Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum, and I've ended up here because I'm worried about my green spotted puffer.
I set my tank up about a month ago. 100 litre. Unfortunately I didn't do enough research and was told by my local pets at home that a week was sufficient time for a tank to cycle, so a week later I went and got myself a GSP. He's currently freshwater, but I'm preparing to send him over to brackish as soon as possible. So I didn't learn about cycling until I had an ammonia spike in my tank and did some research online and realised why.
So, basically, my puffer has been in the tank whilst it's been cycling, so I've been doing daily 25% water changes for the past 3 weeks. until now it looks like I've come to the end of the cycle as I'm showing no ammonia, no2 or no3.
Yet, for the past week my puffer has been swimming around with one of his gills clamped shut.
I've also noticed him doing a bit of flashing,
He's still eating, but he seems to have gone really picky, he only picks at raw shrimp when I feed it but yums up the cockle, and still swimming about and seems happy enough.
I have noticed that he's grey down his sides quite often, but he goes white again almost instantly when I go up to the glass.
I really don't know what to do, research I've done has lead me to think he might have gill flukes- so I've treat the tank with a dose of aquacare anti fluke and wormer, that was 2 days ago and I haven't seen any improvement. It does say you can repeat the dosage upto 4 times, once a week.
I just really wish I knew what was wrong with him. I really don't want him to be under any stress, considering the stress he's probably gone through because of him being in the tank whilst it was cycling.
Any advise?
Oh, he's only about 1 1/2 inch in size
He lives on his own, he was in with a few nerite snails to begin with but I had to transfer them to my cold water tank because the fluke medicine would kill them.
Levels are
No2 0
No3 0
Ph between 7.5 - 8
Kh 120
Gh 180
Ammonia 0
He's in quite a heavily planted tank, with an air pump in place. He seems to love riding on his bubbles
Green Spotted Puffer with clamped gill
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.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Green Spotted Puffer with clamped gill
Ich actually starts in the gills. With the added flashing, I'd treat for that. No white spots? Go ahead & raise the SG to 1.002. It shouldn't hurt the bacteria any.
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!"