Hello...
We have a 20 gallon tall tank with RO brackish water for our puffer. All levels of 8.0 Ph, 0 Ammonia, 20 Nitrates 0 Nitrite. (Again using RO water system) The salinity of the water is 1.005 They are picky and spoiled puffers. They get clams on the half shell, black worms, blood worms, and assorted other things (No not all at once or even all in the same day) once in the morning and once in the evening. He/She have 1 tank mate which is an Otto. Water changes are 25% on Wednesday & 50% on Saturday. We are using Instant Ocean Sea Salt. Once every other week we add 5mL of paraGuard. The tank has been set up for 3 or 4 months. It cycled for a month. The only changes that we have done were slowly adjust the water salinity.
Our Problem: Our oldest puffer turned brown which we know is signs of stress but we can not figure out what is happening. He had turned brown and looked as if there was a blood worm coming out of his gills. Our newest guy is starting to now stress out as well same thing, turning black and looks like there is a blood worm coming out of his gills. I have included photos below. File 3 has a red circle around the gill with the "worm thing" but picture is hard to see...
Any ideas how to save our little guy before he meets his friends demise? Thank you!!!!!
Please 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.
-
Mysticfairybabe
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2017 2:55 pm
- Location (country): United States
-
Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32771
- 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: Please Help
What kind of puffers & how many? Why are you adding Paraguard 1x/bi-weekly? That's a great way to get parasites immune to a med.
Puffer's food often poke out of their gills, when overfed.
Please DO rehome that otto, it will not appreciate BW, one bit!
Puffer's food often poke out of their gills, when overfed.
Please DO rehome that otto, it will not appreciate BW, one bit!
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!"