Hello all. First time posting and its question.
I have around 4 Green Spotted Puffers in a 75 gallon tank. I have had them for a year now and they were all fairly healthy. I have been meticulous about keeping up the quality of the tank and making sure I do 50% weekly water changes and keeping the salt/fresh water balanced.
Well, my oldest puffer who is the biggest hasn't been doing well lately. He is fairly big yet a quiet and docile puffer. I did a 50% water change and made sure I was sticking to my usually process. I noticed on Monday he started to become lethargic. He has a fairly black belly and his top portion is faded. He seems to be having trouble breathing. Save for sporadic instances when the bellies would change, I have never had my puffers change to black before. I read it could be stress but I have various places to hide, rocks, and fake coral (I can't afford live rock or coral).
He will occasionally hole himself up in one of the caves or hang out at the top of the tank, usually by the filter or the corner. I read the black belly is a sign of either stress or parasites. Aside from stress, is there anything on the market that can cure the parasites? Or is there anything else?
The other puffers are doing and eating fine; largely ignoring the big guy. My wife suggested a water change but I am not sure if that will fix the problem. No I am worried i didn't put enough/put too much sea salt in there.
Any thoughts? I am sorry if this was brought up before.
Black Belly on my GSP
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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Re: Black Belly on my GSP
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Look up & answer every single question, please!
Look up & answer every single question, please!
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!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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bertie 83
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Re: Black Belly on my GSP
Yes please answer all the questions above in red so we can better help you. Welcome to the forum
It's amazing how easy maintenance is. If done regularly and thoroughly
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Myaj
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Re: Black Belly on my GSP
Water changes almost never hurt, as long as you don't change the salinity by too much and crash the biological filter. Doing the tests above (especially ammonia) will tell you if that happened, which is why people tell you to do it 
Is his belly sunken in, or still nicely rounded, just black. Can you sneak peaks at the tank at night and see if the others are harassing him when lights are off maybe?
Parasites can certainly be treated, but usually the fish will have a sunken belly. And its always risky, if they have a big load of parasites the die off when you treat can actually poison the fish, but that's pretty rare and if the fish had that many parasites in it, it was probably going to die a long, slow horrible death anyways. I would doubt that, after a year, you'd be first seeing signs of parasites unless you've recently added tankmates or feed live feeders though.
Is his belly sunken in, or still nicely rounded, just black. Can you sneak peaks at the tank at night and see if the others are harassing him when lights are off maybe?
Parasites can certainly be treated, but usually the fish will have a sunken belly. And its always risky, if they have a big load of parasites the die off when you treat can actually poison the fish, but that's pretty rare and if the fish had that many parasites in it, it was probably going to die a long, slow horrible death anyways. I would doubt that, after a year, you'd be first seeing signs of parasites unless you've recently added tankmates or feed live feeders though.
