The Puffer Forum

about a few weeks ago i bought 2 one inch figure 8 puffers from a store. one f8 died after the first week, and now this one died too. i would like to ask what the possible reasons for death is. i am going to describe my situation...

on the first week, the puffers were curious and always watched us to see if we would feed them. they ate about 10 bloodworms and their bellies would be moderately full. i tried mysis shrimp too from time to time, but they did not really eat them because i guess it was hard to see. nearing the end of the first week, the puffer started showing signs of stress (black mouth) and he looked thin too. i treated them for IP with 1/8 of the jungle tab soaked in their food. on the second day of treatment, the puffer suddenly stopped eating and died the third day. i continued to treat the healthy one for IP for one week.

on the second week, the healthy one started hiding in one cave a lot. however, he would come to me when its feeding time and his appetite was good. he ate about 10 bloodworms and his belly was moderately round.

on the third week, his appetite started to decrease. he would not be excited during feeding time, but sometimes he would search for the food on the gravel. he would eat about 5 bloodworms a day. there was an incident where he got too close to the intake tube and got stuck (don't know if it is related to sickness, but at the time it looks to be boredom). i thought he was either bored or afraid because the tank was not well planted.

during the weekend, his appetite got suddenly better when i fed him the snails quarantined the snails for 2 weeks. but then, he got disinterested on the third day of feeding snails. i have a confession to make, and that is that i put 5 ghost shrimp in the tank on the weekend instead of quarantining them first. my mom insisted that the puffer was depressed and she told me to just put the shrimp in, since they looked active and healthy. he did start acting all curious again for a while, but he did not eat any of them. he stopped being curious of them this week. this week, he would eat about 3 bloodworms a day if you kept dropping it in the tank at various times. it seemed he started sleeping more often too (but i'm not sure about that). he died "mysteriously" today.

so does anyone have any ideas? i believe my tank is cycled because i have watched the ammonia and nitrite peaks and drops, but the water parameters have actually been 0, 0, 0 for a while. could something have happened to the cycle?? when he was not eating, he did not lie around a lot either nor would he swim frantically (which i thought were the symptoms of ammonia/nitrite poisoning). If it was ammonia/nitrite posioning, would it show up gradually or quickly? i'm worried that this is a cycling problem, but i tested for the 3 substances every weekend and there were always 0 ammonia and nitrites. there was one point where nitrates were reading 8ppm (unless i interpreted the color wrong). other info: the salinity is at about 1.003 and i raised it over 2 weeks, and it is a 28 gallon. the shrimp are still hanging out in the tank.

could there be some sort of bad bacteria in my tank?

my mom insisted he died of depression...what do you think? i'm going to redecorate it if that can really happen.

the store i bought them from had pretty dirty tanks...i recently took a visit, and the puffers were sold out, but the tank had the same gunk at the bottom as before. so it wasn't cleaned for at least 3 weeks... also, many of the puffers had black mouths. maybe they were put in poor conditions to start with? the store employee also said they get fed meat pellets and guppies.

i'm really concerned right now whether there is a problem with my tank because i made an agreement with a person to buy his f8's this weekend. it would be a shame if i killed the puffers that i know are supposed to be healthy. i believe he had them for at least a year. your advice is greatly appreciated...i need to know if my tank is okay.

As long as your getting the right readings in your tank everything should be fine, how long has this tank been running for? Sounds to me like the problem could've been the lfs

the tank has been running for about 2 months now. fishless cycling with fish food took me a month (so i will use plain ammonia the next time i have to set up a new tank!), and i have had the fish for about 3 weeks.

Could have been they were just unhealthy to begin with. What size tank was it?

One thing to keep in mind with almost all puffer species.. they are wild caught.

This means they are caught out of their natural habitat, hauled off to some packaging/sorting place, shipped a few times before they even make it to your store, then get tossed into a tank full of the parasites and diseases being brought in by all kinds of fish from all over the world.

Add to that the fact that wild caught fish generally have internal parasites that don't bother them while they are in a stress free environment happily and healthily swimming along, but once subjected to all the stresses and potential bad water conditions during capture/shipping/sales their immune systems crash down and they are very susceptable to parasites, diseases and just stress in general. It doesn't take much stunting/bad water quality to hurt a sensitive fish like a puffer, and it hurts them permanently.

Also, if they had a high parasite load, feeding them the IP medication could have caused a big die off which poisoned their bodies.. that's why usually a half dose is recommended if you suspect a bad IP problem.

So it could have been a combo of things.. and of course, maybe you should double check your test kits and make sure they are reading correctly.


So your best bet is to find a GOOD store that takes care of their fish and tanks well, and hope for the best. Many people suggest waiting a few days to see which fish out of a "new batch" survive at the store, my viewpoint is pick out the healthiest looking ones ASAP and get them out of the store. They all use multi tank systems and that has huge risks of contamination and disease.

Myaj wrote:One thing to keep in mind with almost all puffer species.. they are wild caught...

Also, if they had a high parasite load, feeding them the IP medication could have caused a big die off which poisoned their bodies.. that's why usually a half dose is recommended if you suspect a bad IP problem.

So it could have been a combo of things.. and of course, maybe you should double check your test kits and make sure they are reading correctly.


So your best bet is to find a GOOD store that takes care of their fish and tanks well, and hope for the best. Many people suggest waiting a few days to see which fish out of a "new batch" survive at the store, my viewpoint is pick out the healthiest looking ones ASAP and get them out of the store. They all use multi tank systems and that has huge risks of contamination and disease.

Hmm, it did not appear that they had a high parasite load. The healthy one was especially plump- even to the day that he died, his body shape looked okay and he did not always show stress marks. I was honestly suprised that he died...though he acted depressed, his body appeared fine. But, I suppose maybe I did medicate too much? He very slowly started to weaken since the week of treatment. I only soaked the food in 1/8 of the tablet though. Yeah, I will check my water again. So, woud 0, 0, 0 be okay if I was sure that I cycled it properly? I saw the ammonia and nitrite peak and decrease. I know this time for sure I will be getting healthy puffers. But should I do a huge water change in case there is anything bad in there? And, would the five ghost shrimp be sufficient to keep the tank cycled for the time being? Is it okay to leave them in there, though I didn't actually quarantine them? I am getting two f8's that are 1.5 inches.

flamesofifreet wrote:Could have been they were just unhealthy to begin with. What size tank was it?

The tank at the store looked about 8 gallons, and there were about 5-7 puffers. My tank is 28 gallons.

Water changes are always your first step if anything seems wrong.

Between now and picking up the new fish, keep feeding the tank daily as if the puffers were still in there. This will keep the bacteria alive. Then do a big water change before you add the puffers.

Just leave the shrimp in there, they'll be fine.

The problem may have been the IP medication, it may have been something else entirely. You'll probably never know.

My biggest worry is that your test kits aren't reading correctly.. you should have some nitrates at the very least.

Oh another question, what kind of water changes were you doing all this time? Add any products to the tank such as stress zyme, etc?

Myaj wrote:Water changes are always your first step if anything seems wrong.

My biggest worry is that your test kits aren't reading correctly.. you should have some nitrates at the very least.

Oh another question, what kind of water changes were you doing all this time? Add any products to the tank such as stress zyme, etc?

thank you so much for the advice. the water is usually changed twice a week, about 25%...so i hope that is okay. the water "looks" clean. i find it weird that the nitrate was reading 0 too. but at one point, the nitrates got really high...about 30-40ppm while it was cycling. it fluctuated a lot since the tank was cycling, but when it finally cycled it was reading about 8ppm. And then, when I had the fish in there for a while it would drop to 0ppm. If it's fluctuating, then I guess the chemical is working?

for the water changes...i prepare a bucket of water like 1 or 2 days in advance. and i premix about 1/8th cup of instant ocean. it didn't look like a lot, but the hydrometer would read 1.002. i add the recommended dose of prime, and nothing else.

i have a question...if a puffer like mine is got from a store with a not-so-good reputation, but looks apparently healthy...how long will it take for symptoms to show if he has any conditions? for mine it is about 3 weeks, right...but is there an average time for a puffer to die from a condition caught in the store? i don't know if that makes sense. what i want to ask is that when can i believe that my puffers have settled down and will remain healthy as long as i do everything right? cuz i fear and worry about the fish everyday, and its getting to be stressful on me too.

anndd i just remember that i know someone who bought a puffer from the same store, and yes the puffer died. so i guess there may not be something wrong with my tank. but of course, i will still try my best to maintain a healthy tank.

I am very new to fish keeping so I apologize in advance. I have read before that fish can die from conditions in the store up to a month after you buy them. I am sorry that you lost your fish(it makes me very depressed when I lose a fish too especially a puffer). It sucks when they die after you name them, and no store gives a month guarantee. The best stores are the ones that do not need one. Fish that have lived a month in my boyfriend's tank have lived the entire year. My boyfriend and I keep a record of all the fish we buy, where we got them from,what we think they died from or if they have ailments. Walmart and Petsmart fish tend to do not do nearly as well as fish bought from Gone Fishin', our local pet store(very good store, keeps their puffers in brackish). I think the abuse of any animal short term can affect them long term. I would not buy from that pet store again(I do not buy live fish from Walmart anymore). If they are not treating their animals right, it is good to not support them anyway.

Fish can live quite a long time with internal parasites then seem to suddenly die for no reason, unless you recognize the symptoms.

What are the symptoms for IP? Is it listlessness, worms coming out, thin body, and lose of appetite? I would think that if that happens, then it would be pretty serious...what are the early symptoms?

squishy wrote:I am very new to fish keeping so I apologize in advance. I have read before that fish can die from conditions in the store up to a month after you buy them. I am sorry that you lost your fish(it makes me very depressed when I lose a fish too especially a puffer)...

Any help is appreciated. I guess I should have known better than buying from a not-so-good fish store. F8's can be hard to find in this area. If my new ones are healthy for at least a month, I would feel a lot calmer anyway. I know they are supposed to be healthy, so as long as I don't do anything wrong then they will be okay.

the early signso of IP are those you say but often after eating the fish becomes very sunken and skinny as if the food has disappeared from their tummy. Stringy white poo also is a sign that IP are present

The stringy white poo and not growing are to me, "early signs". 9 times out of 10, even when the fish looked healthy otherwise, after a deworming session there was a nice growth spurt, even in fish I'd had for years and thought were fully grown.