Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

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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Troender
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Gender: Female
My Puffers: 1x GSP (Bolla), 1x m. something. Bought as a leiurus, maybe a turgidus (Tiger), 1x c. irrubesco (Tott(a) aka Houdini) 1x c. salivator (Jack the Ripper), 1x m. cochinchinensis (Hufflepuff - R.I.P.), 2x c. lorteti (Tommy and Tigern = Calvin and Hubbes), 1x m. suvatti (Koseklumpen), 1x m. palembangensis (Dragonfly), 2x t. biocellatus (Koken and Fiken).
Location: Askim, Norway

Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by Troender »

I woke up this morning to a very bad surprise. At first I thought my irrubesco male was dead. He was lying on top of the filter, and had lost all color. But when I tried to touch him, he started moving. He had really trouble with staying straight in the water, but he managed to move away from me. He looked really terrible, still like he was dead - it was awful. His skin has lost almost all color (he is so extremely pale), and there seem to be something wrong with his skin. How the skin looks is really difficult to explain - it looks like there's a little bit of ich there, and that there are some other skin problems too. His fins are ragged, and his stomach is awfully thin (I suspect IPs, as I had this in the salivator tank earlier). I haven't seen him around much lately, so I haven't seen this developing. I see now that this shyness probably was because he wasn't feeling well. I have a feeling that he hasn't eaten for a while, but can't say for how long, as he often doesn't want to eat when I'm looking. But by the sight of his belly, it's really been a while. I really didn't think he would survive many hours, but he has stayed alive all day (I put in some meds, but really felt it was just hopeless). Tonight I found him again, after searching for him. Again I was sure he was dead, but again he was able to move around a little. The strange thing is that his tankmate, Houdini, looks all well. There's one more thing that is to say: yesterday I found a outbreak of some parasites in another tank, a tank with cories. Only three cories were affected, and they only have one hvite spot (like a pimple) each. But cories doesn't easily get external parasites, as they are armored, and don't have scales. And all tanks (except one) share the same equipment I use to do my water changes, so there's a possibility that the equipment can transfer illnesses and parasites from tank to tank.

So for the questions above:
1. Water parameters: Ammonia: 0, Nitrite: 0, Nitrate: between 10 and 20 (before the waterchange I did earlier today). I haven't checked the PH, as I don't want to use my PH pen in a tank that's infected with something I don't know what is. And my liquid PH tests are out of date, and really gives wrong numbers.
2. Tank is 22 G, and it's only this irrubesco pair living there. The female seems to be well.
3. Feeding is usually shrimps, shrimp mix (with lots of green stuff in it), snails, different kinds of seafood. They get fed every other day. Usually the water change schedules is 50 % twice a week, but lately I've not been well, so it's only been once a week. But as the nitrate shows 10 -20 after a week since the last water change, it seems like the bioload is absolutely ok in this tank. I do water changes with water directly from the tap (heated), and have never had any trouble with that earlier. I do not add anything to the water (there's no clorine in the water here).
4. I've done no changes the last two weeks. But this autumn I've changed filter. I put an extra filter in the tank, and cycled it for a month (with the old one still in the tank). When the new filter was cycled, I put a new and bigger filter into the tank, and this is now cycling together with the new, cycled little one. But 0 nitrites tells me that the little filter is properly cycled, and is enough to handle the bioload in the tank.
5. The tank has been up for two years, but the filters are changed recently.

I really have no hope of him surviving, but I can't help trying anyway. I've added both Esha 2000 and Esha Exit, two meds that are very effective and good (and does not kill the filter bacteria) - one is for bacterial infections and fungus, and the other for external parasites. Those two meds can be used together. After finding him still alive tonight (after a whole day of being a zombie - a living dead), I also added some of my precious Flubenol (which can be used together with any med). So he really has a hard treatment right now. But I would suspect the odds for him to survive is 0,001 percent... :( It's just so terrible to see a puffer so terribly ill!
Inger Anne
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Just think how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider! -George Carlin

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LinearChaos
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco

Post by LinearChaos »

Hmm, could be just the advanced stages of the IP's. How long have you had him and was he showing any signs when you got him?
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Troender
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Posts: 1843
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Gender: Female
My Puffers: 1x GSP (Bolla), 1x m. something. Bought as a leiurus, maybe a turgidus (Tiger), 1x c. irrubesco (Tott(a) aka Houdini) 1x c. salivator (Jack the Ripper), 1x m. cochinchinensis (Hufflepuff - R.I.P.), 2x c. lorteti (Tommy and Tigern = Calvin and Hubbes), 1x m. suvatti (Koseklumpen), 1x m. palembangensis (Dragonfly), 2x t. biocellatus (Koken and Fiken).
Location: Askim, Norway

Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by Troender »

I had him for about 1 1/2 years. I say 'had', because he didn't make it. I found him on the bottom of the tank this morning, and this time he was dead-dead. R.I.P. Knoll. :rip: I expected this, but it's sad anyway. :cry:

I will continue the meds to cure anything that might be in Houdini. After that I will have to figure out what to do with her, whether I should sell her, or whether I should try getting another male. This last option is risky, as I don't know how a new male will treat her. Knoll was really nice to her, and they lived happily together for 1 1/2 years. But they grew up together. I have no idea how a new one will be.
Inger Anne
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Just think how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider! -George Carlin

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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by t1gerbee »

sorry Inger Anne, :-(
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by dab335 »

so so sorry. :(
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by Pufferpunk »

Awww... so sorry for your loss. :(
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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LinearChaos
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by LinearChaos »

Oh no, sorry for your loss.:cry:

Mysterious puffer death :?
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by yunachin »

I am so sorry for your loss. I wish I knew more about freshwater disease to help out. :(
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by crazedpuffer »

Aww I'm so sorry!
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by edmlfc1 »

Sorry for your loss. :( If you do get a new male put a divider in the tank for about a month or so and watch to see how he reacts to her before taking the divider out. This will give them time to get to know each other. I have done this before with other fish and puffers. I just used egg crate from home depot and cut to fit. They would get to know each other with protection between them and by the time I took out the divider it was no big deal. Hope this helps.
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Troender
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My Puffers: 1x GSP (Bolla), 1x m. something. Bought as a leiurus, maybe a turgidus (Tiger), 1x c. irrubesco (Tott(a) aka Houdini) 1x c. salivator (Jack the Ripper), 1x m. cochinchinensis (Hufflepuff - R.I.P.), 2x c. lorteti (Tommy and Tigern = Calvin and Hubbes), 1x m. suvatti (Koseklumpen), 1x m. palembangensis (Dragonfly), 2x t. biocellatus (Koken and Fiken).
Location: Askim, Norway

Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by Troender »

Thank you all. I think LinearChaos is right, that it's IPs. He was awfully thin. How could I not have seen this before? But he has been hiding a lot lately. And I guess it's also been a bit "closing my eyes for the truth". I didn't want to see that he was in trouble. It's not very long since my salivator had IPs, so I guess the irrubesco could have gotten it through sharing the water change eqiupment from Jack.

Thanks for the divider tip. That's a good one. If I can get another irrubesco, that is. It's not easy getting puffers around here. Well, I'm in no hurry.
Inger Anne
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Just think how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider! -George Carlin

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Myaj
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by Myaj »

Did you check his teeth out? Maybe one of them grew too long and he couldn't eat...?
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Troender
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Posts: 1843
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:04 pm
Gender: Female
My Puffers: 1x GSP (Bolla), 1x m. something. Bought as a leiurus, maybe a turgidus (Tiger), 1x c. irrubesco (Tott(a) aka Houdini) 1x c. salivator (Jack the Ripper), 1x m. cochinchinensis (Hufflepuff - R.I.P.), 2x c. lorteti (Tommy and Tigern = Calvin and Hubbes), 1x m. suvatti (Koseklumpen), 1x m. palembangensis (Dragonfly), 2x t. biocellatus (Koken and Fiken).
Location: Askim, Norway

Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by Troender »

I didn't check him when I took him out of the tank, but I usually keep an eye on my puffer's teeth every time I see them.
Inger Anne
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Just think how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider! -George Carlin

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taly
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Re: Very, very ill irrubesco - R.I.P Knoll

Post by taly »

sorry for your loss!! :(
natalie
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