GSP bends in half periodically and appears skinny
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.
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.
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jus85411
- Mbu Puffer
- Posts: 1116
- Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2010 5:28 pm
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: none currently :(
- Location (country): USA
- Location: Philadelphia Area
Re: GSP bends in half periodically and appears skinny
burgundy/red poop?!? crazy... my GSP has been eating bloodworms(only as part of his diet though) for about a year and a half and he has guinea pig poop(size,shape and color(brown)lol)
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c333davis
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 187
- Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 11:10 pm
- Gender: Female
- Location (country): Jacksonville, FL, USA
Re: GSP bends in half periodically and appears skinny
Just wanted to throw out there that the times I've seen my GSP "bent" sideways, it was just prior to a poop. It's possible that your puffer may be constipated. There are some good posts about puffer constipation; just search the Forum with terms like "constipation" and "epsom salt" (the latter being a common treatment for fish that need some help in that area.)
~ Candice
With the following creatures in various tanks:
1 GSP with live rock and red mushrooms (viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25686)
1 Red-ear Slider Turtle—32-yrs-old!
1 African Cichlid - not sure of species
2 Green Terror Cichlids
2 Jack Dempsey Cichlids
~30 Jewel Cichlids
With the following creatures in various tanks:
1 GSP with live rock and red mushrooms (viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25686)
1 Red-ear Slider Turtle—32-yrs-old!
1 African Cichlid - not sure of species
2 Green Terror Cichlids
2 Jack Dempsey Cichlids
~30 Jewel Cichlids
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misterlsn
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2010 1:39 pm
- My Puffers: Two Wal-Mart GSPs
GSP named Puff Daddy (R.I.P. - Lost fight to IP)
GSP named Biggy Smalls, was able to nurse back to "plumpness" and win the IP fight. - Location (country): Chicago
- Contact:
Re: GSP bends in half periodically and appears skinny
This was a real helpful thread -
Unfortunately it didn't save one of my two Wal-Mart GSP with internal parasites and the sunken-belly : big head look. The other Wal-Mart GSP did recover and is nice and plump and doing fine so I thank everyone who contributed to this thread.
Unfortunately it didn't save one of my two Wal-Mart GSP with internal parasites and the sunken-belly : big head look. The other Wal-Mart GSP did recover and is nice and plump and doing fine so I thank everyone who contributed to this thread.
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borgey
- Figure 8 Puffer
- Posts: 216
- Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2010 4:08 pm
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: 1 Tetraodon biocellatus, 3 Colomesus asellus, 4 Carinotetraodon travancoricus
- Location (country): U.S.A
- Location: Providence, RI/Boston, Ma
Re: GSP bends in half periodically and appears skinny
My puffers always bend when they are checking something out or unsure of something. The way the GSP is bent in the picture is not abnormal at all. But cycling with a Puffer is not a good thing at all. Daily WCs are needed and def. an IP treatment is a must. It looks to me he has IPs without a doubt. I would look for the stringy poop to confirm.
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purplecandle
- Mbu Puffer
- Posts: 2019
- Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 2:18 pm
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Currently
2 Adult Green Spotted Puffers
1 Fangs Puffer
1 Baby Green Spotted Puffer - Location (country): USA (NC)
Re: GSP bends in half periodically and appears skinny
This is an old thread so it does not much matter now, but in case a newbie reads this..borgey wrote:My puffers always bend when they are checking something out or unsure of something. The way the GSP is bent in the picture is not abnormal at all. But cycling with a Puffer is not a good thing at all. Daily WCs are needed and def. an IP treatment is a must. It looks to me he has IPs without a doubt. I would look for the stringy poop to confirm.
The bend or crooked look in this case was abnormal and was due to emaciation, either through starvation or starvation as a complication of IPs