Hey everyone,
My porcupine puffer has recently been behaving funny, and I'm wondering if it's because of the quarantining and untimely death of his only tank mate. Since I quarantined his friend (a GSP that has been living with him for 2 years), my porc (named Phil) has been sulking in a corner and will barely eat. He won't touch his favorite food (shrimp) and I can't get him to eat anything else other than a handful of frozen peas that he ate yesterday. Is he depressed??
The tank has been set up for over two years, and ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites are at 0. I've even had my water parameters checked out at my LFS just to make sure. I have been having some weird fluctuations with the pH though (seems to drop from ~8.4 to 7.8 daily and I've been constantly having to add pH buffer to get it back up). I recently added Melafix and Maracyn Plus to the tank but have done two large water changes since. Any thoughts? The tank is 75 gallons and Phil is now the only inhabitant. Any thoughts would greatly be appreciated.
Thanks,
Dan
Depressed 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.
Re: Depressed puffer??
No thoughts? He's still not eating and I can't figure out what to do.
Dan
Dan
-
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: Depressed puffer??
I can't be sure if the dead tankmate might be the problem or not, but it could definately have something to do with long term health risks due to the tank size - 75 gallons isn't nearly big enough to hold a porcupine puffer and a GSP together for two years. What was his diet consisted of, other than peas?
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
Re: Depressed puffer??
His diet mostly consists of frozen shrimp, formula one and two, freeze-dried krill (occasionally), and the ever popular snails that I'd get from my LFS. I occasionally will grab something different from the seafood department at my local grocery store (li.e, scallops, crab, clams, mussels - he's tried them all), but shrimp is his usual favorite.
The problem started from the time I removed the GSP, and the porcupine puffer has literally been sulking in a corner since. I've been checking the water parameters daily and they're still reading the same (0 across the board) and the pH problem seems to have finally worked itself out. Other than the peas he at a few days back, he has been ignoring everything else I put in the tank.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Dan
The problem started from the time I removed the GSP, and the porcupine puffer has literally been sulking in a corner since. I've been checking the water parameters daily and they're still reading the same (0 across the board) and the pH problem seems to have finally worked itself out. Other than the peas he at a few days back, he has been ignoring everything else I put in the tank.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Dan
-
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: Depressed puffer??
His diet sounds good - what ailed the GSP, I don't remember atm.
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.