I have a 120 gallon tank at my work that is maintained by a aquarium guy. I'm extremely attached to the fish even though I don't own them. The Porcupine Puffer especially.
I have in the tank:
Porcupine Puffer Fish
Damsel
Triggerfish
Crab
Toby Puffer Fish
I feed them Krill and Shrimp.
My Porcupine Puffer has obviously gone blind. He bumps into things, is hovering on one side of the tank and no longer comes up to me at the glass. The biggest problem is that he isn't eating, I'm assuming because he can't see the food. My tank got extremely out of whack and dirty for a week because the maintanence company never came to clean it for a few weeks. I called and yelled at him and he told me to buy some StressKote, which I did. The tank got cleaned about 4 days after putting the StressKote in and all my friends survived. But now I'm dealing with my puffer being blind. I've called the aquarium guy and he hasn't returned my calls yet- I'm very worried and am willing to take action on my own if there even is anything I can do to help my puffer. I was even thinking about coming up with a way to try to hand feed him if necessary.
Thank you!
Is my puffer's blindness permanent?
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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crazedpuffer
- Former Staff Member
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Re: Is my puffer's blindness permanent?
Please answer all the above questions that are in red.
Also krill is not good for porcs, it can cause a disease called lockjaw, which will disable your porc from closing it's mouth so it can't eat, and will die. How does your puffers eyes look? Are they normal or do they look cloudy (aside from that blue/green glaze that is normally on them)
Also krill is not good for porcs, it can cause a disease called lockjaw, which will disable your porc from closing it's mouth so it can't eat, and will die. How does your puffers eyes look? Are they normal or do they look cloudy (aside from that blue/green glaze that is normally on them)
Re: Is my puffer's blindness permanent?
sorry for getting off of Puffs subject but really no krill for Porcs? What should you feed them
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edmlfc1
- Mbu Puffer
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Re: Is my puffer's blindness permanent?
Krill is bad for puffers, you can feed them shrimp, clams, mussles, snails. There's an article in the library on other things to feed the puffer.
Puff's, I had a porc that went blind also. She eventually passed away from an unknown disease.
I had great success with hand feeding her. I would puree shrimp, mussels, clams, vitamins and garlic guard, put it in a syringe and slowly squeeze it in the puffers mouth. I also used a toothpick to fill the syringe and get as much air out of it as possible. She got so use to eating from the syringe she would try to suck the food out of it. My porc was about 3-4", I would feed her until her tummy was rounded.
Puff's, I had a porc that went blind also. She eventually passed away from an unknown disease.
I had great success with hand feeding her. I would puree shrimp, mussels, clams, vitamins and garlic guard, put it in a syringe and slowly squeeze it in the puffers mouth. I also used a toothpick to fill the syringe and get as much air out of it as possible. She got so use to eating from the syringe she would try to suck the food out of it. My porc was about 3-4", I would feed her until her tummy was rounded.Need to know what kind of puffer you have? Click on Puffer ID.....Puffer ID: ug.php/v/PufferPedia/
What to feed your puffer? Click on Feeding......
Feeding: library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/
Have a GSP, need more information......Click on GSP Article.....
GSP Article: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
What to feed your puffer? Click on Feeding......
Feeding: library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/
Have a GSP, need more information......Click on GSP Article.....
GSP Article: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Is my puffer's blindness permanent?
![[welcome]](./images/smilies/welcome.gif "welcome")
How difficult would it be for you to learn how to maintain that tank yourself? I would never leave my precious friends with someone who obviously didn't care about them. At least try to find a better maintenance company. Wold you please at least buy some test kits to test the water? Blindness is a sign of nitrite poisoning.
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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flash.dan
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currently have 1x mbu
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Re: Is my puffer's blindness permanent?
ithink if there was a few weeks between cleanign water issues were / are a problem. Also a 120 im not 100% sure that is big enough for porcs as they do grow large
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Myaj
- Tech Team
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Re: Is my puffer's blindness permanent?
Agreed, a 120 is *barely* big enough for an adult porc, and that's with no tankmates. You have major overstocking going on there.
Puffers are extremely dirty fish, messy eaters who put out a lot of waste. They also do not have scales and are very sensitive to anything "bad" in the water. So a few weeks without "maintence" and this tank could become very toxic to a puffer. StressCoat isn't going to help anything, and often makes things worse.
Are there any live corals or just the fish? if there are no corals, a saltwater tank isn't that complicated to take care of. You just need to learn how to mix up the water and salt.
But anyways, this tank will give you nothing but trouble and sick/dead fish until you figure out the overstocking problem.
Do you have permission from the owner to take on maintaining it yourself? Are they willing to get rid of some (most) of the fish? Seriously, research their full grown sizes and you'll see there is no way they can all survive in there.
Puffers are extremely dirty fish, messy eaters who put out a lot of waste. They also do not have scales and are very sensitive to anything "bad" in the water. So a few weeks without "maintence" and this tank could become very toxic to a puffer. StressCoat isn't going to help anything, and often makes things worse.
Are there any live corals or just the fish? if there are no corals, a saltwater tank isn't that complicated to take care of. You just need to learn how to mix up the water and salt.
But anyways, this tank will give you nothing but trouble and sick/dead fish until you figure out the overstocking problem.
Do you have permission from the owner to take on maintaining it yourself? Are they willing to get rid of some (most) of the fish? Seriously, research their full grown sizes and you'll see there is no way they can all survive in there.
