sick fahaka

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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edmlfc1
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by edmlfc1 »

If you can get some bio-spira that would help your cycle almost instantly.
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by Agnate »

Or Dr. Tim's.
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by Pufferpunk »

They actually said to cycle with 3 puffers!
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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Re: sick fahaka

Post by The Bruce »

I can't believe they sold you those three puffers for a 29g, those are the kind of fish stores that go out of business eventually
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by Nick »

I have no seen any sign that killing fish off causes stores to go out of business. The store where I work has steady stream of customers that buy fancy goldfish for a ten or twenty gallon tank, usually having at least 6 to 10 of them in there. They grow a bit, then things get too toxic, and one dies. So they come in and buy a couple more next month. There are several people that have been doing this for over a year, and don't see anything wrong with what's going on.
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by The Bruce »

In the 9 short months when i worked at Exotic Aquarium in Sac, two local fish shops closed down, and many people came to our store looking for better advice after getting horrible advice from either of these two LFS's. But of course there are still many more LFS's here that are absolute crap and are still running, for reasons reasons that you stated
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by treecowboy42 »

The other fish I had died, I guess due to water salinity, or improper cycling in the start. I know I need to get him in a bigger tank, but I do not have the money, for a little bit. I did drip him to freshwater, he looks and acts a lot better. I will do some water changes over the next couple days to clean up the water quality. I was wondering if there is a half way point to a cycle, meaning could I be stuck in the middle of a cycle? Would he not eat due to water quality, or not being able to see the food? thanks again for the help, and will keep you all posted.
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by treecowboy42 »

p.s. he is the only fish still in the tank
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by yunachin »

The best thing to do for this fish is to give it to someone else or return it to a fish store that will take proper care of it. Forcing it to stay in a 29 gallon tank will cause stunting and that is not fair for the fish or you.
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treecowboy42
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by treecowboy42 »

the ammonia has dropped to 0
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by treecowboy42 »

does anyone know someone in the detroit area that would take him, I would hate to take him back to the lfs
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by Idontknow »

treecowboy42 wrote:I know I need to get him in a bigger tank, but I do not have the money, for a little bit.
Try looking for used tanks, sometimes you can get real bargains.
Multi-tank syndrome
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by Nick »

yea, big tanks are hard to get rid of, hence, the price on say, craigslist, is next to NOTHING.
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by treecowboy42 »

thanks, good idea
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Re: sick fahaka

Post by Agnate »

Around here (Ontario), you can usually pick up a 120 gallon for about $400 - 500 (with everything included). That's not to say they're always around, but I see one go up for sale every 1 - 1.5 months. :)
Did our staff successfully help you? The Puffer Forum is an incredible resource and is run completely on the donations of its viewers. Proceeds from the Puffer Forum store go towards future contests and keeping the site running. Donations may also be made via PayPal.

- Paul

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28 gallon - 1 Abei Puffer (Captain Abe)
5 gallon - 1 Betta (Frederico)
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