Gagging/choking?

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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Bulletfishy
Puffer Fry
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Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2018 12:56 pm
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Gagging/choking?

Post by Bulletfishy »

Hey everyone,

I'm the proud owner of a Tetraodon Leiurus. Had him for 3 or so months now.

Recently he has been doing some strange choking. You can actually hear it pretty good. He will contract his throat and just make like a choking sound or like something stuck and just swims along like nothings wrong.

He's eating well, his poop is black ish and he is as curious as ever...but im not sure if its anything to worry about..

Anyone have any ideas?
Bulletfishy
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Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2018 12:56 pm
Location (country): Netherlands

Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by Bulletfishy »

Anyone? :(
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by Pufferpunk »

I'm not familiar with this but it would helpful for you to answer ALL the questions above, in red.
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!"
Bulletfishy
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Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2018 12:56 pm
Location (country): Netherlands

Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by Bulletfishy »

Hey,

Sure!

1.
Aquarium:
Gh: 10
Kh: 4
Ph: about 6.8
NH3: 0,0 mg/l
NO3: +- 5 mg/l
NO2: 0,0 mg/l
PO4: 0,0 mg/l

Tapwater kitchen:
Gh: 8
Kh: 8
Ph: 8
NH3: 0 mg/l
NO3: +- 5mg/l
NO2: 0 mg/l
PO4: 0 mg/l

Tapwater bathroom:
Gh: 8
Kh: 7
Ph: 8
NH3: 0,0 mg/l
NO3: +- 5 mg/
NO2: 0,0 mg/l
PO4: 0,0 mg/l

2. Its a Juwel Rio 180 with after sand etc is about 150L?

3. I feed my puffer every other day with either shrimp, worms, cockles, mussles and once in a blue moon a live fish gutfed from one of my other tanks.
Water change I do about 50% weekly based on the instruction of Dennerle scaperscreen.

Things ive added and or use are Dennerle Scapersscreen fert, Sera Kh/Ph minus, pressurised co2 about 60bpm, Dupla No3/Po3 drops since aparently the fert doesnt have those and lastly I added liquid carbon sometimes back when I had blackbeard algae. Which has almost died off now.

4. I Recently added 2 sorts of plants to the tank since the old ones died off for some reason. I added Valisneria Gigantea and Cryptocoryne wendtii green. I also did a treatment of kh/ph minus as my gh and kh both were 9. And today I added Purigen to my external filter.

5. The aquarium has been running since May 2018. I ran a fishless cycle with just plants and substrate etc for 3 weeks. I went through the no2 spike and started with a few fish one week and a few more the week after. Untill I ended up changing the tank and took out the internal Juwel filter and LEDs and attached a Eheim experience 350 filter and Aquatlantis Easy LEDs with Luminus controllers.
User avatar
Pufferpunk
Queen Admin
Posts: 32764
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles
Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by Pufferpunk »

Stop adding chemicals to change your pH. Fish don't read pH & the swings up & down are way more harmful to your fish than having an "unnatural" level. I'm wondering if all those fertilizers are causing issues?
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!"
Bulletfishy
Puffer Fry
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2018 12:56 pm
Location (country): Netherlands

Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by Bulletfishy »

Yea very possible. Im receiving my all in one fert today. Replacing all the other stuff.

But reducing the Ph is very important for my tank as the tapwater is 8 which is way too high for the puffer. If not adding chemicals how would I reduce that? I know co2 lowers it a little bit but not enough.
User avatar
Pufferpunk
Queen Admin
Posts: 32764
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles
Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by Pufferpunk »

Puffers don't read pH & really aren't bothered by it. Better to just keep it stable. If you really do want to lower it & keep stable, you can add peat to your filter.
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: Gagging/choking?

Post by pufferjw »

Bulletfishy wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 10:31 am Yea very possible. Im receiving my all in one fert today. Replacing all the other stuff.

But reducing the Ph is very important for my tank as the tapwater is 8 which is way too high for the puffer. If not adding chemicals how would I reduce that? I know co2 lowers it a little bit but not enough.
A pH of 8 is fine for a Leiurus, but the swings are dangerous. However, if you want to lower the pH permanently, you would need to first reduce your kH by adding a little bit of distilled water with each water change. As your kH falls, your pH will too. Do this EXTREMELY GRADUALLY though, and frankly I think that you would be better off leaving it alone.
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Bulletfishy
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Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2018 12:56 pm
Location (country): Netherlands

Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by Bulletfishy »

O really? So 25% ish water change weekly, adding the new all in one fert and co2 and just leave it at that is gonna be ok? Just to confirm
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pufferjw
Green Spotted Puffer
Posts: 379
Joined: Sat Sep 05, 2015 9:16 pm
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My Puffers: Duboisi Puffer
Red Congo Puffer
Striped Redeye Puffer
Dwarf Puffer

Have Owned:
Amazon Puffers
Location (country): USA
Location: Boston/Chicago

Re: Gagging/choking?

Post by pufferjw »

Bulletfishy wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:06 pm O really? So 25% ish water change weekly, adding the new all in one fert and co2 and just leave it at that is gonna be ok? Just to confirm
That sounds good. I'm not sure if you knew, but CO2 will actually lower the kH and thus pH slightly. Once again, just make sure that the CO2 levels stay as consistent as possible all the time, and good luck!
220 Gallon - 1 Super White Leopoldi Stingray
55 Gallon Planted - No Fish
29 Gallon Planted - 1 Duboisi Puffer
29 Gallon - 1 Red Congo Puffer
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