The Puffer Forum

I bought a small GSP about a month ago and today he suddenly stopped eating, and then a couple hours later was dead. He was about an inch long, and he had a florescent green patch on the top of his head. Yesterday I fed him some snails and he went nuts! His little belly got huge. That wasn't the first time I fed him snails either, and they aren't the type that have super hard shells. The water seemed to be just fine, the salinity is 1.003 (I use normal aquarium salt not marine salt) and the only thing that I'm concerned about are the nitrates which are between 20 and 40. The PH, GH, and KH are all as high as my test strips can read and the water is very hard.

I have a small turtle, 5 swordtails, 10 tetras, 1 variatus, 1 golden algae eater, and 1 pleco and they were all in a 40 gal. breeder tank with my GSP. I used to have 8 swordtails but one was eaten in half, the next one jumped out of the tank, and then another died yesterday. The last one seemed to have some sort of infection but I could never tell what it was! It looked like the scales were just coming off, yet I never saw any on the bottom of the tank, and then it also looked like there was a small amount of fungus on her. Now she is completely white towards her tail fin on one side of her body and dead. I did also have 2 variatus but the other one disappeared I'm waiting to greet another fish on the carpet. The pleco had some white patches on him in various places, but he seems to have fought it off. It didn't look like ich, but I wasn't convinced that it was a fungus either. I've seen both on my fish and have successfully treated both before.

I've never had a fish die on me so suddenly like my GSP, unless it was attacked. I know that I am not an expert at taking care of fish, but I believe I did everything I could to prevent my puffer from getting sick. I read on the internet that GSP's will change color when they are stressed, and I also heard that when they have a florescent green patch on their head they are very happy. I was so stunned when he died. I didn't see any outward signs of anything! I'm going to take him and the dead swordtail to a strictly aquarium store that has a pretty well informed staff to see what could have killed them.

The only thing that I did yesterday was a 25% water change, and I am going to clean my XP3 filstar filter tomorrow, most likely, to hopefully reduce the nitrates.

If you are wondering if my turtle had anything to do with the deaths, I would say that it was possible but not too likely, he's clumsy and can't catch a live and well fish, he can only get sick or dead fish. (he's a common musk turtle from a lake in WI)

I would really appreciate some advice and input on my tank adventures, I really loved my puffer and I want to get another one, but I will probably wait a while because even with doing everything that I was told to do by both aquariasts and the internet my little guy still died.

Thanks a ton!
Ash

to increase the salinity, you really need marine salt, not aquarium salt. there are minerals in the marine salt that are not present in aquarium salt. did you have any kind of substrate in with the puffer? and how did you cycle the tank? what else were you feeding the puffer besides snails? gsp are tricky little boogers to keep. they need a fully cycled tank and hard water with a pH of at least 8.0. are you keeping carbon in the filter for the puffer tank? what kind of filter are you running? nitrates under 40ppm and under are tolerable to fish; this shouldnt be why your puffer died suddenly. have you tested the nitrates out of your tap? i get 20ppm straight from the faucet.

as for your other fish, it seriously sounds like too much waste and not enough filtration in too small a tank. turtles are VERY dirty and need a lot of filtration; more than fish require. i would get a home for the turtle alone and keep fish in the 40 gallon breeder. how often are you changing the media in the canister? are you keeping carbon in there? test strips are bunk. get rid of them. get an api master freshwater test kit; its a lot more accurate.

sounds like you need to do some research on cycling and research your fish's needs before getting more fish. read up on gsp here in the pufferpedia and in the puffer library. read up about the needs of your turtle. read up on the rest of your fish. the fish store may not be the best place to go for advice. the staff may seem knowledgeable, but all it takes is one that isnt and you have more problems. its best to gather knowledge for yourself so that you may handle the crises as they come.

I use seachem stability whenever I put new water in, along with api stress zyme, and 2 tbsp of aquarium salt/5 gal. I have a rena filstar XP3 canister filter, and it's rated for a 175 gal. or so tank, not a 40 gal. I have a lot of carbon, bio media, and mechanical filtration. I have black Tahitian moon sand that I stir once a week. I also remove the snail shells periodically. I fed the puffer frozen brine shrimp that he seemed to enjoy, he also had access to flakes and bottom feeder pellets, and ghost shrimp.

it seems to me that you are not adding an actual dechlorinator of any kind. this may be your fundamental problem. chlorine and chloramine will mean your tank and filter never establish a proper colony of beneficial bacteria. this is why i said you need to do more research. you can help yourself on this. you are asking good questions now, but you need to be proactive and research your products and what your fish need.

btw, most of those "bacteria in a bottle" are bunk. both of the ones you listed are a money drain. get some prime and start treating your water properly before adding it to a tanki

the stress zyme also removes chlorine and chloramines. I was adding a separate dechlorinater before I got the stress zyme.

what's prime?

Prime is a dechlorinator made by seachem.

Please read the GSP aticle in our Library for the proper care & feeding of this animal.