Porcupine Puffer Hunger Strike

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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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aubie11
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 10:20 am
Location (country): United States

Porcupine Puffer Hunger Strike

Post by aubie11 »

I have had a porcupine puffer for 2 years since he was a baby. He is now 6 inches long and has always been the pig of my tank. I have a 125 gallon with a 4 inch green bird wrasse, 5 inch vampire grouper, small skeletor eel and a 4 inch sting ray. For clean up, I have a chocolate chip sea star and a 2 sand sifting sea stars. I feed him a raw seafood mix from the Korean grocery store. He loves squid, scallops and shrimp. I also feed mysis cubes and he will eat those as well. For the past week he will not eat. He is swimming as usual. Fins are clear and eyes bright. He just ignores food and swims right past it. I have cleaned my skimmer and it is working well. My pH is 8.3, SpG is 1.024, Ammonia is 0, Nitrates and nitrites are 20. I did a 20 gallon water change yesterday with no luck. Everyone else in tank is eating well. This aquarium has been up and running for 2 years. Last edition was 2 months ago.

I have heard that they can go on strikes. Is this behavior typical of a strike? I also read about lockjaw but he rarely has eaten krill. I do not know if checking calcium or adding B vitamin would help.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Porcupine Puffer Hunger Strike

Post by Pufferpunk »

Nitrite is 20?
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!"
aubie11
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 10:20 am
Location (country): United States

Re: Porcupine Puffer Hunger Strike

Post by aubie11 »

Oops no nitrites are 0.25 ppm and Nitrates were 20 but post water change are 5 ppm
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