Unsteady Puffer?

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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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PillarPuff
Puffer Fry
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Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2019 8:00 pm
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Unsteady Puffer?

Post by PillarPuff »

1) 77-78F, 7.8ish pH (out of the tap), 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, <5PPM nitrate (tank is heavily planted and I've been doing water changes)

2) Tank is a 29 Gal. Puffers are brand new to the tank (added Saturday). Tank, however, has been set up over a year. Former inhabitants were celestial pearl danios and cherry shrimp. All the danios (except for the 3 I haven't caught yet) have been rehomed. Only about 10 or so ugly shrimp remain in the tank- the rest have been moved to another tank. So far I have only gotten them to eat a Repashy gel food and bloodworms. This is not to be their staple diet. Shop told me the puffers were de-wormed prior to me buying them.

I wrote a novel (which got eaten), but basically when I came home today one of the 3 SAPs I purchased Saturday was sort of drunkenly floating around the top of the tank. I immediately tested the water (which came back 0 for ammonia and nitrite). It can swim lower and swim around, but seems kind of drunk for lack of a better term. I saw it corkscrew a little which I presume was from stress. I have so far not seen this puffer eat either. I have offered krill, bloodworms (which I saw it eat at the shop), and a Repashy conditioning gel. The gel was something the store told me they were eating. One of the puffers went to town on it, so it seems to be accurate. I tested the water immediately after seeing this and nothing appears wrong with the parameters. The other two puffers are acting normally (and one ate for me for the first time tonight). I actually saw all the SAP puffers in the shop eat bloodworms a few days before I purchased them, so I am concerned about this one. Any suggestions? I can (in theory) set up a quarantine tank for just the poor puffer but I am not sure if the added stress will make it worse.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Unsteady Puffer?

Post by Pufferpunk »

So sorry but that sounds like the death spiral to me.
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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