puffer losses

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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fishface79
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 9:55 am

puffer losses

Post by fishface79 »

Hello IM wondering if anyone can help me as although I'm not new to fish keeping i'm new to Puffers.

I recently purchased a GSP which I intended to house in a community setup with caution. the water chemistry was as follows:

ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 18, ph 7.8

Sadly the gsp died within 24 hours :cry: , the shop did replace him with a F8 but again the same thing happened which as you can imagine is quite upsetting and difficult to understand as all else is ok in the tank. The only thing that I can think of is that i have have a breeding pair of kribs that have a young brood of 5.

P.s is salt a must?
Jayhawk
Green Spotted Puffer
Posts: 348
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:04 am
Location: KC, MO, USA

Post by Jayhawk »

Your water parameters (except for the lack of salt, marine saltwater mix like Instant Ocean is necessary for the long term health of both GSPs and F8s) are OK. However, puffers really are NOT community fish, and a GSP needs high brackish/or light marine conditions when an adult.

What size tank do you have? Breeding kribs can be very nasty...especially to any fish willing to enter their territory when spawning. I had a pair of kribs that controlled an entire 29 gallon tank and systematically started taking out tank members one at a time during spawning (I just had a few dither fish and a clown pleco at the time).

Eric
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Raphael
Green Spotted Puffer
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Location: London

Post by Raphael »

This may be a stupid question but did you cycle the tank?
Whats the point of a signature?!
crazyforpuffs
Figure 8 Puffer
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2005 6:46 pm
Location: The Big Smoke, Ontario

Post by crazyforpuffs »

Both GSP's and F-8 puffers are not community fish. GSP's can grow to 6"+, require BW and eventually SW as adults, and need 30+ gallons per fish.
F-8's can live in lower salinity BW, but again, are not really community fish, and require 15+ gallons per fish.

What size tank do you have?

Puffers, really, are best suited for species only setups.
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Pufferpunk
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Post by Pufferpunk »

Either the killed them, or you are getting bad stock. How did they look? Did they eat at all? How big is the tank?
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!"
fishface79
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 9:55 am

Post by fishface79 »

The tank that the puffer(s) were housed in was a Juwel Rio 180 (180l)that has a matured filter and no history of any problems. The first puffer didn't eat a thing in is brief spell with me the second puffer was alot more lively and was into his food.
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