what happend to my beautiful girl

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can 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.
User avatar
Boxermom
Former Staff Member
Posts: 2182
Joined: Sun Mar 12, 2006 8:34 pm
Location: Wisconsin
Contact:

Post by Boxermom »

That's an awful lot of fish in that small of a tank, IMO.

What were you feeding it?
Tina

Puffers: Auriglobus silus x1, Tetraodon travancoricus x1, Tetraodon turgidus x1, Tetraodon miurus x1, Tetraodon nigroviridis x2, Tetraodon baileyi x2, Tetraodon lineatus x1, Tetraodon palembangensis x1
User avatar
OraLacerta
Former Staff Member
Posts: 573
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:51 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Tetraodon biocellatus.
RIP: C. travancoricus, Chilomycterus schoepfi. Canthigaster jactator.
Location (country): USA
Location: USA

Post by OraLacerta »

Nick wrote:I believe she said she followed a minimum two week quarantine on new additions and that the fish ate well right up until dying...
Ah I missed that at the end of her post. Two weeks minimum does not allow enough time IMO. I would do at least 4 weeks. And, if all fish were QT'd a minimum of two weeks why were the chromis added when they had obvious signs of illness? I agree with Corvus that the slime coat sounds like velvet, which kills puffers incredibly fast. I had a Hawaiian Spotted puffer quarantined for over a month that died within two days of showing symptoms of rapid breathing and excessive slime coat.
-Michelle

Prevent unnecessary deaths due to disease- quarantine ALL new additions at least 4 weeks in a separate tank before adding to your main display tank!

Puffers: Hindenburg the Figure Eight, 75gallon Brackish
User avatar
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:

Post by Pufferpunk »

Velvet can sometimes kill a puffer within 24 hours, since they are scaleless.
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!"
User avatar
OraLacerta
Former Staff Member
Posts: 573
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:51 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Tetraodon biocellatus.
RIP: C. travancoricus, Chilomycterus schoepfi. Canthigaster jactator.
Location (country): USA
Location: USA

Post by OraLacerta »

That's scary! Even more reason to properly QT all new additions.
-Michelle

Prevent unnecessary deaths due to disease- quarantine ALL new additions at least 4 weeks in a separate tank before adding to your main display tank!

Puffers: Hindenburg the Figure Eight, 75gallon Brackish
crazedpuffer
Former Staff Member
Posts: 1755
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:57 pm
My Puffers: 1x Porcupine Puffer
1xValentini
Location: Long Island, NY

Post by crazedpuffer »

What about Clownfish disease or Vibrio? My puffer had a lot of the same symptoms when it died and it died from either one of those 2 diseases.

Sorry about your loss.
User avatar
Corvus
Mentor
Posts: 1405
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:35 am
Gender: Male
Location: Planet earth; mostly Germany recently

Post by Corvus »

Vibrio is one of the possible bacteria, which can lead to red patches. However, mostly severly weakened or wounded fish are prone to it. Possible is a velvet infection destroying the slime coat of the fish and a secondary infection with Vibrio (or other bacteria) leading to the color change.

Clown fish disease has symptoms similar to velvet but is usually associated with extremly white patches of agglutinating mucous. AFAIK, in contrast to velvet, it is not common among puffers.
Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a fish a man, and he'll eat for weeks.
Post Reply