SICK BURRFISH PLEASE HELP

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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mole
Puffer Fry
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Joined: Fri May 01, 2015 8:47 pm
Location (country): united states

SICK BURRFISH PLEASE HELP

Post by mole »

Sorry this post is so long, and I hope you'll read all of it, but if not, here's a summary:
THERE ARE TWO VERY SICK BURRFISH IN MY OCEAN LAB AND I NEED TO KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THEM, like what to feed them, what to house them with, and so on



I am in my school's oceanography lab and we have two burrfish. I will describe both of them seperartely, as they are in very different conditions.

Burr Fish #1:
Tank Conditions:
about 10 - 20 gallons, but is part of a 150 gallon system
saltwater
substrate is broken shells on the very top and a lil sand underneath
Fish Conditions:
Its spines look good, but it looks fairly skinny, because its head is large enough but then its stomach indents in
It was doing barrel rolls once? We dont know why
Water quality tests were fine, we cant test alkalinity because we dont have a test for that.
We have been feeding it shrimp by tying a string on the shrimp and hanging it in the tank
We added denitrifiers and bacteria, but it doesnt seem to have done much

Burr Fish #2:
Tank Conditions:
150 gallon tank, shared with; various clownfish, damselfish, and a yellow tanks. and lots of anenomes and algae as well as a starfish and a basket star, which do nothing. and a horseshoe crab.
Fish Conditions:
The fish is about four inches long, and much larger than the other fish in the tank, so shouldnt it be dominant? However, it stays harassed in the corner and looks very distressed as it swims into walls and goes in circles.
In addition, a few of the spines on the top of the burr fish have accumulated white spots, and a few spines on its chin are drooping.
When we try to feed it, it is very interested, and attacks the shrimp, but is VERY easily scared away by the other, much smaller fish.
Emikawar
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Re: SICK BURRFISH PLEASE HELP

Post by Emikawar »

This knowledge I can read and understand easily.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: SICK BURRFISH PLEASE HELP

Post by Pufferpunk »

I'm sorry to say that it is VERY common for burrfish to have extreme cases of internal parasites & need to be de-wormed often. Id he still eating?

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