NO3=0-10
NO2=0-0,5
PH 8
SG 1.03
50% water changes once a week
tank size 100L or about 26 Gallons
2 figure eight puffers and 1 black molly
cycled it for a bit more than a week while adding bacteria.
one of my fish seems sick it's colors are much more greyish than my other puffer and it also seems to be smaller compared to, the small f8 also seems to hide a lot more and lately i've seen it rest at the bottom of the tank (seemed to be breathing heavily but could be wrong here, at other times it seems rather fine, though the grey color persists and he has like bulges on the side of his belly). as an additional note my f8's are rather special i guess...or perhaps my molly is, pretty sure it's a male molly but it chases the f8's around the tank which probably stressed the less dominant (and now prolly sick) f8.
here are some pics.
worms?
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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bigfatfish
- Fahaka Puffer
- Posts: 938
- Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:33 pm
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: GSP "Puffy" RIP old friend 1999-2009
GSPs "Flash" & "Lionel" - in a 55 UK Gallon Bow front Marine Tank with sump. - Location (country): United Kingdom
- Location: Devon, UK
Re: worms?
Are you able to give us a reading for ammonia?
Re: worms?
not atm, don't have anything to test ammonia with yet.
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JRC3
- Fahaka Puffer
- Posts: 904
- Joined: Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:10 pm
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: F8(55g)
F8 (46g)
4-DP(29g) - Location (country): U.S.
- Location: S.W. OH
Re: worms?
When was your last water change? You need to be doing water changes daily of atleast 50% to get that nitrite out of the water, and there is probably ammonia in there too. Do you have a product called "Prime" in Denmark? If not look for some other product that lowers nitrites and converts ammonia to a less toxic form.
While your at the pet store picking up some ammonia/nitrite water conditioner can you pick up an ammonia test kit? You will need to check your water daily until there is a reading of "0". If not, take in a water sample and have them test it, minimum. What model is your tanks filter?
Eventually you'll probably have to re-home one of the figure 8s or the molly.
Good luck.
While your at the pet store picking up some ammonia/nitrite water conditioner can you pick up an ammonia test kit? You will need to check your water daily until there is a reading of "0". If not, take in a water sample and have them test it, minimum. What model is your tanks filter?
Eventually you'll probably have to re-home one of the figure 8s or the molly.
Good luck.
There are many knowledgeable fish keepers on this forum willing to help and give great advice...The advice is free; What you choose to do with it gives it value.
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Dadof4
- Tech Team
- Posts: 2862
- Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:50 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: 1 GSP (Microfiche) RIP, 1 Monotrete Turgidus (Leon) in a 30gal. 1 Monotrete suvattii in a 40 gal FW. 120 gallon BW with 3 juvenile Dragon Gobies (so cool). 55 gal with a 2" GSP named Hank. 180 gallon being set up for a Fahaka in the next few months!
- Location (country): United States
- Location: North Wisconsin
Re: worms?
Having nitrite suggests that your tank has not finished it's cycle. Have you recently added one of those fish? The reason I ask is that it could have overwhelmed your bio filter and the tank is experiencing a mini cycle. As is the two F8's are going to be tight in that tank, they will eventually begin to fight over territory, adding an aggressive fish like a Molly is pushing the stocking limits of the tank over the edge. This could be causing the stress to the less dominant puffer.
"Darwin swings...annnnnnd a miss. Boy Jim, Chuck's suffered at the plate tonight. He's 0 for 3 and I'm not sure he's recovered from that shoulder pull a few weeks ago. I'll bet the front office is re-thinking that contract."
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borgey
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 216
- Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2010 4:08 pm
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: 1 Tetraodon biocellatus, 3 Colomesus asellus, 4 Carinotetraodon travancoricus
- Location (country): U.S.A
- Location: Providence, RI/Boston, Ma
Re: worms?
Why do people put these poor little Puffers in uncycled tanks 
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Nick
- Former Staff Member
- Posts: 3231
- Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:47 pm
- My Puffers: Mine:
GSPs - Shakespeare and Jillybean
F8 - Velvet
My fiance:
DP - Emma Goldman
Narrow Lined Puffer - Ulrike - Location (country): Northeastern USA
- Location: Middletown, CT
- Contact:
Re: worms?
The stores make a LOT of money on instant cycle products that don't do the job, ammonia absorbers and other emergency additives, treatments for sicknesses created by the stress of the uncycled tanks, and ultimately replacement fish. So education programs for the workers not only cost them money in training time, but also in profit loss.
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
Re: worms?
I got the water parameters under control now and removed the molly from the tank which seems to have made the puffers much happier since they come greet me eagerly whenever i pass by and they don't hide anymore+they get along fine which is great only time they can get a bit nippy towards eachother is at feeding time if both go for the same piece of food but that doesn't happen very often. My only concern now is that i'm still fairly certain one of them is sick as it looks much thinner (it's also smaller lengthwise so perhaps younger) and the black parts of its skin seem like dull or as if somethings covering it. i've attached some pictures to illustrate what i mean i tried my best to get a good shot of its belly.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Re: worms?
oh and the filter is a Eheim 2071 and yeah was a pretty horrible store i bought them from, crammed like 10++ f8's in a tiny tank and even labeled them as GSP...
i think the reason why i had bad water parameters was rather that i bought the new filter and shortly after moved so i suspect that killed off too many helpful bacterias.
i think the reason why i had bad water parameters was rather that i bought the new filter and shortly after moved so i suspect that killed off too many helpful bacterias.