Sick F8 Puffer

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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mtex95
Puffer Fry
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:33 pm
Location (country): United States, Texas

Sick F8 Puffer

Post by mtex95 »

Hey everyone, I am pretty new to raising puffers but I know when something isn't right. So I have a barely inch long F8 Puffer thats been in a 10gal tank for the current. I got him about a week ago and when he was introduced to the tank he was happy and healthy, ate like a pig too when i provided snails for him. Yesterday when i got home from work i had went by my local shop to pick up some ghost shrimp, which oddly he had no interest in eating. Today I checked on him this morning and noon, he was slowly swimming around looking like he was trying to poop, then at noon he's just laying on the bottom of the tank barely moving at all. He still has bright color and looks like he may have ate.

Notes about the tank, it is freshwater but will be converting to brackish soon and likely upgrading the tank size. There is plenty of objects in the tank including some cave like areas and tall/short fake grass. There is a small chunk of lava for him to nibble on which i've seen him do a few times, and a fake mangrove tree that i noticed some bites were taken out of on several small leaves. I've done a ton of reading and there's so many things I keep thinking like constipation or worms possibly? He ate like a pig prior including one of the small feeder fish that was in the tank I used to start its cycle. Did a water change last night at 25% then treated it. Would love some help because honestly i'm not sure whats remotely wrong and if he'll even make it but perhaps this will help me in the future.
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Pufferpunk
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Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
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2 T biocellatus
C valentini
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Also kept:
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Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
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Re: Sick F8 Puffer

Post by Pufferpunk »

Please post parameters, so I can better diagnose.
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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