Wasting away GSP

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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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powerline777
Puffer Fry
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:31 pm
Location (country): USA

Wasting away GSP

Post by powerline777 »

Long time lurker here and totally hooked on puffers so I want to get over this learning curve and need some help with my GSP:

pH: 8.0
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
SG: 1.008 / 14

37 gallon with one goby and two crabs

Feeding [ see below ], 30% weekly water changes, Super Ich cure, Melafix / Pimafix, Metroplex. Epsom salt. 3 yr mature tank.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently had a 3y old Figure8 pass away due to IPS. Spent the last month of his life in a quarantine tank. Picked up his replacement GSP who I'd say was a lot more mature (bigger) at LFS where water and feed parameters matched my tank. He had a little ich at store but I figured some Super Ich would do the trick.

For a week, he ate like a king. Shrimp, bloodworms, muscles...anything. I had a few snails in there too but not consistently since they are hard to get around here.

And then just like the figure 8 he one day abruptly stopped. Instead of eating, his favorite pastime / full time job is going up and down the tank up and down...all....day....long.

Into a quarantine tank he went. I put black cardboard around the tank and this helped some with him stopping the up and down glass surfing. Have tried a variety of treatments, one a week to see what works and nothing. 50% water changes in a 10 gallon every three days. I'd like to get the Metroplex in him but since he's on a hunger strike no dice. I simply take the dose, dissolve it and then hope and pray. Even if I get the tweezers out and hold garlic soaked shrimp in front of his face, its almost like he can't see it.

Only success I've seen is after dosing with Epsom on a clean tank (no treatments) I can get a 2-3" clear white worm looking thing out of him. Its like super thin and then has bumps in it like a knotted string would. I don't think I've ever seen this guy make a regular poop. So far he's passed three white think sickly gross looking worm things.

So here are questions:

Is there a one stop fits all best solution for IPS that the board likes?
Is his stomach so full of worms that he can't eat even though he's hungry? How many worms are in these guys?
Why could I get him in the tank and have him eat like crazy and then suddenly stop?
Should I let him get the "concave" stomach ( like Figure8 did) and then freeze him (after putting to sleep with tooth ache stuff) or at this point is there a chance he can turn around? I'd rather him not suffer if its a lost cause then keep thinking about what I could do more for him or if I need to do less.
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JayEmpty
Puffer Fry
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2018 8:50 pm
Location (country): USA

Re: Wasting away GSP

Post by JayEmpty »

I was just wondering what happened?
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Pufferpunk
Queen Admin
Posts: 32764
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
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Re: Wasting away GSP

Post by Pufferpunk »

How was your tank cycles EXACTLY? What test kits are you using? An established bacteria bed should be showing some nitrate.
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!"
User avatar
Pufferpunk
Queen Admin
Posts: 32764
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: Wasting away GSP

Post by Pufferpunk »

I'm sorry, I just realized this was from July. Must have slipped by, :(
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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