Help! Normal F8 advice not working for sick fish

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
t1gerbee
Fahaka Puffer
Posts: 831
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:10 am
My Puffers: 1 x Ceylon + 1 x GSP + 1 x stars and stripes (juv) -Marine
(Non puffs-)
4 x clowns
1 x Oscar-Tropical
3 x Convicts-Tropical
1 x Map Turtle-tropical
2 x Plecs-Tropical
2 x goldfish
Location: london

Re: Help! Normal F8 advice not working for sick fish

Post by t1gerbee »

yes, that's possible...

i've bought live sand before and i know it was live... you could see teeny tiny critters running about...

hope it wasn't live sand either way!
1 x 90G Juv stars and stripes puffer, Ceylon Puffer + GSP + 2 black clowns
1 x 30G LPS Reef
1 x 30G 1 x Blind goldfish :-)
Image
User avatar
Puffer?Ihardlyknower
Puffer Fry
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:30 pm

Re: Help! Normal F8 advice not working for sick fish

Post by Puffer?Ihardlyknower »

I believe it was the Live Aragonite Sand "crazedpuffer" spoke of which was meant to buffer the ph. Actually, I'm not sure, there was an expiration date on it, so it may have been live, either way those scoundrels at the LFS (diff. one from the first one i mentioned) sold it to me in December with a September expiration. I should've noticed myself in retrospect.
User avatar
By_a_coo
Green Spotted Puffer
Posts: 474
Joined: Sun Sep 03, 2006 7:14 pm
Gender: Male
My Puffers: 1 X GSP
Location (country): Brazil
Location: São Paulo, Brazil

Re: Help! Normal F8 advice not working for sick fish

Post by By_a_coo »

Hey Puffer... Try the fishless cycle, it tooks me ~40 days to cycle my tank. My puffer had the same one cloudy eye, but my water param. was really fine, so I didn't understand what was the matter with him. At the end of the story, I noticed that my puffer was scratching his eye against the glass. So I decided to treat him with Melafix and Epsom Salt (1 TEAspoon/gallon). After a week, his eye was brand new!! I had great success using both stuff... this is my advice in case you need.
Fernando
User avatar
t1gerbee
Fahaka Puffer
Posts: 831
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:10 am
My Puffers: 1 x Ceylon + 1 x GSP + 1 x stars and stripes (juv) -Marine
(Non puffs-)
4 x clowns
1 x Oscar-Tropical
3 x Convicts-Tropical
1 x Map Turtle-tropical
2 x Plecs-Tropical
2 x goldfish
Location: london

Re: Help! Normal F8 advice not working for sick fish

Post by t1gerbee »

so he used live sand... but it had gone past it's expiry date?... so all the live stuff in it would have died and begun rotting whilst still inside the bag... or am i misunderstanding...?

If so, that's why he got such a massive ammonia spike... he put loads of dead rotting bacteria into an uncycled tank...

or it was still live, and it died immediately by being put in a freshwater environmnent....


Either way, that looks like the reason...

Now, cycle tank, wait for ammonia/nitrite/nitrates to reach 0 and try again.... let us know how you go. xx
1 x 90G Juv stars and stripes puffer, Ceylon Puffer + GSP + 2 black clowns
1 x 30G LPS Reef
1 x 30G 1 x Blind goldfish :-)
Image
crazedpuffer
Former Staff Member
Posts: 1755
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:57 pm
My Puffers: 1x Porcupine Puffer
1xValentini
Location: Long Island, NY

Re: Help! Normal F8 advice not working for sick fish

Post by crazedpuffer »

It could be a combination, either way one of those two had happened. even if the sand was still live it would have died anyways. Hopefully things turn out better next time!
Post Reply