HELP - Near Paralysis?

[Headstrng]

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.

ph 7.9, 0 ammonia, 10 nitrate, 0 nitrite, SG 1.003

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.

36g bow-front, with 2 RealFlow 50 filters and 1 submersible pump. No other inhabitants. Occasional ghost shrimp added and pond snails.

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)

Ghost shrimp the day before, 2 bloodworms day of sickness. He also eats pond snails I breed for him. Added Prime during 40% water change in the AM, with a few drops of Stress Coat added to the filter water. Prime gets added to the bucket and is mixed over 24 hours w/ the salt.

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.

2nd of brackish water changes transitioning him to 1.005...added @ 12g 1.005 to the tank which was at 1.001. Water change done in a separate bucket over 24 hours using a submersible pump and stirring. Water change done Sunday AM, fish sick Monday AM.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it?

3 months...fish-in cycle that have since been returned.

I woke today to find Prince sitting on the fan again. I unplugged it and he didn't swim away. Just to check, I moved him and he basically floated away...next to no energy...I took him out via a large spoon and added him to a hospital (fish bowl w/ heater and filter) and he fluttered here and there....but really isn't moving. Kinda tipping. Not breathing much. No odd behavior the night before, was being normal. The day before he gorged himself on 3 ghost shrimp...he's only a 2" GSP. No mis-coloring, no spots, bright white belly.

I don't get it.

This is the 2nd one I've had do this now...with the first I was thinking it was a nitrate spike due to overfeeding of the group...so I returned all cycling fish and got more diligent with water changes happening twice a week...but now have no idea. Is near complete paralysis without warning. I'm starting to think we have something else in the water...without knowing, I'd swear it was shock.

Fully expecting to come home to a R.I.P. puffer. Taking a half day to see what I can do. Zero chance he'll eat.

Can algae impact this? I'm so bummed. This is all costing me a lot of heartache, time, money...

[Headstrng]

....aaaaand RIP. What in the hell. I'm doing as comprehensive of tests on my water as possible. I'm still not sure it wasn't the submersible fan and getting stuck to that...but not sure. From my previous post on that, no one responded that it was a danger or that it should be covered. I'm beyond frustrated.

[Pufferpunk]

What kind of puffer is this? How did your previous one pass?

[Headstrng]

So I took some shots after he passed to see if anyone sees anything on him of note...and have added a video of him just 3 days ago. He always had a diamond shaped bright green spot on his head...which was even still bright this AM when I put him into his hospital...but was dark upon my arrival back at home, 2 hrs after I left (yes, I left work due to a sick fish).

prince-rip.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZR-FQQrCDw

Man. This bums me out. I could damn near cry. He was my buddy. As this is my second now in 4 months, to which I've been obsessing on giving this one the best care possible, I'm not sure I can do this again.

[Headstrng]

What kind of puffer is this? How did your previous one pass?

Previous one passed due to overfeeding. I cycled the tank for 6 weeks with 9 small zebra danios (I think that's what they were) doing 40% water changes 3x per week. Despite warnings of not allowing tankmates, I wanted to see and the first puffer actually tolerated them...though I kept an eye out for if that changed so I could get them out of there. But noticed the last week that the danios were eating his bloodworms and he wasn't getting any...so I put more in than I should have during the week, and even though it had only been 7 days and a Thursday water check came up fine, but Sunday they extra waste got toxic and I found him floating vertically at the bottom w/o warning, no discoloration, just...paralyzed...after being omw home to do the water change. A test showed a pretty hefty ammonia and nitrate spike. I also had not attempted to transition him to brackish yet, so I set out to do that early this time.

So I made extra sure this time....I did a 6g water change on Wednesdays, then a 12g one on Sundays, returned the danios due to the food issues, and focused on it. Water levels, according to my equipment, are all ideal.

I grow snails, am unsure if he can be poised by them. I buy ghost shrimp at PetCo, am unsure if that could happen. He did eat 3 of them....last time I did this, it took him a week to catch them...this time, he got 3 in just 2 hours. I'm also not sure what kind of variance they can have for PH...is mixing water at 7.6 into a tank with 7.9 or so an issue?

Over the last 2 weeks, I've attempted to bring SG up @ .0015 each WC....this was done by adding marine salt first to my WC bucket, stirring, using a circulation pump and heater with a bag of crushed coral for PH. Process is to remove the 12g from the aquarium, then add 6 g of the brackish water to the tank, turn filters and heater on, wait an hr, add the remaining 6g. Prime goes in the bottom of the WC bucket and is mixed over 24 hours w/ the pump.

Is it possible we have something else toxic in our water? Some metal? Too much chlorine for Prime? Algae? Ugh. RUINED MY DAY.

[Headstrng]

I wanted to post a pic of the water tests as well.

prince-rip-wc.jpg

[Welch4]

Water test looks like it's registering 0 nitrate and slight ammonia. This should be the the other way around. Doesn't appear that the tank is fully cycled. But from the pics the lump on it's stomach could be ips.

[Headstrng]

Water test looks like it's registering 0 nitrate and slight ammonia. This should be the the other way around. Doesn't appear that the tank is fully cycled. But from the pics the lump on it's stomach could be ips.

Yeah, it does look a bit like that with the new test kit. I was using AmmoniaAlert and also an API 5-in-1 strip to measure before...they both showed zero...even after doing multiple, when this new water test showed something. These new tests (which I bought after Prince passed) are showing about 8.1 for PH, somewhere around 10-20ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, 0 ppm nitrate. Before the water change, nitrate was somewhere around 2ppm. All these results are right after a WC the day before.

I'm a little puzzled...while I did a fish-in cycle for 6 weeks (bought before I got fishless cycling info here)...and watched my water levels, had them checked weekly at the aquarium store until they gave the green light that my water was good and cycle was done. I'm real surprised to see ammonia in this reading, right after a WC, and after 2 other ammonia-reading tools showed no ammonia. One change I had made was I added a second filter mid-stream, so that both could benefit to the bacteria. Not sure if this 2nd pump made the first one less efficient?

As for the IPs, don't those usually have warnings? Black rings? Something? In this situation, he's normal the day before, dead the next. No odd behavior, etc. His stomach does look a bit lumpy, but I can tell you it was not that way just the night before I woke and he seemed stuck. His stomach looked like that after being stuck on the circulation pump...the 2 other times he did it, it went back to normal...this time, it stayed oddly indented. He also ate 3 ghost shrimp the day before. Possibly just not yet digested? That said, I can't rule it out. How do puffers catch IPs? And what can be done to prevent it, vs handle it retroactively in the future?

Sorry, not at ALL trying to dismiss your suggestions or challenge them. Just trying to better understand. I want to give this one last shot to get a GSP puffer...I love them, but I'm completely rebooting, restarting using only best practices from this forum now. And I'm going to build a downloadable guide to the GSP so others can learn from my mistakes. Everyone around me is floored I'm having such issues, given the focus I have on it and the time I spend on it. I hate to kill anything...

Thanks so much!

[Pufferpunk]

Something definitely happened to your nitrifying bacteria. What did you do with the fish you cycled with? If you added the puffer to the tank with the cycling fish in it, then you added bioload the tank couldn't support. It only made enough bacteria to support the present fish. Did you raise the SG too fast?

library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/

[Welch4]

Parasites will normally be identified when they are being purged. Aka white stringy feces. Another sign would be a lumpy stomach after a period of non consumption. I missed you stating he/she just ate some snails.

[Pufferpunk]

More often than not, they exhibit signs of starvation (concave belly, eyes too big for body), even just a few hours after eating.

[Headstrng]

Something definitely happened to your nitrifying bacteria. What did you do with the fish you cycled with? If you added the puffer to the tank with the cycling fish in it, then you added bioload the tank couldn't support. It only made enough bacteria to support the present fish. Did you raise the SG too fast?

library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/

Hey PP,

I actually returned them to the store...they said they would take them back if the puffer didn't like them as tankmates. They were in there when the first one passed away...so I did add that puffer to the 9 cycling Zebra Danios. But after awhile, they began to pick off his foods...so I gave more, ultimately resulting in a nitrate spike that killed him.

The new puffer only spent 1 day with them in there before it was clear he wasn't going to tolerate them, so I put them in my "hospital" and gave them back the next day. I had planned to give them to a friend, who backed out last second, leaving me to find them a home. I didn't feel good about putting them in a contained space with my puffer that had murder on the brain and wanted to prevent such water conditions by moving from 10 to 1 fish.

I didn't think I raised the SG too fast. My first water change brought it from 1.000 to in-between 1.001 and 1.002. Then my second WC went from that to 1.003. I added about 1 cup of salt to the first batch, a little over 1.5 cups in the 2nd WC because I wanted to slow it down. I was actually trying to go slower than the .002 increase per week. Did I not do it correctly? I'd mix it in a large (new, clean) bucket that had 12g of low-end brackish mixing over 24 hours w/ a pump and heater, then added 6g (or 1/2 of it) of it to the tank and turned on the filters, the rest 1 hour later. Is that too quick of a jump in SG?

That article of parasites though...he did get crazy about his food...and he slowed down a bit but thought he was just getting used to it all now, chilling more...but maybe that first post I did on him getting stuck to my relatively weak submersible pump was a warning sign that he couldn't get off there because he was weak. But when he got active again and excited for food, I thought nothing of it. I found him in the same spot shortly before his passing. So it could be either, or both. He did have a somewhat concave belly...I never saw him eliminate...except for one time at the end where it was white, but appeared to be part of a shrimp. Thanks to both of you for info on the IPs.

I'm ultimately rebooting with a fishless cycle, from scratch, with whatever advice TPF-ites can suggest. I'm not in a hurry. I can just use my existing decor / gravel / filter media as bacteria source, right? I suppose unless I killed it all off somehow...

[Pufferpunk]

I think you should have some remaining bacteria to seed the tank.

[Headstrng]

Ok, I've begun to reboot using ammonia and my existing bacteria. Just working on figuring out the right amount to make ammonia reach 4ppm. I got clear, non-sudsy, non-scented ammonia. I'm not getting another puffer until I get word from this board that I'm probably set. I'll be recording and graphing this process as I go along...will check in occasionally if I encounter issues or odd readings.

[bertie 83]

Good to see you are not deterred, keep us posted on your tanks progress.