The Puffer Forum

Hey everyone, I never got to introduce myself properly to this site, but I need help now and can get a chance to chat with some of you and hopefully save the little guy. I had 2 ceylon puffers in a 40 gallon tank, later on I realized they need much more space down the road, still small about 3.5" in size. So I knew I had to upgrade later on. So anyways, I didnt do enough water changes recently and nitrates got up high for a week or so. Until I did a test and found nitrates around 50ish. I changed 60% of the water and got it under control, however what got me to check the water is one of the puffers wasnt eating, he was bumping into things and not eating. this went on for a few days and I used mela fix hoping it'd help but he died a few days ago. after that one died, my other puffer is doing the same thing, but his belly is getting darker everyday, it's greyish most of the time. and he doesnt eat anything. just swims a little bit and stays at the bottom of the tank most of the day where before he used to swim all the time. He looks healthy and his poop is blackish as it always was. there were a few small fish in there that they killed recently and I hadnt noticed until I saw a piece of one of the dead fish floating, it looked rotten. I wonder if they bit it and got poisoned or it might not even be related. So no Nitrates are down to 10, no ammonia or nitrite. tank is pretty clean and I dont know what else to do, I really wanna save him as it was a gift from the girlfriend which makes him more special! Please let me know asap as this has been going on for 2 days now. the other fish died in about 5-7 days after acting weird like this.

oh and I forgot to mention he still lives in freshwater. I was planning on converting to brakish slowly starting the next water change.

Is your puffer skinny?
I would get him to brackish now
Do another w/c. Get everything to 0(pH not to 0 DUH)
If he is pretty skinny, Treat him with internal pariste guard.
Belly could be black/gray due to loss of his friend or stress to do spikes of nitrates.

Start raising his sg by .002 each week. At 3.5" he really needs brackish water. The water param. sound good. Nitrates at 10 is not bad. Try to keep it there.
When raising the sg make sure you use marine salt not aquarium salt. And if you buy a hydrometer make sure it starts at 1.000.

He isnt skinny at all, he's a big guy he was much bigger than his friend. Right now his belly is whitish grey. I will start with the salt starting today. So either he could be stressed from losing his friend or the nitrate spikes? How do I know if he'll eat and not die on me? he looks healthy other than the belly and not eating thing.

Watch him eat,if he does not eat treat him for ip.
Same thing with GSP, there bellys change color due to stress and mood.

You can try and coax him to eat by lacing your food in garlic juice...

Try a live earthworm. If he passes that up, then you know he's really sick.

well i called up all the local big al stores and the closest match were gsp's. So i went to check em out and they had about 10-15 in a small 20 gallon. Most of them were small and had really black bellys. However i found 2 with white bellys, 1 is as big as my ceylon and the other slightly smaller. I had to have them in the tank they get along so well with myw ceylon and now the ceylon has a white belly and is swimming around with the gsps. He also ate a bit of bloodworms. I have to get a bigger tank for them soon. Hopefully he eats properly today. Ill let u all know wat happens

Hi Turbopuffer welcome. Just a few questions for you, your tank is cycled, correct? Is your tank at fresh water, brackish or marine? With two gsp and a ceylon you do realize that you are going to need a 90 gallon tank for them? I do believe your first ceylon probably died from nitrate poisoning that is what happens they go blind. Once bitten with the puffer bug it is hard to break free, but you have come to the right place for information about these guys.

yep its cycled and still fresh water. I have all the proper stuff to convert to brakish slowly starting today. I realize i need a bigger tank and i will for sure upgrade. They are still young so i hope theyre fine for now. I think i may have saved my other ceylon cause the symptons have disappeared since i added the gsps. I also have 4 pea puffers in a 15 gal tank. I love these guys. This is a great site and thanks for the help so far guys.

Awwww, so he was just depressed?

Believe it or not they can get very depressed. When I had my two GSP's I had to seperate them to treat one for a cloudy eye. Both of the stopped eating and went dark on me. The day I put them back in the tank together they brightened up and started eating. Then one died later on and the other didn't eat for 9 days. Finally got him to eat again. I would have never believed it if I didn't see if for myself.

I was right. He was sad

yes today when I got home from work I fed him half a cube of blood worms, he ate it all by himself. his tummy was still not big as before. so just 5 min ago he ate a full cube of blood works and the gsps ate the left overs as they're bellys are way full from the fish store still lol. the ceylon is very happy now. I guess he missed his buddy. seems like the 40gal doesnt seem to upset him as much as not having any friends.