So I have two green spotted puffers from good old Wally World (Walmart). Im learning as I go here, cause I thought they were cute so I bought them, turns out they are complicated fishies. Anyways I have a really healthy one, loves to eat and swim all over the place. What concerns me about this one however is, that he has equally spaced white dots all over his body, they look like pores on a person, is that normal? I read about ich but I'm not sure if that is the problem but just in case I'm treating it with "Kordon rapid cure ich disease treatment".
As for my other puffer, I bought it because he looked like he wasn't doing so good and I wanted to help the little guy out. I bought him lethargic, but very active thinking that maybe he just wasn't getting enough food cause well.. its Walmart. Anyways I've been trying to bring it back to life but he's super stressed all the time. Sometimes his belly will be white, no "stress line", and he's swimming around all over. Other times he's got a grey belly, a "stress line", and he's making the c shape, and he will most of the time get stuck in the filter. Also he will eat but not as aggressively as my other puffer, he just kinda picks at the food. He is obviously stressed but Im unsure why, he has oxygen, a clean tank, and food. Also I don't know if this information is needed but his poop is a lot more stringy like he didn't fully digest the worms. While the more healthy one has solid, rat turd kinda poop.
So, for the tank I have a 10 gallon for two, barely over an inch puffers. They have places to hide and one moss ball thing. They are fed blood worms (cold) and I've ordered some ramshorn snails for them because I read that they like those and it helps with their teeth. I do 50% water changes weekly (except the first change I did about 25% because I didn't want to stress them out too much), and I'm very slowly adding marine salt to their aquarium, a little less than a tablespoon per week (I've only had them for 3 weeks) because I've read that they are brackish fish. When the second puffer gets stressed it is random, and it happened before I started adding salt.
Lethargic puffer
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.
Lethargic puffer
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Lethargic puffer
![[welcome]](./images/smilies/welcome.gif "welcome")
I moved your post over to the Hospital Forum, so you can answer all the Qs above, in red.
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!"