GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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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g18rst
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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by g18rst »

Ive not fed any freeze dried food to myn, hes just had frozen cockles, frozen muscles and he sometimes pinches a brine shrimp or two off the triggers. If the air pocket is not in his stomack where will it be?

Thanks,
James
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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by Pufferpunk »

Also from going for floating foods & gulping air as he eats. This may be constipation too. Do you see him poop? What is his diet?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by Troender »

Do you thaw the food before feeding?
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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by pufferpoison »

OK I can't get any pictures that you can see or not, I'm going to try and burp him tonight and if that doesn't work, I'm going to use a syringe with the plunger out of it to see if it will force the air out, I know this is very, very extreme but he's dying anyway and I can't think or find any other info regarding this so it looks like this is a last choice. I'm very upset about this as he is by far my FAVORITE fish and I don't like seeing anything suffer so it's all or nothing tonight.

PS I have a picture.

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90 Reef tank (in the works)
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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by pufferpoison »

ok so does anybody know if a puffer has a hole in it's skin, will it heal up?
90 Reef tank (in the works)
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29G BW GSP, Mono argenteus
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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by pufferpoison »

0 ammonia
0 Nitrite
0 nitrate
1.015 SG
PH ? my kit is out but I have crushed coral for substrate and did a 65% water change 2 days ago, so it should be right.
90 Reef tank (in the works)
55G FW
29G BW GSP, Mono argenteus
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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by pufferpoison »

Well I tried the needle thing, but I think the needle was too big and I couldn't puncture the skin. I will try and get a smaller needle tomorrow from the pharmacy, they'll probably think i'm a junky trying to score a syringe or something. He did react to the pain and got squirmy. I don't know what to do. This is making me sick.
90 Reef tank (in the works)
55G FW
29G BW GSP, Mono argenteus
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g18rst
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My Puffers: Stars and Stripes puffer living in a 70 gallon with a picaso trigger and niger trigger.
Location: Derbyshire, England

Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by g18rst »

Hi,

Your pic definately shows it has the same problem as myn and im sure the air isn`t in the bit that puffs up as it stays where it is when he`s fully inflated, surely "popping" him with a needle could cause major damage to one of his organs?

Just managed to get some decent shots that shows myn much clearer...

Image

Image

I hadn`t even thought of popping him with a needle and i already feel sick, i can imagine what your going through! :shock:
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g18rst
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Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:41 pm
My Puffers: Stars and Stripes puffer living in a 70 gallon with a picaso trigger and niger trigger.
Location: Derbyshire, England

Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by g18rst »

He`s just done a poo and a little bubble came out, not all of it but its a start!

My puffer fish farts LOL

The food is always thawed before i give it to them.
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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
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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by Pufferpunk »

Puffer skin is extremely thick, tough & elastic, covered in spines. I could barely get a new razorblade through it for a dissection. You might want to post to Puffer Queen at Marine Depot, before doing anything drastic:
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Forum10-1.aspx
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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Re: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by Starseeker »

Just rescued a GSP but it doesn't look so good. Fish is about 1" long is moving its fine and mouth but just floating kindof upside down (tail up) on the bottom of the makeshift tank. He was in a McDonald's freaking cup before this. I added fresh water to some of the water he was in, a couple drops of parasite guard and some stresszyme. Nothing has changed yet. This was a surprise and I didn't make it to the pet shop in time to get ph and other test kits so I don't know the nitrate/ph levels, but he was in freshwater and I transferred him to freshwater (for now). He's got a bubble wand in the tank to get oxygen into the water. What else can I do????
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Pufferpunk
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Posts: 32764
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: GSP has HUGE air pocket, burping not working, help he's dyin

Post by Pufferpunk »

Please start a new thread on this.
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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