The Puffer Forum

for the past week i've been haven't a hard time getting him to eat. I've bought garlic gaurd to soak up his food but still no luck. i feed him krill, gut loaded ghost shirmp, blood words (frozen), snails, and tetra color pellets. what can i do to make him eat? he's starting to look skinny. thanks!

Moving to the Hospital Forum. Please answer Qs above in red.

1.
ph 6
ammonia 0 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
nitrate 5 pmm
sg 1.008

2.
29 gal, 1 GSP, 2 ghost shirmp, i white cloud

3.
feeding: once a day of either gut-loaded ghost shrimp, freeze dry krill, frozen blood worms, and snails.
50% weekly water changes.
prime, oceanic sea salt, melafix, and stress coat.

4.
50% water change.

5.
fishless cycled 1 month
gsp has been in for 2.5 weeks


i just bought "proper ph 8.2" and am now dipping to raise ph.

Odd that your pH is so acid. What is your tap? What kind of substrate are you using? Adding a buffer will cause the pH to swing up & down which is worse than having a low pH.

i am using araginite

and no i dont use tap i get my water from water system in front of grocery store. it has an RO system

so dripping "proper ph 8.2" is really bad. this will be my 2nd puffer ill be losing. i really dont want to quit the whole fish hobby.

You want your ph to be 7.0-7.5, that makes it neutral.

Actually for a GSP, it's more like 8. What is the pH of your tap water? You shouldn't be using filtered water, unless you are reconstituting it with minerals. Is there something wrong w/your tap water?

Pufferpunk wrote:Actually for a GSP, it's more like 8. What is the pH of your tap water? You shouldn't be using filtered water, unless you are reconstituting it with minerals. Is there something wrong w/your tap water?

Oh ok. My fault. I apologize.

We forgive you.

That is good because I would hate to get kicked out for wrongful information. I need to stop posting after midnight I think..

Hi there, if you PH is that low I think you need to re-mineralise the water using marine salt and marine additives. The low Ph indicates a loack of chemical buffers that stop your PH dropping, as Pufferpunk says ideally the ph should be 8.0ish

Is there any reason you are adding stress coat and melafix?

With the marine salt, your pH shouldn't be that low.

What kind of tests are you using? Liquid or strips?

Back on track. Did he have a sunken belly very soon after he ate (when he ate)? It could be internal parasites.

i use api liquid test kit.
i will test my tap and let you guys know whats up.
yeah when he ate his belly would drop low.