Long story short, i had started to set up a tank. Was in the process of setting up a brackish water tank. Cycled the tank, took forever, and had just planted the plants and set up the rocks when to my surprise my wife came home with fish. Cool, a little early but cool none the less. Come to find out that she found them at Wal-Mart (not the best place to buy fish).
She thought they were cute and bought them. 2 green spotted puffers (at Wal-Mart?) but yeah. I finished setting up the tank (55 gal) and introduced them they were the only fish. The only thing that i did wrong was to not let the plants grow in a little before introducing then. The fish showed up beaten and battered. They were missing a little fin and the one had a little open soar on the side. I know big surprise coming from wal-mart. Well i placed them into the tank. Went out and bought a couple feeder fish, some gut-loaded ghost shrimp, snails, and some blood worms. I did as much research on the fish as i could and i found out that they like to change up there diet. Well they seemed to be OK. The next day, i woke up to find that one was great, green white and swimming all around exploring stuff like hes supposed to do, the other had not moved from where he fell asleep. still breathing and still looking around. He (not knowing the sex its an assumption) had turned a darker green and has dark gray splotches all over his body. Not wanting to infect the other one i immediately put him in a quarantine tank. He has been medicated for the fin loss and open soars but I'm not sure what the gray splotches all over are. He wont eat but is getting more active all the time. ANY IDEAS
MODEDIT - I moved this post to the hospital section.
- Phaedrus
I got a sick green spotted puffer
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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Tommyman82
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2006 1:02 am
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Phaedrus
- Former Staff Member
- Posts: 1402
- Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2005 8:34 pm
- Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
- Contact:
First, welcome to the forum!
You should take a look at this article: http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/ ... togsp.html
It is a great introduction to green spotted puffers and will help answer some questions.
A few questions:
How did you cycle the tank?
What are your water parameters?
What kind of filtration do you have?
Is the quarentine tank cycled?
What did you use to treat for the wounds?
Can you post a picture?
That'll be a good start anyway...
You should take a look at this article: http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/ ... togsp.html
It is a great introduction to green spotted puffers and will help answer some questions.
A few questions:
How did you cycle the tank?
What are your water parameters?
What kind of filtration do you have?
Is the quarentine tank cycled?
What did you use to treat for the wounds?
Can you post a picture?
That'll be a good start anyway...
-
Tommyman82
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2006 1:02 am
-
Tommyman82
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2006 1:02 am
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PetPirate
- Gone Today, Here Tomorrow
- Posts: 1230
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 5:41 am
- My Puffers: 3x Tetraodon Nigroviridis in full marine
- Location: Shanghai, China
- Contact:
It's a new tank... big change, big stress for the puffer. He's probably spent the last week sharing a tiny tank with tens of other GSPs, all wantint to take achunk out of him.
Unless you can see any obvious outward signs of disease, I'd leave him in the main tank. Ideally, you would have quarantined them both beforehand...
Unless you can see any obvious outward signs of disease, I'd leave him in the main tank. Ideally, you would have quarantined them both beforehand...
