Sick GSP

[Strangelittlekitten]

Hey guys,
I am new to this forum as well as GSPs. I recently bought a juvenile GSP (1.5") at my LFS. My tank has been set up for roughly six months. It is a 45 gallon bow front with an air curtain, stealth heater, and a canister filter. The water quality is: ammonia-0, nitrite-0, nitrate-180 (OMG!), pH 7.0, temp- 80F, unknown salinity, GH- 300, KH 80. I have yet to buy a hydrometer.
Puff puff was fine for the first month very socialable, although he did receive an ick treatment a week after I bought him. I fed him flakes everyday which he seemed to hate and took out my snails. Four days ago I finally bought him some frozen krill, which he ate happily. The next morning I noticed that he was aimlessly floating about the tank with barely enough strength to pull away from the filters downspout. He looks exactly the same, only expressionless.
I have done a 50% water change with a gravel cleaner (which increased the nitrates by +40!), put him in a breeding net to keep him away from the downspout, burped him (just in case), and treated him for internal parasites with "Parasite Clear", active ingredients are: praziquantel, diflubenzuron, metronidazole, acriflavine. The tablets are premeasured so I have no clue as to how much I'm putting in the tank.
I have been treating him for three day with no improvement. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Meow

[kass]

Welcome to the site.
Are you putting the tablets directly in the tank?
You should dissolve the tablet (or 1/4 of the tablet) in a cup with water then soak the food in that water for a couple of hours and then feed it to him.
You should also start to add some salt (marine salt) to the tank.
Check out this article from the library:
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library.php?p=27

[Hilly]

Welcome

Nitrates going up after a water change, sounds like your test kit could be misleading you. Is it fairly new or is it old and what type of test kit is it?

[Strangelittlekitten]

My test kit is brand new. It's a Quick Dip: Five Tests in One. I know the pH is off by about so I've been using a pH indicator solution by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals as well as an ammonia indicator solution by the same company for testing.
Puff puff is not eating. I keep trying to give him Omega One freeze-dried blood worms, which is his favourite food, but he refuses. All he does is swim, sometimes float, aimlessly around the aquarium. If I try to catch him with a net he swims away.
I am putting the tablets directly in the water. The directions on the back of the box only advise dissolving in a separate container and then adding to the water if the water quality is of low alkalinity. But I'm most certainly open to any suggestions.
Also, since I have put him in the breeding box Puff stands on his nose. Sometimes he will fall over and lay on the bottom of the net for a second or two, but then resumes the "bottoms up" position. His fins are constantly fluttering but a headstand, some somersaults, and a few 360 degree turns is all he can manage.
Tomorrow I will buy a hydrometer and start adding marine salt. The hydrometer I have for my salt water aquarium doesn't read low enough for brackish water.

Thanks,
Meow

[kass]

You should definately dissolve the parasite clear tablets and then soak the food in it. the medication should be taken orally to be most effective. This is how I used that product and it worked very well.

[Pufferpunk]

Get the Aquarium Pharmecuticals test kit & test again or bring a sample ot your LFS.

[Strangelittlekitten]

Thanks for the advice. I will try to get Puff to eat and get his water tested. Hopefully he will recover. I'll update on his progress in a couple days.

[Strangelittlekitten]

Hey guys. I've got some good news to lead to the bad news on Puff Puff. About 24 hrs. after I got him to munch on a treated piece of bloodworm he seemed completely healed. He was eatting again and was his usual bright green. A few days after his recovery I bought him some baby snails from Petsmart. A couple of them didn't have time to get wet before they were munched on. The other four he had eatten by the next afternoon.
Jan. 1st I walked in to see Puff once again floating aimlessly around the tank, within the hour he died. I am clueless as to what might have caused it.
The water quality was tested the Saturday before he died: 7.2 pH, 0-ammonia, 0-nitrite, 40-nitrate, 79'F-temp, 300(very hard)-GH, 80(moderate)-KH, 1.006ppt-salinity.
I feed him freeze-dried bloodworms everyday. I do a 30%-50% water change every Saturday with a gravel cleaner.
The most recent changes to the tank are: Water change, intro of two small Tropica Ferns (3"), feeding of six baby snails, rise in salinity by .002.
I use the following products in my water: Prime, Cycle, Top Fin Water Clarifier, & Top Fin Ammonia Remover.

[Nick]

Prime is generally known to detoxify ammonia without affecting the biofilter, but I don't know if the same is true with the top fin ammonia remover. If it takes the ammonia out without leaving it available to the biofilter, you might get puffer stressing minicycles. Do you do your tests on saterdays before your water changes? Minicycles can resolve in less than a week, so if you were only testing then, you could have had ammonia at dangerous levels for a couple days during the week each week. I'm also not sure which chemicals are in top fin water clarifier, but I do know that most who keep puffers frown on chemical treatments for cloudy water, as they can stress fish and do not address the underlying cause of the cloudyness, which might also be some agent in the water which is stressful for the fish. Freeze dried food is suboptimal for puffers, do you soak it throughly in water before feeding it to yoru puffer? They can be damaged by dry food in their stomaches, if he was eating a good ammount of dry freeze dried worms every day, that might have done cumulative damage.

[Strangelittlekitten]

I have only used the water clarifier in my tank once so far, that was well over a month ago, and it worked wonders. I test my water before I do a water change so that I may determine how much water I believe needs changing. Yes, I did soak the bloodworms in water before giving them to Puff. Other than bloodworms the only thing other thing he as ever eatten in my care is krill, snails, and an unlucky goldfish. I did notice that he got sick the first time after eatting the krill and then died shortly after eatting the snails.