Hi there, I just discovered this forum, and I'm hoping you guys can help me out with my puffer issue! I've had an F8 for the last four months, in a 15 gallon tank, with one ghost shrimp as a tank mate. He ate all the other ones, but seems to have made friends with this one. I bought the tank from someone who'd had it running for several years, and so I was able to set it up with a few danios and my water parameters were great from the beginning throughout. After 2 months of 3 danios in the tank and a Betta, I switched the tank to brackish, and added crushed gravel as my substrate. The tank is filtered with two submerged filters, each good for a 10 gallon. Right now my Amonnia is 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate's higher at 20. Can't do a PH test right now. Salinity is around 1.014. He's feed bloodworms and shrimp, with some snails once a week, my last water change was 2 days ago.
So, now the problem. Today he's been incredibly sluggish. He leans against a corner with his chin all day, and doesn't seem interested in food. When he does stop leaning, he swims very slowly and seems to bump into everything. I know he can see alright, though about 3 months ago he did have a problem with an eye clouding up, which went away in a couple of days. He seems to be having trouble swimming, and he goes around with his nose sticking up, nearly swimming vertically. This is all highly unusual for him, so I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for him!
Slow F8
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.
-
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: Slow F8
I think the trouble may be that your SG is just too high for him. F8's seem to prefer an sg of about 1.005, about 1/3 what you have him at. I"d try doing a water change to decrease the SG by about .002 now, getting it down to about 1.012, and weekly hereafter until it's down to about SG 1.004-1.006
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
Re: Slow F8
Whoopsies. 
My bad, that's a typo. Should have been 1.004. Sorry, long night studying for finals here.
My bad, that's a typo. Should have been 1.004. Sorry, long night studying for finals here.-
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: Slow F8
My next guess is bad bloodworms or bloodworm allergie - try just the shrimp and snails for a while. To stimulate eating, a small earthworm is great.
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
Re: Slow F8
This morning when I went to my puffer's tank, he was wedged in between the heater and the filter, unmoving. He looked dead, so I went to my final and came back to take him out. I had him in the net and he wasn't moving at all, but I waited for a minute just in case. All of a sudden he looked up at me and started swimming around, but soon fell to the bottom and lay there, breathing heavily. He stayed there for a few minutes, then darted up to the surface and brought his face out of the water, and then repeated this action several times. Then he fell back down, tried to move again, and couldn't, and now is just lying there huffing. He looks like he's on death's door. I did water change to see if that would help. Any other suggestions?
-
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: Slow F8
Any chance of a heater malfunction?
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
Re: Slow F8
The heater is working fine, his water temperature is normal - or was I should say. My poor little thing died. Thanks for the suggestions though, I appreciate the help.
-
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: Slow F8
Sorry to hear that No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
-
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: Slow F8
Sorry for your loss, I lost one of my puffers too and it sucks big time!
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