Vertical swimming puffer?! Please help!!

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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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Megangi
Puffer Fry
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:49 pm
Location (country): United states

Vertical swimming puffer?! Please help!!

Post by Megangi »

Hey All

Some of you helped me last week with my fish's fin and so I went out and got some antibiotics to help him, per suggestion. However, before I could treat him for that, he started acting weird. First, he was sleeping all day (since we got him, he has been asleep during the day and wakes up around 5/6p for dinner). So, we checked our salt/water levels and temperature and found that the salt was very minimally low. So, we adjusted that and it tested fine.

He also hasn't been interested in food since Friday. We usually feed him every other day because we have noticed that it takes a day for his stomach to go down. Usually the day after he eats, you can see the bump by his anus and then he passes it and goes back to normal. I figured since he's so small (2-3 inches) that it was just the digestion process we were seeing.

Then, the next morning, we found him doing variations of the things attached. Some are small videos and others are images. Linked on google due to size. My boyfriend said that for a minute or two this morning he was swimming normally but every time I have seen him today, he was doing what is in the pictures/video.

Water parameters: Amonia - 0ppm PH: 7.8-8 Nitrates: 40ppm (I know these are high and we have been doing water changes since someone pointed it out in my fin post and have looked into new kinds of filtration!)

He is in a 46 gal tank by himself. The last time he ate was Thursday and it was a piece of frozen shrimp.

I thought maybe it was an air bubble. So, my boyfriend tried the burping method that we read on here but I am not sure if we were doing it right? It also looked like, while trying that, he was trying to fully puff but was unable to bring himself to full puff (which he has done before during "practice puffs" and recently did so a week and a half ago). When doing this, he held him under water and tried rubbing in an upwards motion.

We have never removed him from the tank but sometimes, he swims awfully close to the surface, especially if he thinks he's about to get fed. I also noticed the other day that there was a white piece of rock (it may have broken off from the live rock) that he kept picking up and spitting out (I guess he thought it was food?) But when he gave up after 3-4 tries, I didn't think any more of it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I tried googling vets in my area that know fish and couldn't find a thing so I am relying on the internet. I don't want to lose my little fishy ):


Pictures/Video of what he's doing:

#1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1peD2dZ ... sp=sharing
#2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f58-UB ... sp=sharing
Video #1 (this was this morning around 9am): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rEWjKO ... sp=sharing
Video #2 (about 15 minutes before writing this post): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PLbjyG ... sp=sharing
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Pufferpunk
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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
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Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Chicago
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Re: Vertical swimming puffer?! Please help!!

Post by Pufferpunk »

I can't seem to get the vids to work. How does his skin look?
You didn't post nitrite, I assume it is 0? It could possibly be the high nitrate making him uncomfortable.
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!"
Megangi
Puffer Fry
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:49 pm
Location (country): United states

Re: Vertical swimming puffer?! Please help!!

Post by Megangi »

His belly was still white. He was swimming vertically with his head towards the bottom of the tank. He was doing that all day. He also looked like he was trying to burp/throw up.

Also my boyfriend went to burp him and he didn’t seemed phased in the least bit that he was being netted (under water) to be held. And when he let him go he “sank” down to the bottom in the position shown in the photos.

This seemed like more than being uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, while I was researching what to do, he passed away ): but I would still like to figure out what happened and why so this never happens to another fish I own ever again! It was the saddest thing to watch ):
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: Vertical swimming puffer?! Please help!!

Post by Pufferpunk »

So sorry for your loss... :rip:
You could try cutting him open to see if anything is weird inside or if air comes out.
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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