GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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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kvndrby
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GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Post by kvndrby »

One of my profs has a GSP in his office (about 3" long) and it had always looked pretty healthy but now it looks horrible. I saw the fish on Monday morning and it looked fine, the prof had just put a new hood on the tank(40 gal) and Dr. Tubs (thats the puffs name :) ) was lookin' good.
I came by to see the fish again today (friday now 5 days later) and i see him on the bottom of the tank very dark in coloration (almost a dark brown with black spots) and hiding under a plant. I looked at the new hood and it had a UVB bulb in it with a "WARNING: for reptile use only!" tag on it. I told the prof and he took it off the tank. Does anyone know if the bulb is the cause of this sudden sickness? Is the fish sun burnt? is it something else? How do we get Dr. Tubs back to health?

The prof said he had made no other changes to the tank other than the new hood.
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Re: GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Post by pufferfreak »

Does this tank have marine salt in it? At this size the GSP should have a brackish tank.
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Re: GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Post by Pufferpunk »

At 3" he should be in a pretty big tank. Have him test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH & post here.
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Re: GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Post by Nick »

The UV light from the bulb could be continually killing off the bacteria needed to keep the tank cycled, sorta like having the whole tank exposed to a UV sterilizer.
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kvndrby
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Re: GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Post by kvndrby »

i just shot an e-mail to the prof about getting those lvls. I'm pretty sure it's in a 30gal with brackish but i included that in the e-mail to make sure. hopefully i will get a reply quickly.
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Re: GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Post by CoreyK »

Did you check the temp?
A lot of those reptile lights also serve a heating purpose - maybe it superheated the tank.
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Re: GSP From yeah to Neah in 5 days!!!

Post by kvndrby »

when i saw it yesterday (when the light was still on it) it was at 81F, i suppose it's possible it super heated the tank but the prof is in his office often and I would hope he would keep an eye on things like that. anyway, i'm still waiting for a reply to that email i sent.
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