The Puffer Forum

If he's not eating, then you may have to treat the whole tank. Have you kept him in that little cubicle the entire time?

yes. he's been in there the whole time. i have been treating the entire tank with the melafix (the cubicle has slits in teh sides to allow water flow). he sorta of just looks at the snails, looks like he's about to attack them, adn then swims to the other side of the cubicle. do you thin he's just bored? if so you thin he'll play nice with my other fish? he and spaz seem to have little conversations with each other through the plastic (spaz swims up and down along ti and he watches her but neither show any aggression toward each other, they just sort of watch each other)

ok just checked the water cuz i did a water changes yesterday and i always check a day later, and the parims are as follows,

ammonia= 0
Nitrites= 0
Nitrates= 10 ppm
pH= 7.0

so i know water isn't the culprit (other than he's not in brackish water yet. still working on getting that 10 gallon for him). he is friendly though, comes right up to say to me when i come over.

so i just found some of those jungle parasite clear tablets lying around (forgot i had gotten them a while back for my betta spaz) and was thinking of adding them. fisrt off are they safe for loaches, and second are they safe to use in combination with melafix? any insight would be great.

Hi, I don't want it to sound rude, but you do really have to set up a tank for that F8 (15g is ok but 20g would be better). Its health will not improve if he stays inside that cublicle the entire time. I'm sorry to speak this way, I see your puffer is not 100% healthy. Try not to mess with the others fishes using medicine that they don't need. Even if you have a 20g bucket.. raising the F8 inside this bucket with brackish water (1.004) and some melafix would be very nice.

By_a_coo wrote:Hi, I don't want it to sound rude, but you do really have to set up a tank for that F8 (15g is ok but 20g would be better). Its health will not improve if he stays inside that cublicle the entire time. I'm sorry to speak this way, I see your puffer is not 100% healthy. Try not to mess with the others fishes using medicine that they don't need. Even if you have a 20g bucket.. raising the F8 inside this bucket with brackish water (1.004) and some melafix would be very nice.

i fully realize this. if you had read from the start you would have seen that he was given to me unknowingly, and that i'm working on getting him his own tank. i have no spares but found one fairly cheap and am working on getting the money for it.

Is there a way you could segregate off half the 20 gal that he's in currently? That may help him start eating better for you and then you can assess his behavior a little better to determine if these symptoms are stress related. If you can get him to eat it would make it much easier to treat the IP's. Just a thought...

my friend has a tank divider that he said i could have. im getting it tomorrow and letting him out of the breeder tank.

ok did a little searching in my basement and found an old egg crate. put it in the tank and let him out of the cubicle. he's currently sleeping under a piece of driftwood (my clown loaches are quite mad i moved them out of their home) and after a good amount of research decided to use the parasite clear tabs in a half dosage (just to be safe becuase of the clowns) and all appears well so far. he's having no problem staying still to sleep (not being blown around by the current) and his colors are bright. of course now the only thing that worries me is that spaz kept nipping at the tablet. i'm not sure if she was eating it or just attacking it becuase it was fizzing, but i'm keeping a very close eye on all the fish. all seems well so far at about 30 mins after the tablet, but will stay up most of the night watching (going to be sleeping most of tomorrow anyway seeing as my girlfriend is getting her wisdom teeth out and that's all she's going to want to do as well). keeping my fingers crossed it works as well as all the reviews i've read and that it is as safe with loaches as my research showed.

Excellent! Did any of the stress signs go away, like the clamped fins?

yeah, he's not clamping his fins anymore, but for most of the night (and when i woke up this morning) he was just hovering over by the heater. i think i scared him when i turned on the lights. he looked like he was gulping the water and puffed up and deflated really fast about 3 times. i'm going to try and get him to eat some shrimp right now. i'll post how it goes.

ok he didn't seem interested in the shrimp, but he's swimming around just fine now (how ever is tail fin is still black). i put a few snails in for him to hunt, but it looks like he swam right up next to the heater again as soon as i put my hand in the tank to put the snails in. also my little loaches decided they wanted their home back, and dug under the egg crate. the good news is eight ball is playing nice (in fact i think he's scared of the loaches) and hasn't attacked them and shown any aggression what so ever.

I'm glad to hear your puffer is doing better... Are the loaches so agressive? Did you bury the egg crate to reach the bottom of the tank? Smart loaches you have there! =)

Hope to read the happy end of this story.

they aren't' aggressive loaches at all. they're just young clown loaches. they sorta investigated the puffer but didn't try ti bite him or anything, just swam up and looked at him and it seemed like he got scared that they were looking at him. he's looking ok now. didn't seem too keen on any of the food i tried (raw shrimp, lie snails, and forzen blood worms) and cleaned up everything becuase he didn't eat any of it (other than the snails, i think the loaches might have gotten them because i don't see them anymore). doing another dose of the parasite clear tonight after a water change and going to keep monitoring him, he seems a little more adventurous today though.

Give him a little time to get used to the new digs. Good to hear he lost some of the stress signs are going away, hopefully he'll start eating as he becomes more comfortable. Watch the loaches, not for their aggressiveness but make sure the F8 doesn't go on a midnight snack run across the border...

keeping an eye on them. he's playing nice so far (even took a nap next to them). i'm more worried about the meds affecting the loaches than the puffer right now. but so far all is well. just keeping my fingers crossed and keeping up with the water quality. sadly money is coming in slow. can't seem to get a job, and sadly gas is back on the rise.