exactly happened?
Everything else that's in the tank is perfectly fine except for my Porc.. who just suddenly died.
Now, another fact is that yesterday one of my green spotted puffers that lives in the tank with him... they are all around the same size suddenly went missing. I'm wondering if perhaps the porcupine ate a GSP and the poison killed him? But, from what I've researched puffers are immune to the poison. Does anyone else have any takes on what exactly happened?
Everything else that's in the tank is perfectly fine except for my Porc.. who just suddenly died.
- Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32772
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
So sorry for your loss... Please answer all the Qs above, in red.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:43 pm
- Location (country): United States
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
Tanks been cycled for about 3 years? It was cycled with Bio Spira and with a nice month of just sitting around along with the addition of a few hardy fish to get things started.
There feeding schedule is around 4-5 o clock as usual and it consists of frozen raw shrimp and he sometimes gets his hands on a ghost shrimp that I feed to the lion fish.
It's got nothing to do with the water parameters.. Everything reads fine. Everything is at 0 except the nitrates which are around 10-25 at max. PH is a good 8.0 last time I checked.
It's inhabitants are three GSP's (bout 3 inches in size) .. a ghost eel, a dwarf lion, a few little hermit crabs very small sized and a scat. It's a 75g tank. I already know how large of a tank the puffer needs when he grows up bigger so don't mind the 75 the Porc was only about 5-6 inches long. I have several other large tanks that he would have been put in once they were ready.
The most of I have done to the tank in the past week was just remove some of the older plant decorations and i've added an algone pad to the filter to export more nutrients considering I wasn't liking the nitrate readings of 25.
Ocassionally.. I will use Stress Coat in the water maybe every couple months. That's about it honestly for chemicals other then the algone pad and carbon filters.
There feeding schedule is around 4-5 o clock as usual and it consists of frozen raw shrimp and he sometimes gets his hands on a ghost shrimp that I feed to the lion fish.
It's got nothing to do with the water parameters.. Everything reads fine. Everything is at 0 except the nitrates which are around 10-25 at max. PH is a good 8.0 last time I checked.
It's inhabitants are three GSP's (bout 3 inches in size) .. a ghost eel, a dwarf lion, a few little hermit crabs very small sized and a scat. It's a 75g tank. I already know how large of a tank the puffer needs when he grows up bigger so don't mind the 75 the Porc was only about 5-6 inches long. I have several other large tanks that he would have been put in once they were ready.
The most of I have done to the tank in the past week was just remove some of the older plant decorations and i've added an algone pad to the filter to export more nutrients considering I wasn't liking the nitrate readings of 25.
Ocassionally.. I will use Stress Coat in the water maybe every couple months. That's about it honestly for chemicals other then the algone pad and carbon filters.
- Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32772
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
Hmmm... I've heard some really bad things about Algone. Do you still have the body?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:43 pm
- Location (country): United States
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
A friend of mine uses the algone pads and he has several puffers including a porc and a stars and stripes and his have been fine for years. If the pads were really bad I'm sure i'd see it effecting other fish. The pads have been in there for almost two weeks now. Including i've used them on other tanks and I've had no problems with them at all. Yes, the body is still intact. His stomach was bulged out on one side. I'm wondering where did my smallest GSP go? Suddenly he disappeared and now my Porc dies. The tank is well sealed so he couldn't have jumped out and just in case I checked everywhere around the tank and I also moved all the decor around in the tank but no sign of the little GSP.
- Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32772
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
Would you be willing to cut him open to take a look inside?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
-
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:43 pm
- Location (country): United States
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
Well, I thought about that myself but, I don't exactly wish to test my luck cutting open one of the most poisonous vertebrate in the world. The skin and other internal organs varying between species is highly toxic.
- purplecandle
- Mbu Puffer
- Posts: 2019
- Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 2:18 pm
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Currently
2 Adult Green Spotted Puffers
1 Fangs Puffer
1 Baby Green Spotted Puffer - Location (country): USA (NC)
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
I am sorry for your loss.
But I agree with PP. Could you ware gloves?
I am sorry to sound callous....but if you do not have gloves you could use a fork to hold the body down and in the other hand use the knife.
I do not think you would have to do a full autopsy..just a cut into the tummy area..I would also ware safety glasses or sunglasses.
I think that this is important for you to do..not only for yourself to answer the mystery of the missing GSP...but also for information's sake...
The mentors would know for certain that porcupines eat GSP's if given the chance and could provide warnings against housing the two together.
But I agree with PP. Could you ware gloves?
I am sorry to sound callous....but if you do not have gloves you could use a fork to hold the body down and in the other hand use the knife.
I do not think you would have to do a full autopsy..just a cut into the tummy area..I would also ware safety glasses or sunglasses.
I think that this is important for you to do..not only for yourself to answer the mystery of the missing GSP...but also for information's sake...
The mentors would know for certain that porcupines eat GSP's if given the chance and could provide warnings against housing the two together.
- Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32772
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
Many of us have done autopsies on our puffers.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21404&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15
2nd to last post.
You're gonna need more than a knife to cut that thick, leathery skin.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21404&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15
2nd to last post.
You're gonna need more than a knife to cut that thick, leathery skin.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
- DarkStorm
- Green Spotted Puffer
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Burma Trigger,
Golden Heart Trigger,
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Porcupine Puffer. - Location (country): Canada
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
sorry for your loss.
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- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:43 pm
- Location (country): United States
Re: Porcupine Puffer Mysterious Death
It's been forever since I posted this! But, to clarify I did cut him open back then and all I found was some pieces of shrimp in his gut. The GSP was eaten by my ghost eel which I found out later on. Perhaps the Porc ate too much and something happened inside of his intestine or my dwarf lionfish stung him?
Anyways, thanks for the help mates!
Anyways, thanks for the help mates!