About four weeks ago I bought a 6 in spotted puffer from a locally owned pet shop. The first night I had the puffer it's belly went back to white almost within four hours of dropping it in the tank. The next day back to a black belly. Then it started getting real sick, cauliflower on all of his fins. Attitude and eating diminished. I took it back to the pet shop and the owner kept the puffer for five days nursing it back with a variety of meds. On the fifth day I picked it back up.
So back in my tank, mind you I have testing water this entire time and everything checks out great. The puffer seems happier but still hasn't returned to a white belly. It still spends most of it's time resting on the bottom of the tank. In no particular spot. It is eating shrimp and krill, once daily, and this is pretty much it's only activity. From my research this seems to be pretty normal for fresh water puffers (except of course for the color), however I have another of same type of puffer in a smaller tank that is doing great and constantly moving about.
New problem, and the main reason for this post. He has developed a lump on his belly bellow his pectoral fin, white in color about the size and shape of your average black eyed pea. Now I do not believe it to be a fungus because the color of the lump is only the pigment of the puffers skin. It isn't furry or hairy and there is no redness.
It started out as a small bump I noticed after a feeding, only the next it didn't go away and then only got worse. The puffer has been in this condition for about four days now.
I have since moved him from the display tank to a quarantine tank. Salted water and increased the heat in the tank. His condition is only getting worse. If anybody has any ideas please let me know, I feel his days are number.
Thanks, Ryan
Very Sick Puffer With Lump Please Help!!
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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Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32979
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Puffers I have kept:
T lineatus
T miurus
A modestus
T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
C lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Greenville, SC
- Contact:
Please start out by reading the top post in this forum & answering as many of the questions as possible. Many times puffers develop cysts that eventually dissolve. There is also an excellent article on GSPs in our Library.
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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Nick
- Former Staff Member
- Posts: 3231
- Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:47 pm
- My Puffers: Mine:
GSPs - Shakespeare and Jillybean
F8 - Velvet
My fiance:
DP - Emma Goldman
Narrow Lined Puffer - Ulrike - Location (country): Northeastern USA
- Location: Middletown, CT
- Contact:
If you are keeping a fully grown GSP in fresh water, that could be part of the problem. At that size they should be at or above 1.015. If he's not already in a heavily brackish environment made with marine salt mix(not aquarium salt) moving him in that direction is probably a good idea. Not all at once, .002 per week maximum. This is just a to start you in the right direction, read as much as you can about GSP's and do answer the questions as Pufferpunk suggested, that will help everybody help you.