Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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.
I recently had an outbreak in a purplish algae. I took everything out of the tank, and its sitting in a rubbermaid container. I left the puffer in the tank. Cleaned all the glasses (scraped it), and cleaned the filter. I am currently treating the tank with aquarium salt as well.
Before the outbreak in algae I also noticed that he was getting white patches on his back. It doesnt look like ich, then his left eye started to get cloudy, and not the right eye. He is barely eating and just sits at the bottom of the tank. I am going to test the water today and do another water change.
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
Water Parameters - will be posted later tonight. The test kit has been living at my office for the last 2 years.
Tank Size - 65 Gallon custom sized. Only the fahaka resides in the tank
Feeding - I have been feeding him krill up to about a week ago I tried to switch it to scallops (which he seemed to like at first) the LFS ran out of krill. Water is changed every 2 weeks, and the only product I have added to the tank recently is salt to help fight whatever is growing on him
Changes - Only changes I did was taking out all the wood and plants that had a build up of purple algae on it. But he/she has had this white patch on the back for awhile now.
Tank- Tank has been set up and running for 2 years now. It used to house community fish. My fahaka outgrew the tank at work, and transfered him to the 65 gallon, while the 220gallon is being built in my basement. as for cycling (2 years ago) I have a 90g, and 3- 33g's running at my parents house. I used media from the FX5 filter off the 90g tank to cycle the 65g. I also used media from the 33g that was at my house (the 65g replaced the 33g)
I'll also try and snap some pics tonight
The only thing I can think of is the scallops is not making him feel well. But he has had the white patch on him for awhile now. The only way i can describe it as a growth of some sort.
His mouth also looks like he has sores on it. But it hasnt been the same since his food fought back awhile ago (used to feed him crayfish)
The fahaka has been on frozen mussels, and krill for the last year. Before moving him in the tank, I had alot of malaysian trumpet snails which he has efficiently wiped out (6 months ago)
I did however buy some scallops (in shell) from the LFS) yesterday and will try feeding it tonight.
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
I am guessing the diet as well. He was alot happier on Krill. I will try the LFS scallops tonight, and then Krill. As for snails, I used to have a snail lady who would give me a huge container of snails every week and the Fahaka would destroy them all. But she recently bought some clown loaches.. so no more snails for me, and I do not have the room to farm my own.
The fahaka is maybe 7 inches long. I have a feeling he might have been stunted from the LFS. Hes been growing slowly for the last 2 years.
I have a buddy who has one that is about 12 inches in a small 33g while he was cycling his 200. He had grown the fahaka from a baby to 12 inches in the 33g. But he changed the water every other day.
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
Stay away from krill. Puffers need a varied diet. Soak all his foods in a god fish vitamin. Please read the other options offered in that article. There's another one about how to get a stubborn puffers on other foods.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
a 65 is really small for one, especially at 2 years considering it should be close to/if not already full grown. i would say water quality and diet had parts to do with whats going wrong. keep a very varied diet, mussell, clam, crayfish(remove claws if you feel its needed), krill occasionally, scallops, earthworms occasionally. and look into Selcon Gel, or some other type of vitamin you can soak the food in. how big was this fahaka when you bought it? and what size tank was he in at the store?
breeding snails you dont need much room for, if any at all. its as easy as getting a small aquarium or even fish bowl, putting a bunch in to start the egg laying process and get as many eggs as possible, and waiting it out. you could get a mini filter, or just change out a little water every few days. its not hard at all and is very space efficient. you could even have this little breeder bowl on a window ledge or somewhere it would get natural light for small periods in a day. not to judge or anything but when people say "i dont have the space/time to breed snails" it just relays to me as laziness because if you have the room/time to put into a fahaka(or any puffer for that matter) you have that extra 2 minutes every other day to change a half gallon of water out. i work two jobs, try to have a life outside of work, keep up on my water changes, take the time to handle and feed my columbian red tail boa, change bedding in boa tank and frog tank, go fishing, start planning out my future home im building for the boa, and i still have plenty of time to change out water in my goldfish bowl that i breed snails in(that sits on an end table in my bedroom, theres always room/time for something as simple as snail breeding)
sumfingwong wrote:I got my fahaka when it was about 1.5 to 2 inches long.
I bought some bigger feeder goldfish from golds to see if he will move onto bigger feeders. He ate one of them, now there are 2 goldfish living with him about 2 to 3 inches big (fahaka is about 5 to 6 inches) and he doesnt mind them at all. I need to move him into some new diggs soon.
sumfingwong wrote:
The fahaka is maybe 7 inches long. I have a feeling he might have been stunted from the LFS. Hes been growing slowly for the last 2 years.
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Yes definitely something going on with his growing if he has only grown an inch since Oct 2008. but before that 5 inches in 6 months.
yea, he grew quick to the 5-6 inch mark. But has been the same since. I will snap some pics tonight. The LFS had him and 6 other fahakas in a small 20ish gallon tank. but I have no idea how long they have been at the store for. 2 Weeks for sure since it took me 2 weeks to develop a tank plan for the puffer. They were also feeding him feeder fish, so for the first couple of months his diet was crayfish, feeder fish, ghost shrimp and snails.
The tank he is in now is good for his size. Like I said, I am just waiting for the new tank to be built. Once the drywalls are put up, the tank builders are coming in to build the tank.
As for snail breeding. I tried, and it just smells really bad.. even when I was changing the water every other day. The wife couldnt take it anymore... and you guys know how it goes. Happy Wife.. Happy Life
I will try the vitamins and I am going to the LFS at lunch to pick up a variety of foods. Maybe ill try some earthworms.
sumfingwong wrote:yea, he grew quick to the 5-6 inch mark. But has been the same since.
I will try the vitamins and I am going to the LFS at lunch to pick up a variety of foods. Maybe ill try some earthworms.
My guess is that the tank that you had him in at work was to small the first 6 months that you had him and that is where the problem started. Anyhow good work on getting him that bigger tank.
Skip the LFS for food just go to your local grocery store and pick up some RAW frozen seafood. Shell on shrimp, mussels on the half shelf ect. They also have bags of what is called seafood melody which contains a variety of raw seafood. Always good idea to soak all of this in vitamins .
feeder fish is another problematic area, they are very dirty fish to begin with and who knows what they carry. after a picture gets posted up and someone can confirm what your puffer might have, i would ditch the feeders, start with some big water changes and treat with whatever meds are suggested. freeze anything you pick up from the grocery store before you feed it just incase there are any nasties your puffer could pick up
The puffer hasnt had live food for about a year now. I picked up API triple Sulfa Anti Bacterial fish medication. Would this be ok on scaleless fish? It treats fungus, body slime and eye cloud.
dont treat anything when you dont know exactly what the problem with the puffer is. i would just post a picture and the right people will be able to help more. a lot of meds out there are too much for a scaleless fish like a puffer. the best medicine, as i saw someone said on here before, is good water and proper conditions
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
