sick porcupine puffer
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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dab335
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 219
- Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:36 pm
- My Puffers: Diodon Holocanthus, Canthigaster Compressa, Canthigaster Valentini, Arothron Nigropunctatus, Arothron Nigropunctatus(yellow-belly), Chilomycterus Schoepfi, GSP, F8
- Location: Narragansett, Rhode Island
sick porcupine puffer
hey guys, i'm new to this so bear with me. We have a 30 gallon x high saltwater tank that we set up 3 months ago. We cycled the tank for 1 month and when everything was stable we added our porcupine puffer. She was doing great, we had her eating crayfish, crabs, saltwater glass shrimp and sometimes feeder minnows. We decided to add another fish a dragon wrasse and she seemed to be fine. The next night we fed her feeder minnows and the next morning we noticed all the feeder minnows in the holding tank were dead and our puffer seemed to be acting strange. We couldnt figure out if it was the new fish or the feeder minnows.We called the store where we bought the minnows and they assured us it wouldn't hurt our puffer, but all she did tonight was swim into rocks, breath heavily and her color is really white, not as vibrant as it usually is. Our ph is 8.2, our ammonia is 0, our nitrite is 0 and our nitrate is 20. We do water changes every 2 weeks and clean out the tank every other day, we don't know what to do she looks like she might not make it through the night.
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Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
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Re: sick porcupine puffer
![[welcome]](./images/smilies/welcome.gif "welcome")
How large is your puffer? 30g is going to need to be upgraded to 100g just for the puffer. They have an extremely high bioload. Try to keep the nitrate <20. Minnows arew not a good food for your puffer, they are crustaceon eaters. Do a 50% water change right now & be sure to remove all the dead pieces of fish.
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!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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dab335
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 219
- Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:36 pm
- My Puffers: Diodon Holocanthus, Canthigaster Compressa, Canthigaster Valentini, Arothron Nigropunctatus, Arothron Nigropunctatus(yellow-belly), Chilomycterus Schoepfi, GSP, F8
- Location: Narragansett, Rhode Island
Re: sick porcupine puffer
Thanks for the reply, unfortunately our puffer died last night. 
RIP Ellen
RIP Ellen