The Puffer Forum

my abei puffer has been acting strange lately. usually, he will greet me excitedly by fluttering up and down in front of me but now he just hovers in the corner by the bubbles all day. i checked the nitrate, amonia, and nitrites and everything is at normal levels. im thinking he may be constipated. i fed him a small ram horned snail for the first time and he ate it all. eversince then he started acting weird. usually ill feed him krill or bloodworms. he lives in a 10 gallon tank with no tank mates. if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, im all ears.

Ok Firlstly can you post your exact water test results, tell us how long you have had the tank cycled and how long you have had the puffer please.

At guess I think the reason is that your puffer is in a tank that is too small for him and his waste is poisoning him

Abei's can be quite interactive or completely ignorant and just sit there. If you think he's constipated then you can treat thst weith Epsom salts (1tbsp/5gallon) Krill and Bloodworms are not a great staple diet for an Abei. Try and get him home some more meaty foods like Mussels and Cockles. They can be quite picky about foods and it can take a bit of time to get them to eat different stuff.

nitrite 0, nitrate 5.0, amonia 0, water temp.80 degrees, and tank has been up and running for awhile now even before i got my puffer.

ive had him since november 3rd and the last tank cleaning was last week. he is about 1.5 inches and lives in a 10 gal. tank. i was thinking of buying him a 20 gal. tank soon but i thought of that before he got sick. ive been keeping a very close eye on him all day and now hes moved away from the bubbles and sleeps a lot. every now and then he'll hover near the surface. he hasnt eaten yet today. i tried to feed him but he wasnt interested. like all puffers, hes usually a very voracious eater so of course this worries me.

i dropped in a tablet of Parasite Clear earlier tonight and it seemed to make him a little better and added a little vitamins to the water.

his coloring is darker but even when he was well his colors changed all the time depending on his mood or what he was next to. i think ill let him sleep tonight and see how he is in the morning. then ill do a water change.

When treating FW fish with Epsom salt, I recommend treating 1tbsp/10g the 1st day & then add the same again the next day (totalling 1tbsp/5g). It is too much of a shock to add it all in 1 day. Fish that don't mind salt in their water (BW/SW) are fine to add all in 1 day.

So last night was a really sad night for me as my Abei puffer (Bowie) passed away. After trying the Epsom salt you all recommended I then tried to medicate for parasites but he still wasn't able or willing to eat. After a water change (one of many I did in order to not over-medicate after I saw that the medicine didn't affect him in any way) and more inactivity we decided to try some Maracyn-Two (per the recommendation of various websites and the owner of the LFS, who's helped me out numerous times and never been wrong). However it still didn't work. We think that he might have eaten too much of the snail's shell (he had one right before he started acting strange) which scratched his insides causing him to not be able to eat and eventually killed him. I know i tried to do everything right, took out the carbon for the medicine to work, made sure that he wasn't over-medicated, made sure the tank water stayed clean, got him new meatier food, even turned off the light so that wouldn't affect him yet he just kept getting worse (I hate internal problems with my fish). Anyway, long story short I lost a good friend and I wanted to thank you all for your suggestions. Here's a picture of him for you to see how happy he was in his little cave (sorry about the quality, it was taken with a camera phone). Last thing he did was get up off his side (yes he was that bad), he then swam over to greet me, did a little dance and looked at me as he took his last breath.

Wow, this is the 2nd post today blaming snail shells for the demise of their puffer--odd... I would think they should know how to properly eat snails--a natural source of food. Although, I haven't fed snails to my puffers in years. Sorry for your loss.

it does sound odd that snails could be of a puffers demise, but it does sound very plausible if they did eat a bit of shell. =/

I really do not think snail shells affect puffer insides.

Maybe... maybe not... he had a thing against chewing though, loved trying to eat things whole (the krill I'd feed him was basically swallowed up, not chewed). Either way he was completely fine until the snail was fed (which was the first and only one I had ever fed him) so that's why I have a feeling it had something to do with it. The way I see it one sharp edge going down the wrong way could open him up to other diseases. Oh well, I'll leave it as one of those great mysteries that will forever remain unsolved. I'm just glad that he's no longer suffering right now, and that he went smiling. I'm sure he's fluttering around up in puffer heaven now.

Was krill the only thing you fed? Having krill as a staple tends to lead to constipation and malnutrition.

Feed and Abei stuff like krill and bloodworms and they just suck them up like a Dyson, more meaty stuff is chewed, never had an issue with snails and an Abei, shells smashed and sometimes I would see the top cone part of the snail shell come out in the poop. Sorry for your loss.

really sorry to hear that but I have to say that the idea that snails shell causing the problem is not quite right IMO. I think its more likely a combination of poorly puffer in transport, the stress of being moved and not being looked after properly in the LFS.

For the record when I had Clooney he would often swallow large peices of cockle shell and crab claw that were about 2 inches at the widest point. He pooped these out no problem so the notion that a bit of snail shell done the damage seems like a poor reason for the demise of the poor little puffer

sorry for your loss ---

PP - is there a reaosn you dont feed snails ? -- just wondering because i feed a lot of snails, and if there is something nutritionally wrong with this, id like to correct it

Not at all--just PITA to go out & find them & I don't feel like breeding them--I already have 9 tanks! Snails are fine to feed to your puffers but there are planty of other crunchy foods to feed them too.