The Puffer Forum

One of my profs has a GSP in his office (about 3" long) and it had always looked pretty healthy but now it looks horrible. I saw the fish on Monday morning and it looked fine, the prof had just put a new hood on the tank(40 gal) and Dr. Tubs (thats the puffs name ) was lookin' good.
I came by to see the fish again today (friday now 5 days later) and i see him on the bottom of the tank very dark in coloration (almost a dark brown with black spots) and hiding under a plant. I looked at the new hood and it had a UVB bulb in it with a "WARNING: for reptile use only!" tag on it. I told the prof and he took it off the tank. Does anyone know if the bulb is the cause of this sudden sickness? Is the fish sun burnt? is it something else? How do we get Dr. Tubs back to health?

The prof said he had made no other changes to the tank other than the new hood.

Does this tank have marine salt in it? At this size the GSP should have a brackish tank.

At 3" he should be in a pretty big tank. Have him test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate & pH & post here.

The UV light from the bulb could be continually killing off the bacteria needed to keep the tank cycled, sorta like having the whole tank exposed to a UV sterilizer.

i just shot an e-mail to the prof about getting those lvls. I'm pretty sure it's in a 30gal with brackish but i included that in the e-mail to make sure. hopefully i will get a reply quickly.

Did you check the temp?
A lot of those reptile lights also serve a heating purpose - maybe it superheated the tank.

when i saw it yesterday (when the light was still on it) it was at 81F, i suppose it's possible it super heated the tank but the prof is in his office often and I would hope he would keep an eye on things like that. anyway, i'm still waiting for a reply to that email i sent.