New puffer not active, or eating and turning black bellied..

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.
peawee
Puffer Fry
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Apr 21, 2013 6:03 am
Gender: Female
Location (country): California, US

Re: New puffer not active, or eating and turning black belli

Post by peawee »

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I returned the bala shark, (didn't want to make a huge school since they get so big as it is) and I returned the gsp. I don't want to mess him up not doing the brackish correctly. I kept the dp's and I'm cycling the 10gal for them now, waiting for that before transferring them over. In the 20 I'm keeping a freshwater community tank with the convicts and some barbs and danios. Everybody seems to be loving it so far, no excessive nipping but a lot of barbs chasing each other. They leave everyone else alone, the dp's chase them if they get too close but for the most part everyone is coexisting. Everything is super small, all under an inch, the convicts are maybe 1/2 inch and dp's being 1/2 inch, but they are moving once the 10 is ready. Once I have room for a 55gal I plan on getting brackish puffers again, I really loved him but I did the best thing for him (provided the store doesn't kill him, or sell him to another person that is badly misinformed again).
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Pufferpunk
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Re: New puffer not active, or eating and turning black belli

Post by Pufferpunk »

Excellent! :)
Are you able to sex your DPs?
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!"
peawee
Puffer Fry
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Apr 21, 2013 6:03 am
Gender: Female
Location (country): California, US

Re: New puffer not active, or eating and turning black belli

Post by peawee »

Im pretty sure its one male and two females. Only one has the little wrinkles behind his eyes, and hes smaller and lighter than the other two. but they still could be too young to tell..
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