Palembangensis barely eating.

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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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Troender
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My Puffers: 1x GSP (Bolla), 1x m. something. Bought as a leiurus, maybe a turgidus (Tiger), 1x c. irrubesco (Tott(a) aka Houdini) 1x c. salivator (Jack the Ripper), 1x m. cochinchinensis (Hufflepuff - R.I.P.), 2x c. lorteti (Tommy and Tigern = Calvin and Hubbes), 1x m. suvatti (Koseklumpen), 1x m. palembangensis (Dragonfly), 2x t. biocellatus (Koken and Fiken).
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Palembangensis barely eating.

Post by Troender »

It's been a very, very long time since last time. Years, actually. Right now I have only one puffer, a palembangensis, and I have had her only a few months. And right now she is barely eating. She really puzzles me, because she looks really normal. Not thin in any way, and her belly is fine and white, and she looks like a healthy puffer. When I got her, it took a while before I got her to take dead food. She has been the trickiest one I have had. But in the end, she started eating the shrimps I gave her, and in a normal puffer way: very interested when the food came to her. Then she stopped eating. I hadn't dewormed her when I got her, which I usually do, but when she stopped eating, I gave her Wormer Plus. After that, she has startet eating veeery tiny bits of food. My previous palembangensis ate 1 shrimp every other day. My new palembangensis does now eat 1/4 of a shrimp every 4-5 days. Sometimes she just gnaws a little on the shrimp. As she still looks really healthy, I don't panic yet. But I have a long vacation coming up pretty soon. I will be gone for a month, and a very non aquaristic friend of mine will feed her while I am gone (My puffer and my friend share the same name: Marianne), and have no way of picking out the uneaten shrimps afterwards. If I had more time before my vacation, I have several things I want to try to make her eat normal amounts again. But I have less than two weeks to fix the problem. My only solution I can think of, is to buy a Box of earthworms, and hope that live food will keep her eating while I am gone, and then I have to trick her into eating dead food when I come back.

I don't have the water parameters, as all my testkits are very, very out of date, and of no use. I kickstarted the filter, and it has been up and running for several months now. There should be no problems with that, and I really, really think that the problems isn't in the water, as she is looking so healthy. As my previous palembangensis she has her favorite spot, where she stays most of the time. She swims around rarely (at least not as I see), but if I remember right, palembangs prefer moving around at night. She panicks very easily though, more than any puffer I've had before her. She doesn't puff, but almost jumps out of the tank if I do anything at all to the tank (except at feeding). She doesn't have any tank mates, and have nothing else she could secretly feed on when I am sleeping. There has been no changes to the tank since she moved in. I think that is all information I can provide right now. I need some advice on this strange, little palembang.
Inger Anne
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Palembangensis barely eating.

Post by Pufferpunk »

Try earthworms or smaller worms. I have a Baileyi that attacked any food offered to him when small & now will only eat live worms.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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