Nitrites are really toxic for puffers, especially when they have other things weakening them.Sick GSP
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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Nick
- Former Staff Member
- Posts: 3231
- Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:47 pm
- My Puffers: Mine:
GSPs - Shakespeare and Jillybean
F8 - Velvet
My fiance:
DP - Emma Goldman
Narrow Lined Puffer - Ulrike - Location (country): Northeastern USA
- Location: Middletown, CT
- Contact:
Re: Sick GSP
Sorry to hear that Nitrites are really toxic for puffers, especially when they have other things weakening them.
Nitrites are really toxic for puffers, especially when they have other things weakening them.No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
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PuffnStuff
- Dwarf Puffer
- Posts: 60
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:41 pm
- My Puffers: 2 GSP's, Pillow and Blanket
- Location: Ontario, Canada
Re: Sick GSP
Thanks everyone, we were sad about pillow. I still can't get the nitrites down. I've done a large WC every day and I'm still reading 0.25 Nitrite. Anyone have any suggestions? Also, i know I'm not overfeeding because I hand feed my puffer shrimp and bloodworms one at a time but I still have a lot of algae in the tank and it's only a month old. I think I imported some with plants from another tank. Anyone have any good algae control measures?
I still can't get the nitrites down. I've done a large WC every day and I'm still reading 0.25 Nitrite. Anyone have any suggestions? Also, i know I'm not overfeeding because I hand feed my puffer shrimp and bloodworms one at a time but I still have a lot of algae in the tank and it's only a month old. I think I imported some with plants from another tank. Anyone have any good algae control measures?75g 2 GSP's
37g FW community
10g Softies, Clownfish, Gobies and Shrimp
1.5g Betta
10g 1 Damsel, 1 Fairy Wrasse
65g LPS and Soft Coral Reef
37g FW community
10g Softies, Clownfish, Gobies and Shrimp
1.5g Betta
10g 1 Damsel, 1 Fairy Wrasse
65g LPS and Soft Coral Reef
-
Nick
- Former Staff Member
- Posts: 3231
- Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:47 pm
- My Puffers: Mine:
GSPs - Shakespeare and Jillybean
F8 - Velvet
My fiance:
DP - Emma Goldman
Narrow Lined Puffer - Ulrike - Location (country): Northeastern USA
- Location: Middletown, CT
- Contact:
Re: Sick GSP
Less light is the only one I can get to work.
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
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jimi
- Green Spotted Puffer
- Posts: 485
- Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:43 pm
- My Puffers: 2 Tetraodon biocellatus :karma and Vipaka
1 Carinotetraodon Lorteti : gir
1 Auriglobus modestus :big red
1 Takifugu ocellatus : shark bait
Other
1 : Apteronotus albifrons
1 : Stigmatogobius sadanundio
2 : Brachygobius xanthozona
3 : Epalzeorhynchus frenatus.
4 : Pantodon buchholzi
6 : Xiphophorus helleri
Re: Sick GSP
i would agree wiht nick here algae remedy's can even sometimes make things worse
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edmlfc1
- Mbu Puffer
- Posts: 2011
- Joined: Sun Sep 09, 2007 5:03 pm
- My Puffers: Elvis (Stars & Stripes) R.I.P. 9/11/11
125G:Fahaka (Annabelle) - Location (country): U.S.A.
- Location: Texas
Re: Sick GSP
If you can get some bio-spira that would help to finish cycleing your tank. It took mine about 3 days after adding bio-spira.
Need to know what kind of puffer you have? Click on Puffer ID.....Puffer ID: ug.php/v/PufferPedia/
What to feed your puffer? Click on Feeding......
Feeding: library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/
Have a GSP, need more information......Click on GSP Article.....
GSP Article: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
What to feed your puffer? Click on Feeding......
Feeding: library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/
Have a GSP, need more information......Click on GSP Article.....
GSP Article: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
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PuffnStuff
- Dwarf Puffer
- Posts: 60
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:41 pm
- My Puffers: 2 GSP's, Pillow and Blanket
- Location: Ontario, Canada
Re: Sick GSP
Thanks for the advice. I think I'll go to 10 hrs light instead of 12, try that. It's all brown algae which I've heard is actually a diatome so hopefully it goes away. I'll see if I can get some bio-spira too.
75g 2 GSP's
37g FW community
10g Softies, Clownfish, Gobies and Shrimp
1.5g Betta
10g 1 Damsel, 1 Fairy Wrasse
65g LPS and Soft Coral Reef
37g FW community
10g Softies, Clownfish, Gobies and Shrimp
1.5g Betta
10g 1 Damsel, 1 Fairy Wrasse
65g LPS and Soft Coral Reef
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FishFan
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 208
- Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:08 am
- My Puffers: Orbicular Burrfish (Oblio, shown in the avatar), Striped Burrfish
- Location (country): Maine USA
- Location: USA
Re: Sick GSP
We recently found that even with daily water changes in our QTs, existing salt water pH was significantly lower (7.8 ) than our replacement salt water (8.5). Depending on how you mix your replacement water It might be worthwhile testing your pH for both new and old water before a water change to see if a pH bounce is occurring during water changes. This could irritate already raw gills. This is probably not the cause of the problem but could aggravate the problem.
A = Anne, R =Robert
There has to be a point.
There has to be a point.
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PuffnStuff
- Dwarf Puffer
- Posts: 60
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:41 pm
- My Puffers: 2 GSP's, Pillow and Blanket
- Location: Ontario, Canada
Re: Sick GSP
Thanks for the idea Fishfan(s). I have high PH water here though and it's always pretty steady (around 8.4) even just before my weekly change. Update, the brown "algae" is starting to take over, but I am hoping it's just new tank and will go away. I couldn't find bio-spira so I'm just letting things move along as they are now. If Blanket starts to appear sick at all I'll move him back to my 10g plant tank which is at similar salinity but is an established tank. Otherwise I've stopped daily WC's and am checking nitrite daily. (Staying constant at 0.25.) Hopefully it'll finish cycling soon, but Blanket seems fine, he ate 2 snails and a bunch of PE Mysis with gusto an hour ago.
75g 2 GSP's
37g FW community
10g Softies, Clownfish, Gobies and Shrimp
1.5g Betta
10g 1 Damsel, 1 Fairy Wrasse
65g LPS and Soft Coral Reef
37g FW community
10g Softies, Clownfish, Gobies and Shrimp
1.5g Betta
10g 1 Damsel, 1 Fairy Wrasse
65g LPS and Soft Coral Reef