GSP Sunken Belly

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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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Lucy99
Puffer Fry
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:13 pm
Location (country): USA

GSP Sunken Belly

Post by Lucy99 »

Hello All,
About a month ago I purchased a GSP from a local pet store. He is a baby, so I currently have him housed in a 20 gallon with a golden Inca snail, which is significantly bigger than him, and 4 ghost shrimp, which I bought yesterday in an attempt to get him to eat. Tank parameters are as follows: 1.004 salinity( I am gradually increasing salinity as he started in fresh water), Hardness 150 ppm, pH 8, Ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0 ppm, nitrate about 2 ppm. I have the API freshwater master test kit, which is what I have been using to test the water. I did not cycle the tank beforehand, as I was not aware of what that meant when I bought him. I’ve had him for about a month, and moved him from a 10 to 20 gallon tank throughout that month. His diet consists of bloodworms and, recently, pest snails I got from the local pet store, but recently he looks extremely malnourished and his belly is gray. I know he must be eating some, because he was still fairly active until about a day ago. Now he is more sluggish... I don’t know what to do! I did a 50% water change over the weekend and I think that might have affected him negatively, but I don’t know how to fix my mistake. Additionally, when I started feeding him pest snail a couple of days ago, he swallowed a couple of them whole... could that be affecting his digestive system? Please help!
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Pufferpunk
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Re: GSP Sunken Belly

Post by Pufferpunk »

Most of us do 50% weekly WC.
Try crushing the snails before feeding them to your puffer but they should be able to pass the shell.
library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/
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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