I posted last night for the first time here, and also made a donation to the site.
While our poor little guy was sitting there sick we had to wait for the post to get approved by a mod. After a couple hours of worry the post was approved and we added pictures to help show symptoms. This morning anxious for more info we checked and our post has completely disappeared =(.
In the meantime the puffer is now a lot more sick. Before it was just so splotchy spots on his tummy, but now he is suddenly laying still mostly, breathing rapidly, mouth part way open, and not interested in food. He also now looks skinny for the first time since we got him about five weeks ago, despite him having eaten normally last night and having a full belly.
We love this little guy, please help!
info:
We have seven tanks but we are new to brackish and puffers, when we bought this guy we were told he could go in with our semi-aggressives but when we researched him we immediately set him up with his own tank and started adding aquarium salt slowly. It was a new tank and new filter but we started with cycled water from two other healthy cycled tanks.
He has his own 20 gallon long tank with lots of caves and fake plants. Substrate is aquarium sand.
His diet has been nightcrawlers, live snails, defrosted frozen shrimp, and red wrigglers.
His nitrates were up around 20 at one point, but we've been doing daily water changes keeping it down, right now it's nearly zero. Water changes are our local well tapwater treated with Prime.
I'm concerned now about salt, looking last night I saw here to use Marine salt instead of aquarium salt, but we don't know why or what the difference is. We've been using aquarium salt and SG is currently 0.008. We just moved him into a 50/50 mix of his water and good clean water from another healthy tank to reduce his salt in case the aquarium salt is bad or we tapered it up too quickly. He is now a little more active but still not eating.
Current water quality according to Tetra 5-in-1 EasyStrips:
Nitrate- about 5 ppm
Nitrite- about 0 ppm
hardness- about 75 ppm
alkalinity- about 80 ppm
PH- about 7
Sick F8, please help quickly
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.
-
Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32776
- 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: Sick F8, please help quickly
Sorry you're having so much trouble with your posts here. We just have so many spammers...
Any ammonia? Starting a tank by just using water from another tank will not cycle it at, I'm afraid. It must have media/substrate from an established tank, as the biological bacteria is found on surfaces, not in the water column.
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... encycycle/
Not that I really think this is the problem, here's an article on salt: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... ftheearth/
What substrate are you using?
More reading: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... ocus/fig8/
Any ammonia? Starting a tank by just using water from another tank will not cycle it at, I'm afraid. It must have media/substrate from an established tank, as the biological bacteria is found on surfaces, not in the water column.
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... encycycle/
Not that I really think this is the problem, here's an article on salt: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... ftheearth/
What substrate are you using?
More reading: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... ocus/fig8/
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!"
Re: Sick F8, please help quickly
I have black argonite sand.Pufferpunk wrote:Sorry you're having so much trouble with your posts here. We just have so many spammers...
Any ammonia? Starting a tank by just using water from another tank will not cycle it at, I'm afraid. It must have media/substrate from an established tank, as the biological bacteria is found on surfaces, not in the water column.
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... encycycle/
Not that I really think this is the problem, here's an article on salt: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... ftheearth/
What substrate are you using?
More reading: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... ocus/fig8/
-
eieio
- Mbu Puffer
- Posts: 1033
- Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:34 am
- My Puffers: *
The Congo Puffer:
"olivia"
and.......
The DP:
"cream puff"
RIP cream puff :-( - Location (country): U.S.A.
- Location: Prescott, Arizona
Re: Sick F8, please help quickly
the best thing you can do now (immediately) is get a liquid test kitVairGirl wrote:I posted last night for the first time here, and also made a donation to the site.
While our poor little guy was sitting there sick we had to wait for the post to get approved by a mod. After a couple hours of worry the post was approved and we added pictures to help show symptoms. This morning anxious for more info we checked and our post has completely disappeared =(.
In the meantime the puffer is now a lot more sick. Before it was just so splotchy spots on his tummy, but now he is suddenly laying still mostly, breathing rapidly, mouth part way open, and not interested in food. He also now looks skinny for the first time since we got him about five weeks ago, despite him having eaten normally last night and having a full belly.
We love this little guy, please help!
info:
We have seven tanks but we are new to brackish and puffers, when we bought this guy we were told he could go in with our semi-aggressives but when we researched him we immediately set him up with his own tank and started adding aquarium salt slowly. It was a new tank and new filter but we started with cycled water from two other healthy cycled tanks.
He has his own 20 gallon long tank with lots of caves and fake plants. Substrate is aquarium sand.
His diet has been nightcrawlers, live snails, defrosted frozen shrimp, and red wrigglers.
His nitrates were up around 20 at one point, but we've been doing daily water changes keeping it down, right now it's nearly zero. Water changes are our local well tapwater treated with Prime.
I'm concerned now about salt, looking last night I saw here to use Marine salt instead of aquarium salt, but we don't know why or what the difference is. We've been using aquarium salt and SG is currently 0.008. We just moved him into a 50/50 mix of his water and good clean water from another healthy tank to reduce his salt in case the aquarium salt is bad or we tapered it up too quickly. He is now a little more active but still not eating.
Current water quality according to Tetra 5-in-1 EasyStrips:
Nitrate- about 5 ppm
Nitrite- about 0 ppm
hardness- about 75 ppm
alkalinity- about 80 ppm
PH- about 7
the test strips are not accurate
if the chemistry is bad, nothing but fixing that will help
you can start water changes right away, but save a sample of the tank water for testing
sounds to me like you have a water quality problem (which can lead to other troubles)
"I plan ahead. That way, I don't have to do anything right now!"
Re: Sick F8, please help quickly
It's too late...poor little Lumpy passed late last night. 
-
Iliveinazoo
- Fahaka Puffer
- Posts: 826
- Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:09 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: 1xFigure 8
- Location (country): UK
- Location: Southampton
Re: Sick F8, please help quickly
I think that there actually could be a problem with the salt content in your tank, aquarium salt and marine salt will have different densities so your refractometer/hydrometer could be showing false readings, you could have put loads of sodium chloride in your tank but your hydrometer could be showing a low SG.VairGirl wrote:I posted last night for the first time here, and also made a donation to the site.
While our poor little guy was sitting there sick we had to wait for the post to get approved by a mod. After a couple hours of worry the post was approved and we added pictures to help show symptoms. This morning anxious for more info we checked and our post has completely disappeared =(.
In the meantime the puffer is now a lot more sick. Before it was just so splotchy spots on his tummy, but now he is suddenly laying still mostly, breathing rapidly, mouth part way open, and not interested in food. He also now looks skinny for the first time since we got him about five weeks ago, despite him having eaten normally last night and having a full belly.
We love this little guy, please help!
info:
We have seven tanks but we are new to brackish and puffers, when we bought this guy we were told he could go in with our semi-aggressives but when we researched him we immediately set him up with his own tank and started adding aquarium salt slowly. It was a new tank and new filter but we started with cycled water from two other healthy cycled tanks.
He has his own 20 gallon long tank with lots of caves and fake plants. Substrate is aquarium sand.
His diet has been nightcrawlers, live snails, defrosted frozen shrimp, and red wrigglers.
His nitrates were up around 20 at one point, but we've been doing daily water changes keeping it down, right now it's nearly zero. Water changes are our local well tapwater treated with Prime.
I'm concerned now about salt, looking last night I saw here to use Marine salt instead of aquarium salt, but we don't know why or what the difference is. We've been using aquarium salt and SG is currently 0.008. We just moved him into a 50/50 mix of his water and good clean water from another healthy tank to reduce his salt in case the aquarium salt is bad or we tapered it up too quickly. He is now a little more active but still not eating.
Current water quality according to Tetra 5-in-1 EasyStrips:
Nitrate- about 5 ppm
Nitrite- about 0 ppm
hardness- about 75 ppm
alkalinity- about 80 ppm
PH- about 7
I'd be very tempted to slowly (over about an hour) acclimatise your puffer back to one of your freshwater tanks, then remove as much water as you possibly can from your puffer tank. Then you can take half of the filter media from one of your established tanks and add it to the filter of the puffer tank and fill the puffer tank up with fresh water, once topped up you can pop the puffer back in. The established filter media should instantly cycle the puffer tank but keep a close eye on water parameters for the first week or so to make sure. You can start to think about upping the salinity at your first water change in about 3-7 days. Keep salinity changes to less than SG0.002 per week and you should do fine.
-
Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32776
- 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: Sick F8, please help quickly
The puffer died.
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!"
-
Iliveinazoo
- Fahaka Puffer
- Posts: 826
- Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:09 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: 1xFigure 8
- Location (country): UK
- Location: Southampton
Re: Sick F8, please help quickly
I'm sure that I posted my reply before yours showed up but for some reason it didn't make it onto the board until later so apologies if it appeared a bit heartless.
I'm sorry to hear that it didn't end well for you and your puff
I'm sorry to hear that it didn't end well for you and your puff