The Puffer Forum

I kind of wish we could do an autopsy to determine cause of death. He looked fine, no sign of disease. He was eagerly eating anyting offered. Even took bites of a shrimp from my hand.

He was a really neat fish. Best thing to do is get another GSP and do it right!

Thank all of you for the good advise.

If I where you wait until that tank is established nicely. if you could do an autopsy It would show nitrite and ammonia poisoning. It's invisible in your tank so it won't make them show any signs. Sometimes when they're super active in water conditions that are like that they're actual just trying to swim away from the bad water in hopes of a cleaner spot upstream or whatever. Cycle the tank correctly and take your time it's not a race to get another. Don't you have an SAP coming. Where do you plan to keep him at. I'm pretty sure he won't be good with a gsp if that's what your thinking.

I'm going to question SammyDee's reply...
If it was ammonia or nitrite poisoning the fish would have been stressed and lethargic at some point... got very weak and then would have died. This may or may not be the case with YOUR puffer, Adria but it is usually the case.

Sometimes just the move alone is enough to put them over the edge... one member here had a puffer living happily in a cup, but when transfered to a larger tank it died. I am not saying that is the case in your situation either... but those are possibilities.

From what I have read:
Typical traits of ammonia poisoning: lethargy, color changing, weakness, loss of appetite, death in 8~12 hours depending on the concentration
Typical traits of nitrite poisoning: blindness, bumping into things, loss of appetite, weakness, death in aprox 24 hours

Someone will correct me if I am wrong or way off base

Sorry for your loss though. Don't give up!

i agree with JP, but I wanted to add...

It has been my experience, with GSPs, that with rescues the mortality rate is extremely high..

Even if you rescue a puff, that does not seem that bad off, and put him into an immaculate appropriate size tank and do water changes and brush their hair a teeth every night..

and the death will usually occur in less than 2 weeks...

Often once the damage is done...it is very hard to correct..

I don't think I mentioned that the tank was not completly new. I added gravel from a tank that is well established (my Fahaka tank). I have a couple hundred gallons running most of the time and always seed new tanks with old material. I learned that lesson the hard way when I lost some Rainbows to amonia. Maybe I did'nt add enough? I added a couple platty to the tank yesterday to see how they would do. They look great. Maybe the GSP was already doomed when we got him. It will be a while before the lfs has more puffers for us. Hopefully the tank will be more mature by then. I know for sure I will test every water parameter I can think of berfore adding a new puffer!

Could be just no enough, puffers have a way for making any confined surrounding toxic very fast, one way if not another.

I hope you convinced that pufferkiller not to keep anymore puffers!