The Puffer Forum

So, over the past few days I have done one 50% water change and in the process brought my SG up from 1.004 to 1.006, vacuumed out a ton of diatoms and the substrate,and, removed the charcoal from my canister filter and added polyester pillow stuffing fiber as a water polishing media.

Today my GSP is really twitchy when he moves and when he's not trying to swim around he hides behind the outflow tube for the filter. He usually begs for food but tonight he wouldn't even touch a piece of shrimp that I put gave him but did munch two tiny snails earlier in the evening. All he did when I put the shrimp in was dive after it, take one peck and swim away. He is also a lighter shade of green/yellow tonight and he has a mustache with some black streaking down his sides, the rest of his belly is white. I noticed too that his eyes appear to be slightly sunken in. He does not want to go to the bottom of the tank like usual.

With the way he is acting I thought I had a mini cycle going on or I crashed my filter with the SG change. Water Params....Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, pH 8.3 (hard water here), temp 82F. So that answers the question of a cycle or crash idea. The only things that I can think of are low oxygen or, when I was cleaning the substrate, I stirred up a ghost shrimp that I didn't know was there. He's been cruising around the tank for the past 24 hours, could the the GSP be freaked out with the tank mate?

He has been treated for IP's in the past and his belly looks ok, haven't seen him poo though...Only additive I use in the water is Prime prior to mixing my salt, I did add a half cap of Prime to the tank (55 gallon) just in case it's a water issue that I can't detect..Tank has been up for well over 3 months and the filter had been running on my 75 gallon for over 3 years.

Anyone got any ideas or see anything that could be a problem?

What is your normal WC schedule?

I do weekly 40-50% water changes, hard to hit 50% on a 55 gallon tank so I usually end up doing 25 gallons or there about, with gravel vacuums.

This morning I woke up and he was still acting skittish and laying on one of his flower pot caves. When he swam he seemed to be moving in circles until he reached the glass, then he started surfing which is odd behavior for him. He's usually front and center begging at lights on.

Do you have a picture of your puffer? Is his eye's cloudy?
And are you 100% sure he's not Tetraodon Sabahensis, to me they look so much alike it's hard to tell. Is this the first time you've added salt to the tank?

This is Microfiche, my GSP. Positive he's a GSP. His eyes are clear but they don't stand away from his face like normal. He's been on a slow incline in SG over the past 2 months with one pause at 1.004 for 4 weeks. His color's better today but he sill doesn't show any interest in eating.

Other than salt did you change anything in his tank? Did you do something to make him mad?
Sometimes Chong will get an attitude with me and do the same thing. Mostly when I do a water change. Him and Elvis don't like that big scary thing that comes in and takes their swimming room away.

Can a fish get dehydrated? Is that even possible?

One more thing, have you treated him recently for IP's? You know Annabelle didn't want to eat a few days after treatment. If you treated him it may be the answer. I know I'm picking at straws here but I'm trying to think of everything that it could be. I'll stop now.

Don't stop, keep the ideas rollin'! I wonder if he is sulking, I never thought of that. I changed nothing in the tank beside stirring up the ghost shrimp. One thing that did happen, my wife used a plant supplement in our planted snail tank, think that may have anything to do with it? Did the snails take in some of the supplement? I may try re-treating for IP's to be safe, I'm treating the Brown (insulin syringes inject Gel-tek in to the body of night crawlers real nicely!), so I might as well.

I don't see any pic.

I use flourish excel in my tank with Annabelle and flourish root tabs. They don't seem to bother her. The only problem I noticed is that she goes around blowing up the sand and uncovers the root tabs then has a taste.
I caught her doing that last night and this morning. I might have to stop adding the root tabs to her tank.

Pufferpunk wrote:I don't see any pic.

Because my behind in trapped in my office chair and I'm too big a wimp to break free from it's evil bonds....OK, I'll fight the gravitational pull and go get a picture.

are you sure the polyfill wasn't treated with fire retardant?

Whew! After much wailing, clawing and gnashing of teeth (by me) I got a few pictures. My office chair will never forgive me for leaving it....Sorry about the quality but my camera is old and my wife won't let me touch her good one.

First, a mustache view.

Side view. The lines on the side are fading.


He is still acting weird though...

Pandora114 wrote:are you sure the polyfill wasn't treated with fire retardant?

Ohhhhh...I need to check, if I blundered that bad I may have to buy him a special treat....

Nope, no fire retardant. Set some one fire myself.

Where did you get the polyfill? Some of the "quality" craft store stuff has fire retardant treatments - yes, it will still burn if you light the strands, but if you burn a match and drop it on it after about 5 seconds, it will cook out instead of light. Cheapo craft store polyfill is no different that filter floss for the most part.