1) Your water parameters - pH(8.0) Ammonia(0), Nitrite(0), Nitrates(20) and salinity (1.025).
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants.
Size (75 gallon)
Inhabitants - Porcupine Fish (3 inches), Chocolate Chip Seastar, Pencil Urchin and 2 Hermit Crabs.
3) Feeding (5 days a week with one feeding session done during those days. I typically feed squid, clams, snails, octopus, shrimp, cuttlefish, blood worms (on occasion), and Carnivore Diet frozen food), water change schedule ( weekly 10% water change) and a list of all products you are using ( Instant Ocean salt, Prime, Vita Chem)
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. ( I have not made any changes)
5) How long the aquarium has been set up ( About 4 months with the fish being added about a month ago ( Late May), and how did you cycle it (I used seeded media and sand
and after a week I added the hermit crabs and fed them to produce an ammonia source, I then slowly added the sea stars and urchin and eventually the fish)
Hello ! You guys are always so helpful so I thought I’d come here again to try to get some insight on something that I observed this morning, I will try to keep it short. Yesterday I fed the fish and then a couple hours later I did my weekly water change per usual. When I woke up this morning the fish seemed to be acting a bit off. It was swimming around as usually but seemed to ignore me (which isn’t typical) and also seemed to be breathing a bit heavier with its mouth open. I immediately thought it was water quality so I tested it and got the typical readings I tend to get each week. I then got out the ammonia test kit (API liquid test) and tested the ammonia and got a reading of 0. I was a bit stumped, but I ended up adding some prime , and changed out the filter pads sooner than usual to try to give some possible relief. Some other things I thought about is maybe she’s just too full ? Her stomach still looked a bit large and I have to admit she had quite a few pieces of raw shrimp yesterday, I may have over fed her , I’m just not exactly sure what is happening. Should I may be try another water change today or just let her be ? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
Porcupine Fish Behavior Change
Forum rules
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.
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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Nickdavey126
- Puffer Fry
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Porcupine Fish Behavior Change
You may be correct in thinking the fish ate too much. I'd try to get that nitrate down. Are you running a protein skimmer? How much live rock is in there? How deep is the sandbed? How large is the fish?
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!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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Nickdavey126
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Tue May 22, 2018 5:49 am
- Location (country): United States
Re: Porcupine Fish Behavior Change
Thank you for the reply , the fish is currently back to acting normal but I will be doing a series of water changes over this week to help with the nitrates, I’m also hoping to get a bit of macro algae in the aquarium as well. To answer your questions 1. I am currently not running the protein skimmer as it decided to stop working I am looking for a replacement, 2. Id say maybe around 20lbs of rock in, 3. The sand bed is about an inch to an inch and a half deep (Carib sea is currently what is being used) , and lastly the fish is about 3 inches and is the only fish in the aquarium.Pufferpunk wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:32 pm You may be correct in thinking the fish ate too much. I'd try to get that nitrate down. Are you running a protein skimmer? How much live rock is in there? How deep is the sandbed? How large is the fish?
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Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32773
- 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: Porcupine Fish Behavior Change
For a fish that small in a 75, you shouldn't be having nitrate issues. Possibly overfeeding? Are you stirring the substrate before WC? Rule of thumb is 1 1/2-2lbs LR/gal. Are you running FW filtration?
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!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"