The Puffer Forum

Hi everyone

I fed my Mbu a prawn on Sat evening as normal.

I went out for the night came back and he is floating just below the surface in the top corner of the tank, it is Monday evening and he is still doing it?
From limited info i can find he maybe constipated? He is around 8"

Any ideas remedys guys?

Cheers

Richard

Please answer the questions in red.

Hi sorry the tank has been running for 3 years now fully cycled.

Size is 720 litres

He is fed every other day with cockle or raw prawn

The tank had been treated with Ws3 (white spot terminator) as unfortunately a new arival infested the tank and he had it the worst. Some of my fish are still scratching but i have discontinued the treatment untill i know what is wrong with the puffer.

He is housed with African malawi haps, not ideal tank mates but he is actually for sale as i am converting over to marine. He has been with the africans since he was 3" i would say he is at least 8" now.

I do around 50% water change per week, i did 25% yesterday but this has not changed his mood, i am going to do a further one now, unsure whether to continue with the treatment for white spot as it obviously isnt helping

Firstly, that tank is waaay too small. Mbus get up to three feet. Check out the article and species profile - they'll be under the Learn tab.

Next, meds really shouldn't be used on puffers, except for dewormers and tranquilizers. Ich should be treated with salt and heat. Good call discontinuing the meds for now. Do another water change, and if there's no activated carbon in there, put some in now to get the rest of the meds out. See if this improves his mood.

Is he having trouble swimming down? Or does he just seem to prefer being there?

I know the tank is not ideal in size.
Like i mentioned i am selling him and i would not sell to anyone with a smaller tank.
I think he is just stressed by the other fish in the tank, i went over to see him and he swam down to the bottom where he has been for the last 30mins or so. Not a great situation and i am hoping to move him to a more suitable home soon.
I have posted some pics on my advert tho so you can see how healthy he is and also how SMALL he looks in his present tank
http://www.aquarist-classifieds.co.uk/p ... 138548.php

Make sure whoever gets him provides him with at least 1,000 gallons.

Holy cow! 1,000 gallons! Thats way too much water for me to deal with lol. Me and my fiance have one 10g with a piranha, a 29 gallon with my puffers(which i know is two small, my 55g busted), another 55 gallon with oscar fish, 1 gallon with snails and another 1 gallon with my betta fish in it, and those are all too much to handle let alone a 1,000 gallon! No thanks lol

Can you please test your water for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate? Also, do another WC (after testing) & add fresh carbon to the filter. The ich meds may have done some harm to him. You must continue to treat though, because if the fish are still behaving sick, they still have it. There's a 21-day lifecycle with them. See the article on treating ich in our Library.

Question: why dide you purchase the mbu if you couldn't house it for life? Those fish are taken out of the wild & deserve to be housed properly.

Hey, some folks get bad info when they first research. Now he knows and is looking for another home for it. S'cool.

Hey, you're the one with the "research" sig.

The majority of the info out there is W-R-O-N-G. And sometimes that's what we find first... I researched my three GSPs before I bought them, and remember what happened?

Yeah, that's why we are here!