New GSPs not eating anymore

[studmaster]

I've read back to early 2006 and can't seem to find anything that will help my poor new puffers. I just got them a week ago. They are about an inch long, and there are 3 in a 20gal tank that has been cycled for years with mollies. (I know that tank is too small, but I'm waiting to get a 80+gal on sale soon and start cycling it. When I got the puffers at a LFS, they weren't in the best of shape but were still swimming around fine. Each of them had torn fins. I moved all my mollies into another tank but kept my pleco in with the 3 puffers. There were many snails (100ish) in the old tank and the 3 new puffers made short work out of them. I saved a few snails and have another tank set up to start breeding them for food. The first day I fed them some frozen brine shrimp, which they all gobbled up as fast as they could. The second day the same but with frozen blood worms. I alternated for a couple days, then yesterday one of them stopped eating. And today all of them have stopped eating the brine shrimp or the bloodworm. They go after it, but then spit it out again.

Here are the answers to the red questions:

1)
PH:7.6
Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrates:5ppm
Salinity:1.005
Temp:80

2)
Tank Size:20gal (for now)
Other fish:1 two inch pleco

3)
Feeding: I switch between frozen brine and bloodworm every other day because that's all I can seem to find in my area. Once I get the snail farm up and running, I'll rotate those in there too.
Water change schedule: Changed 50% the day before I got them, then 50% again today. Have tested the water every other day for the whole week with the same results posted above. Added water declorinator.
Added: Melafix and Pimafix for the last 4 days because of the torn fins. Also added "Jungle Parasite Clear" yesterday in the water because I was afraid they might have internal parasites.

4) Changes - just what I have listed above with the meds

5) The aquarium has been set up for a few years with mollies, plecos and some pond snails.

Other info: I read about using garlic to increase appetite and I was worried about IPs still so I soaked some bloodworms in garlic and 1/4 of a tablet of the Parasite Clear for a few hours and tried feeding them it tonight. They tried eating, then kept spitting it out.

Any ideas? They are at the stage where I think I can still do something about it....although one is looking kinda thin.

[StormySkiez]

I'm not an expert but it sounds like the fish are being picky and perhaps over ate the first week in the tank? Not sure. Be careful not to polute your tank with food left in from them not eating. Try to remove as many empty snail shells as you can as the can polute the tank as well.

Your water parameters look good although the tank has a heavy bio load now. From most people experience multi puffers in the same tank do not do great. They can become aggressive towards each other. Check the meds to see if The water changes won't stop the meds from working. Look here in the puffer library they have some good articles on treating Internal Parasites: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... /hospital/

To me it sounds like your gsp's are stressed. Stress can lead to many different illnesses and bring out IP. I know these are completely different fish but my new guppies went through the same symptoms as your puffers are and they ended up with fin rot and probable Columnaris http://www.guppies.com/forums/showthrea ... 18142.html which is a bacteria type disease. I was not able to cure it . My puffers turned out to be hardier then the guppies. Beware of what meds you use on the puffs.

PP can puffers get Columnaris?

Have you skipped a day of feeding? Young gsp's only need to be fed 6 days a week. My gsp's love mussel and raw shell on shrimp from the grocery store thawed w/ fish vitamins. The mussel are very messy and easy to over feed so beware. The shrimp are not. I hand feed both so I don't over feed.

I'm sorry I cant help more. One of the experts are sure to see your post soon. I wish your puffers well.

[manutius]

Thanks for providing all the info. I don't think its anything to worry about. I think you are feeding them too much, I would also recomend adding chopped prawn and mussel tp their diet. Try feeding every third day, most poeple here recomend once a week as a fine feeding schedule.

I hope you get the new tank soon and are using marine salt and not aquarium salt?

[studmaster]

I'm not an expert but it sounds like the fish are being picky and perhaps over ate the first week in the tank? Not sure. Be careful not to polute your tank with food left in from them not eating. Try to remove as many empty snail shells as you can as the can polute the tank as well.

Your water parameters look good although the tank has a heavy bio load now. From most people experience multi puffers in the same tank do not do great. They can become aggressive towards each other. Check the meds to see if The water changes won't stop the meds from working. Look here in the puffer library they have some good articles on treating Internal Parasites: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... /hospital/

I did notice last night that for some reason two of the puffers got along with each other well but the 3rd one stayed over in is own corner, and every so often one of the two would kinda chase the 3rd and the 3rd bolted away every time. (even thought the 3rd is now a bit bigger than the other two). I'm sure the water changes will dilute the meds, but I was concerned that the meds might be having some sort of negative effect in the puffers, so that's mainly why I decided to do a 50% water change yesterday. I will take a look at that article again to see if there is anything I might have missed.

To me it sounds like your gsp's are stressed. Stress can lead to many different illnesses and bring out IP. I know these are completely different fish but my new guppies went through the same symptoms as your puffers are and they ended up with fin rot and probable Columnaris http://www.guppies.com/forums/showthrea ... 18142.html which is a bacteria type disease. I was not able to cure it . My puffers turned out to be hardier then the guppies. Beware of what meds you use on the puffs.

I can understand the gsp's being stressed because of the conditions they were in at the LFS, and the movement to my tank, but it's been a week and they are starting to get worse, that's what concerns me. Unless the previous stress is finally getting to them. Any thoughts on how I can reduce their stress currently? Maybe reduce the amount of time the tank light is on?

PP can puffers get Columnaris?

Have you skipped a day of feeding? Young gsp's only need to be fed 6 days a week. My gsp's love mussel and raw shell on shrimp from the grocery store thawed w/ fish vitamins. The mussel are very messy and easy to over feed so beware. The shrimp are not. I hand feed both so I don't over feed.

I'm sorry I cant help more. One of the experts are sure to see your post soon. I wish your puffers well.

I haven't skipped any days as I wanted them to get everything they needed in order to build back up their immune system from the poor conditions at the LFS. Thanks for the well wishes and the reply.

[studmaster]

Thanks for providing all the info. I don't think its anything to worry about. I think you are feeding them too much, I would also recomend adding chopped prawn and mussel tp their diet. Try feeding every third day, most poeple here recomend once a week as a fine feeding schedule.

I hope you get the new tank soon and are using marine salt and not aquarium salt?

Okay, I will try skipping a day to see if they react to that better. Also chopped prawn and mussel.....cooked or raw? I have read various articles about feeding, I thought that you are supposed to feed them daily when they are young?? Mine are about an inch long right now....not sure how old that is, but I know they can grow to be 6". And yes I'm using Instant Ocean Marine salt mix.

Thanks for the reply and some ideas to follow.

[manutius]

No problem, I think the biggest afctor is 3 puffs in a small tank but you are adressing this so Ithought I'd look at other possibilities for you, 80G sounds good to me but 100G would be better

[StormySkiez]

I agree w/ manutius about the tank size.

Okay, I will try skipping a day to see if they react to that better. Also chopped prawn and mussel.....cooked or raw? I have read various articles about feeding, I thought that you are supposed to feed them daily when they are young?? Mine are about an inch long right now....not sure how old that is, but I know they can grow to be 6". And yes I'm using Instant Ocean Marine salt mix.



Thanks for the reply and some ideas to follow.

I feed my baby gsp 6 times a week based on this article I found here:

http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... gproblems/

Qoute:
"Smaller active puffers such as the Carinotetraodon group (e.g. C. asellus), and many juvenile of a species, require daily feedings. I usually feed these fish once every day with one day off during a week."

There is a lot of good info in the puffer library.

Raw seafood is more nutritious for the fish then cooked although I feed cooked snow crab to my gsps once in a while for help with keeping their teeth trimmed as they have to bite through the shell to get to the meat. Recently I began putting the empty mussel shell into the tank. They had a blast chewing on the shells. I don't chop up the raw shrimp or mussel ( less waste in the tank ), I hand feed it to my gsp's and yes they are both raw, rinsed, thawed, and soaked in garlic extreme and fish vitamins.

Another thing is my puffs do not like is cubed frozen fish food. They prefer freeze dried bloodworms (soaked prior to feeding) and all the other grocery bought seafood we feed them. Another tip to help with feeding is to turn your filter down if you can or off while you feed so the food does not get pushed down to the bottom of the tank right away.

I hope this helps.

[t1gerbee]

if one of your puffs is getting bullied by the other two then he may get ill, and then you risk it transfering to the others.... so be careful.

maybe there's just a the massive increase in bioload with putting three puffs (messy fish) into it, even with the other fish removed... maybe the tanks just having a mini cycle to build up enough bacteria to handle the new fish, and the fish have responded to it.

How full was the tank before (fish wise?) Was it brackish before... didn't think you could get brackish plecos?

Lots of water changes, less food.. they should be ok as long as you cna see no signs of illness and they have white bellies...

[studmaster]

I agree w/ manutius about the tank size.

Okay, I will try skipping a day to see if they react to that better. Also chopped prawn and mussel.....cooked or raw? I have read various articles about feeding, I thought that you are supposed to feed them daily when they are young?? Mine are about an inch long right now....not sure how old that is, but I know they can grow to be 6". And yes I'm using Instant Ocean Marine salt mix.



Thanks for the reply and some ideas to follow.

I feed my baby gsp 6 times a week based on this article I found here:

http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... gproblems/

Qoute:
"Smaller active puffers such as the Carinotetraodon group (e.g. C. asellus), and many juvenile of a species, require daily feedings. I usually feed these fish once every day with one day off during a week."

There is a lot of good info in the puffer library.

Raw seafood is more nutritious for the fish then cooked although I feed cooked snow crab to my gsps once in a while for help with keeping their teeth trimmed as they have to bite through the shell to get to the meat. Recently I began putting the empty mussel shell into the tank. They had a blast chewing on the shells. I don't chop up the raw shrimp or mussel ( less waste in the tank ), I hand feed it to my gsp's and yes they are both raw, rinsed, thawed, and soaked in garlic extreme and fish vitamins.

Another thing is my puffs do not like is cubed frozen fish food. They prefer freeze dried bloodworms (soaked prior to feeding) and all the other grocery bought seafood we feed them. Another tip to help with feeding is to turn your filter down if you can or off while you feed so the food does not get pushed down to the bottom of the tank right away.

I hope this helps.

I'll go to the Pet Store again today and find some freeze dried bloodworms, to see if they like it any better, just not sure why the LOVED the frozen stuff 4 days ago, now won't even touch it. Do they need some sort of vegetable in their diet maybe that's what they are looking for? I'll try the filter idea too (damn, I'll try anything to get them to start eating again). Thanks.

[studmaster]

if one of your puffs is getting bullied by the other two then he may get ill, and then you risk it transfering to the others.... so be careful.

maybe there's just a the massive increase in bioload with putting three puffs (messy fish) into it, even with the other fish removed... maybe the tanks just having a mini cycle to build up enough bacteria to handle the new fish, and the fish have responded to it.

How full was the tank before (fish wise?) Was it brackish before... didn't think you could get brackish plecos?

Lots of water changes, less food.. they should be ok as long as you cna see no signs of illness and they have white bellies...

If there was an increase in bioload, would that not change the water parameters? I've been testing every other day with no change. The tank before was very slightly brackish, for my mollies, I'm guessing at around 1.003. Its hard to tell as the hydrometer that I bought is measuring my city tap water at 1.002 and I'm not sure if it's correct or is just .002 off. Should all city water be at 1.000? The tank before had 15 mollies, two larger ones and the rest were babies of theirs. I let natural selection work so that they didn't become overpopulated.

There seems to be different opinions on brackish plecos....some people say no(more), some people say yes(less). I've had mine in a tank at 1.003 for a couple years. I recently upped the SG last week to 1.005 for the GSPs and the pleco seems to be doing fine.

[StormySkiez]

They really don't need veggies although if they eat em it does not hurt them. Some feed their puffers gut loaded shrimp ect...

Yes, you would see a sign in the water parameters if the load is effecting the tank. As for the salt I don't know. Perhaps I missed this...what type of salt are you using?

Something is going on with them. Hopefully you will see improvement.

[studmaster]

They really don't need veggies although if they eat em it does not hurt them. Some feed their puffers gut loaded shrimp ect...

Yes, you would see a sign in the water parameters if the load is effecting the tank. As for the salt I don't know. Perhaps I missed this...what type of salt are you using?

Something is going on with them. Hopefully you will see improvement.

Instant Ocean Marine salt is the type I'm using. It's weird, they seem hungry, they swim around like usual and when I feed them they go for it and bite it but then spit it back out. They do that for a bit, then just ignore the rest of the food. Seriously they seemed more interested trying to eat a fake plastic plant I had in there yesterday. I can't think of much else so I hope whatever it is, they just get over it. Unless someone else has some ideas?!?

[studmaster]

Still not eating. I'm going to the store tonight to pick up some mussels and maybe some baby clams. They seem to all be breathing heavier now, and one of them have their colors fading a bit.

edit: just thought of something. I have a freshwater test kit, do I need to locate a brackish or saltwater test kit when my SG is 1.005?

[Pufferpunk]

FW is fine. What brand is it?

[studmaster]

It's this kit:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/P ... catid=4454

Probably not the best, but the only one sold around here. I paid $39, but it was regularly going for $60. I'm in Canada so everything costs more here. I might have to start ordering online. Any suggestions, and any idea on what else could be wrong with my puffers?