Dog Face Puffer burps him/herself?

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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Kalieka
Puffer Fry
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Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:27 pm
Location (country): TX, USA

Dog Face Puffer burps him/herself?

Post by Kalieka »

'Ello! I am new to posting on the forum. I have read a lot since I got my GSPs a few months ago. You guys are great!

We have a new dog face puffer we named Murphy (after the Dresden Files hehe Not after another well known puffer ;-) ). We have had her for almost a week now (5 days). No issues we have seen but a little ich. Today she puffed up while in a room alone. When we walked in, she was expelling Air out of her mouth and jerking around like they tend to do to get Water out. She burped air bubbles three times and seems fine now, and does not have buoyancy or swimming issues. I have always heard You had to burp them in these cases? She is eating, good color and behavior, but we are still a little worried... if not down right curious now. lol Is it possible these puffers can burp on their own?

Water parameters - pH is low, at 7.8. We are bringing it up, but probably slower than we should? She came home in 7.4 pH water from the LFS. Temp stays at 78 degrees F, Nitrite - 0, Nitrate - 0. Did not grab the salinity, so plz let me know if that is needed to help answer this question. :-)

Tank size - 20 gallon for the time being while in QT, alone. She has hiding spots, foliage, and open room to swim. She is about two inches long atm. She will be moved into a 120gal after QT (again alone) until we can see she is comfortable.

Food - frozen krill is her favorite.

No changes to the tank since we lowered her in and nothing about to spook her.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Dog Face Puffer burps him/herself?

Post by Pufferpunk »

Some fish can burp themselves.
Careful with krill--causes lockjaw. Get him on a different variety of foods.
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/
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!"
Kalieka
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:27 pm
Location (country): TX, USA

Re: Dog Face Puffer burps him/herself?

Post by Kalieka »

Ty! :-) We feel pretty fortunate now. Lol

I breed snails for her also, but yes we do need to branch out. We are most concentrating on the low pH level. How quickly can we be raising it? Or should I go into the community chat? We are new.
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