My girl got me a couple of juvenile GSPs (about 1 in. long) from Walmart a couple weeks ago. She thought they were cute and the salesperson simply told her they were freshwater fish and could be fed only flakes. I know she had good intentions of course, but I was surprised when I did some on-the-spot research and found that they required a bit more care than expected. My family used to breed angelfish as somewhat of a hobby, but we sold almost all of our aquarium supplies a long time ago. As we didn't have any tanks left, I went out and got a 10-gallon starter kit to keep them in temporarily. Because this whole thing was rather sudden and I wanted to quickly get the puffers out of the bowl I received them in, I didn't cycle the tank before putting them in. I've been feeding them frozen bloodworms almost every day, about a fifth of a cube or until their bellies stick out a little bit. I haven't given them snails yet, although my uncle has some pest snails from his aquariums ready for me to pick up. I did a water change (about 70%) 8 days after I got them (a week ago) and I'm going to do another one tomorrow. I've also been testing the water with ammonia test strips which read it as "safe", approximately .5 ppm. I didn't pick up any other test kits yet, so I'm afraid that's all the information I have on the water quality. I haven't begun increasing the salinity of the water either; I figured that I could keep it fresh for now because they are young. Yesterday I added 1 teaspoon of Amquel+ in case the ammonia was a problem. (Is that stuff supposed to smell that bad?) They are still in the 10-gallon (by themselves) with a half-dozen fake plants, a hollow plastic log, and a couple of airstones. I'm using some old (clean) gravel I found in our remaining aquarium supplies, although I have read that they should have a finer substrate like sand. My uncle has plenty of extra tanks as well, so I was hoping I could find a ~30-gallon in his storage.
So my GSPs seem to have been doing fine for the past couple weeks, but last night they seemed more restless than usual and weren't as interested in eating. Instead of glass surfing along the sides like they usually do they kept swimming along the glass at the surface of the water. When I put the bloodworms in they didn't even seem to notice, which was highly unusual. Tonight they were a little more interested in the worms; they ignored them when I poured a few in but when I dipped the little container in the water they both noticed and swam in and started eating. Their colors are paler as well; the spots are standing out a lot more. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, but it seems like a rather abrupt change and I wanted to get it checked out. I'm thinking it may be the Amquel because I had added it just before this started happening, but correlation isn't necessarily causation. Any ideas on what's going on with them?
Also, any tips on overall care would be greatly appreciated. I'm still pretty clueless and would prefer not to be a terrible pet owner. I really don't want these little guys to die, they mean a lot to me!
GSP help?
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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angelfisharemean
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2017 8:34 am
- Location (country): United States
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PuffMeUpM8
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2017 1:35 pm
- Location (country): USA Greenville, SC
Re: GSP help?
Green spotted puffers are predators so they like to hunt, I usually drop a cube of frozen blood worms and leave them at the bottom of the tank to feed and scavenge.
Also if they aren't eating than I'd recommend starving them for a few days.
Color discoloration could be because the puffer is bored as well as the toxins they release after eating arnt getting filtered out of the water.
Id get them into a bigger tank Stat and make sure it has good filtration to pull out and clean the toxins.
After reading other posts I've decided to do a 40% water change every week in my 55 gallon tank I feel like my puffers after the water changes need time to readjust to the change of water ect.
Also if they aren't eating than I'd recommend starving them for a few days.
Color discoloration could be because the puffer is bored as well as the toxins they release after eating arnt getting filtered out of the water.
Id get them into a bigger tank Stat and make sure it has good filtration to pull out and clean the toxins.
After reading other posts I've decided to do a 40% water change every week in my 55 gallon tank I feel like my puffers after the water changes need time to readjust to the change of water ect.