Green spotted puffer death

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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wikkiwikk55
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2018 9:13 pm
Location (country): USA

Green spotted puffer death

Post by wikkiwikk55 »

Hello I had a green spotted puffer that I purchased about a month back suddenly die on me. I was very sad. He was about 1inch in length.I tried to feed him the night before he passed and he wanted nothing to do with it I figured he just might not be hungry. Later that night before I went to bed I noticed he was stuck to one of the filter intakes that's when I knew something was wrong because if he was fine he would of been strong enough to escape the intake like he had done in the past. His color was off at this time as well instead of the normal green he was a lot darker almost black on his back. I immediately did a water change of about 50%. When I woke up the next day he had passed. I plan on purchasing another one as ive always wanted a GSP. I figured i would post here and try to correct any mistakes I may have made because you guys have alot more knowledge about puffers then i do.

Water peramaters:
PH: 8.0
Ammonia:0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate : 10 ppm
Salinity: SG 1.008
Temperature:78F

I had him alone in a 40g breeder with plenty of filtration(Aqua clear 70 and a Penguin 350 biowheel).I was doing weekly water changes around 30%.I fed him a varied diet of frozen blood worms, frozen krill, Hikari clams on a half shell, and snails i have been breeding in a little 10 gallon tank with also giving him a starve day 1 day a week. I use prime as a water conditioner and instant ocean sea salt. The only changes i made to the tank was a couple days before i bought a bottle of Boyds Vitachem and added one drop per gallon which is the first time ive used that product in that way in the past when i used it for my Oscar i would just use it as a food soak. I also added a fake wood aquarium decoration that i rinsed thoroughly before adding it to the tank. The aquarium has been setup for around 2 months now and it is indeed fully cycled i added filter media from one of my other tanks i also added a bottle of bio spira as i was acclimating the fish. Thank you in advance for your time.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Green spotted puffer death

Post by Pufferpunk »

It sure seems like you have done everything correctly. How long did you take to raise the SG to 1.008?
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!"
wikkiwikk55
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2018 9:13 pm
Location (country): USA

Re: Green spotted puffer death

Post by wikkiwikk55 »

Yeah I don't know it was crazy I did do a ton of research before I got him . I ordered him online and they had him in brackish water of 1.005 so I was slowly raising over the course of the month with each water change.
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JayEmpty
Puffer Fry
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2018 8:50 pm
Location (country): USA

Re: Green spotted puffer death

Post by JayEmpty »

Uggh. I feel your pain. Read everything and everywhere. Did everything by the book (as far as we can tell), but still we lost the puffer. For days, replaying the things that we did or didn't do and analyze. Still came up empty but still wanting to know.

I believe it's something that I did or didn't do that made the difference, and that is what we have to know.
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