Help

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.
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TheProfessor
Puffer Fry
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:09 pm
Gender: Male
Location (country): North West England, Manchester

Help

Post by TheProfessor »

Hi, am new to puffer keeping however not tropical fish keeping.
I have purchased three SAP and i love them :) however they have whitespot and i didnt notice until i got them home :/ mistake on my behalf, however i couldnt see it in the LFS tank :(
i am using JBL Punktol atm using only a half dose to treat it, i know it contains copper which they are sensitive to however my LFS which i trust said if i treat it at half doses they should be ok and i have only given one dose (half recommended). However one of the puffers has it really bad and my other two dont seem to have or at least as badly? One has no whitespot visible at all, while the other has only about 4 spots on him. am 100% sure its whitespot but i am scared of using the Punktol and was wondering if anyone had any advice on what they used or did to get rid of the whitespot?
secondly the smaller of my three puffers wont eat? but he was doing it before he showed signs of whitespot, i hand feed all three so i can monitor what they eat, and the other two eats like little pigs but this guy picks the food out my hand and then just nibbles it before spitting it back out? he has lost weight and i checked his "teeth" and they are the same length as others and seem fine. They normally eat bloodworm, i have tried cockels and daphnia and freeze dried shrimp and they just wont take, they have eaten a few small snails but my LFS doesnt have any ramshorn in atm, does anyone recommend any other snails? So any advice or help would be brilliant right now :)
All puffer are betweeen 2-3.5inches atm but the 2inch one is reallly thin now and am worried :(
my ph is 7.2 and has been constantly, my GH is 8 and has been constantly, no salinity and nitrates is 20ppm. So from my research before getting them that is all ok am i correct?
my temperature is 26 degrees and has been constantly, i also used intrepet filter start for the first two weeks of the tank, it has a HOB filter. I have had three dwarf keyhole cichlids in the tank which were used after the two weeks of filter start to cycle the tank, they were in the tank for two weeks more checking it constantly. Then a pleco was added and he is still in there. A week later i added my three puffers then removed the three cichlids then to another tank. I haven't done a water change since the puffers have been in as they have only been in three days now. I generally do 25% on Wednesdays and then another 25% change on saturdays but due to that the puffers havent experience a water change yet.
Any advice is welcome thank you, i am just worried as i love my little puffers they are such comical characters and i will do anything to help.
On a side note, does anyone recommend a bottom feeder that will clean up the bloodworm? I was thinking maybe a shrimp since my guys didnt touch the freeze dried stuff? Or maybe a crayfish but i have heard they can be aggressive? anyone recommend or advice on this would be appreciated as well :)
thank you very much in advance, TheProfessor
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purplecandle
Mbu Puffer
Posts: 2019
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 2:18 pm
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Currently
2 Adult Green Spotted Puffers
1 Fangs Puffer
1 Baby Green Spotted Puffer
Location (country): USA (NC)

Re: Help

Post by purplecandle »

SAPS are prone to ick after stress, about 90% of new owners will see ick on thier SAPs.

I would stay away from copper, someone else will chime i on that I am sure.

Your best bet is probably heat and salt,

Here read this article -
library/hospital/fwich/

Ramshorn snails are what you need, the pet store does not usually sell them. Most of us here buy them from online ebay or aquabid and then start our own colonies, you need to have your on colony because saps should have about a 90% diet of snails because of how fast thier teeth grow.
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TheProfessor
Puffer Fry
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:09 pm
Gender: Male
Location (country): North West England, Manchester

Re: Help

Post by TheProfessor »

Thank you for the info :)
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