GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

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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Dadof4
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by Dadof4 »

Silly question but have you been going through a normal day/night cycle with him?
"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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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by wagner7123 »

that debate was moved to here viewtopic.php?f=3&t=29524&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15

Not sure why it's locked though, it was a good debate(if you excuse all the BS :lol: ) it was just very off topic
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by Pufferpunk »

OK, unlocked.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by LongGrain »

yes, his day lights are on roughly 2pm-10pm every day give or take an hour. moon lights are on the rest of the time.
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by LongGrain »

tested my water at the lfs today while picking up snails.

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
like 25-30 nitrate (this test might be inaccurate)

soaking 5 small snails in meds and garlic right now. I'm not sure if i should crush these ones. Half of me thinks it might make him feel better to kick the crap out of some snail shells, the other half of me wants to make it as easy for him as possible.
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by LongGrain »

he didn't eat anything today. Waste of 5 snails.

he would rush up to each one, think about going for it, then decide against it and just sit there staring at it until I dropped the next one in.
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by sevenyearnight »

Did you try without medication?
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by J-P »

what size are the snails? By comparison to the puffer's eye larger or smaller?
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by Dadof4 »

Mix it up between medicated and non medicated snails to make sure he eats.
"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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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by LongGrain »

J-P wrote:what size are the snails? By comparison to the puffer's eye larger or smaller?
smaller.

he's back to looking really crappy today
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by Pufferpunk »

Did you crush them? Make it as easy as possible to get that med in him. Freeze the snails for another day.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by LongGrain »

yea i did crush them.

i'm thinking he might not like the garlic.
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by Pufferpunk »

Then just use the med. Got more snails?
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!"
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by LongGrain »

I'm going to get more tomorrow. I'm going to try petco or petsmart, see if they will give me some pest snails. Every time I ask them for snails, they just point me to the mystery snails, but with all the plants and stuff they have, they MUST have tons of little rams horns somewhere. The tank I get them out of at the LFS is picked pretty clean, so I'm going to have to find a new source for the time being until some of the eggs in my snail tank start hatching.
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Re: GSP is still sick, fighting an uphill battle here.

Post by Pufferpunk »

Try to convince they you are doing them a favor bu helping them remove pest snails that will take over their tanks.
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!"
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