Worried about F8

[Krickette]

Poor thing. Scooty Puff has been throguh a lot. When I first got him and another, the tank was too salty and his tank mate died. But I managed to save him. Then we noticed he had a lump on his side, that looked like a nematode. Then one day recently it started peeling off, and now it's gone completely. But since then he has not eaten much. I used to feed him about 4 brine shirmp every day, and he'd be fat for a little while then the next day be skinny. I started feeding him snails as soon as they were big enough, and he would gobble them up. Now he is not eating though. He is skinny, he is ignoring both his shrimp and his snails, some of the srhimp have gotten caught in the current and hit him in the head, so i know he knows they are there. Now they have sunk to the bottom of the tank, which has never happened before (boy do they look creepy). He's also a lot darker than he used to be. He is occasionally wall climbing, or chilling at the bottom, but the majority of the time he is swimming around. Occasionally I see him yawning. His tail isn't clamped or anything, he just looks sad. I don't know what to do for him.... I'm going to go to the pet store today and see if they have a hydrometer that will give me accurate measurements.... Maybe he's lonely? I don't know... He's all alone in a big 20 gallon. He did have some mollies that lived with him, just babies, but he finally ate the last one. So now he's all alone... Should I get another puffer for him? My parameters are fine except for salinity, that might be off. I still havent found a good hydrometer.
Right now he is swimming around, I just added a new decoration thinking that might cheer him up, and he's checking it out a bit but not paying too much attention to it. My tank looks like crap becuase i just put some random things in there hoping to make him happier, so nothing matches, I'm about to go to walmart and get some more decorations and maybe a bubble stone? I have a good one at home that jsut does a few bubbles, it's really pretty, but I can't get it until next weekend. HE's so sad...

[pufferpuggirl]

One of the things that has me concerned is that your F8 has eaten a live fish ...which could very well mean that he's gotten internal parasites. Figure-8's are not piscivorous puffers, which means, they are not fish eaters. And since you've said he is looking skinny and he's not eating, that's what I think may have happened. You need to treat him for IP's. There's an article in the library that can guide you as how to treat those IP's (go to library, then hospital and you will find an article on internal parasites and how to treat them). If left untreated your puffer could die, so it's definitely something you want to try to combat ASAP.

Good luck with your puffer!

[bigfatfish]

This should possibly be moved to the hospital forum? There will be some questions in red for you to answer that will help people on here, to help you!

[LilGreenPuffer]

To get you started, here are the questions.

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.

[Krickette]

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.

working on this now

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.

20 gallon tall, 1 f8 puffer.

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)

Feeding used to be once a night, about 4 brine shrimp or 1 pond snail the size of his eye, depending if I had a snail big enough yet (started a breeding tank, finally getting big enough to feed).
No products in the past 2 years other than instant ocean marine 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.

Did a 25% water change fairly recently, not sure how long ago. Within 3 weeks though probably

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.

This tank has been set up for 2 years, though I did use it for 2 years before a half a year break of it being empty. I cycled it properly a long time ago, and in the past 2 years it was mostly used for mollies, who helped me transition it to brackish before I got my puffer.

[LilGreenPuffer]

Have you been using dechlorinator?

Do a good 80% water change. You should be doing water changes every week.

He sounds a little underfed to me. You should feed him until his tummy is quite rounded. Also, some variety would be very good for him. Changing your feeding practices will improve his overall health.
library/category/feeding/

How much salt are you adding per gallon? This can give us a ballpark figure of your salinity.

[Krickette]

ph 7.7 ish, it was sort of close to the 7.4.... I assume I'm supposed to be using salt water ph test, even though my salinity is low....
kh 7 drops (so my CO2 content is off, not sure how to fix this. It says that for 7 drops and 7.75 pH, the CO2 concentration in mg/l is 4. But for 7.5 pH it's 7, which is in the highlighted good region. I dunno, what should I do? I have crushed coral substrate....
NO2 <0.3 mg/l


ETA

OK, NH is done, and it is high. I guess I'm going to go ahead and do a water change. It's somewhere between 0.25 and 1.5, I wish there were more options on this test kit.

[Krickette]

yes, I've been using stresscoat as a declorinator, I usually add a little more than the recommended for just dechlorinating.
I have been trying to feed him, he just ignores his food. I dont have anything to give him other than shrimp and sniails and bloodworms, I'll try bloodworms again but even when he was eating he ignored those

[Krickette]

Also adding that I have a large whisper filter.

So since my parameters are off, how big a water change should I do?

[LilGreenPuffer]

About 80%, and if nitrites and nitrates aren't down to 0, do another one.

[pufferpuggirl]

Ideally you want to aim for doing a 50% water change weekly, that keeps things nice and clean, should do anyway.

[Krickette]

OK, so, in order to get my salinity right, now that I've dumped about 75% of the water so far......
About how much instant ocean would you guess I might need?

[LilGreenPuffer]

As much as you used before...

[Krickette]

Thing is I never really knew. I still don't have a good hydrometer

ok, so normally it says to add 1/2 cup for every gallon, and that should make it 1.02. I want 1.005, so I'm adding 1/2 cup for every 4 gallons. I'm just sort of completely guessing. This week I am driving to Monroe to get to a petstore that hopefully sells better hydromters, but mine doesnt measure below 1.02...

[LilGreenPuffer]

You don't remember how much salt you put in? I mean, how many... tablespoons? Teaspoons?