The Puffer Forum

Tank/Inhabitants: 45 gallon containing 2 GSPs (<2 inches each). Yesterday also added 2 live ghost shrimp and about 10 live snails for food, saw one of the ghost shrimp alive earlier today.

Water parameters:
pH: The color of the test tube is between the colors on the card marked as 7.8 and 8.0.
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
Salinity: in the process of slowly changing from FW to brackish. Right now hydrometer reads 1.005 as best as I can tell.

Tank history: Just got the tank two weeks ago. Was cycled by previous owner. I pulled out all of the decor he had in there and replaced it with things I had in another tank, but I kept his filter and media as is. Used Aquasafe to treat tap water to replace what was taken out during the move. Then added my GSP to the new tank (the decor I put in the tank were mostly from his old tank, unrinsed). Later that day went to the local aquastore and bought the second puffer and added him to the tank. Have been feeding them once a day. Freeze dried krill and shrimp mostly, put live ghost shrimp and snails in yesterday, and a frozen clam on the half shell today.

Last weekend (which was a week after first setting it up) did a 25% water change.

Symptoms: My original puffer is his usual happy-go-lucky self. It’s the new one who is sick. I noticed all last week that he was acting pretty lethargic. He was lying down on the gravel all the time, and would only move if someone approached the tank near him. Wasn’t as quick to get up off the gravel and eat, and would only eat a small bite or two. Today he is swimming around bumping into things like he can’t see them, he does not react when a hand is quickly brought up to the side of the tank, even if he is very close to it. I found him once today face down in the gravel, butt up in the air, trying to swim straight down. When he’s not swimming around haphazardly, he’s laying on the gravel and breathing funny. If you’ve ever seen a child having an asthma attack, that’s what he looks like. He appears normal, no marks or spots on him. His belly is even still white.

What is wrong with him? Is it something I have to worry about spreading to my other puffer? Is there anything I can do to help him? Should I put off any further salinity changes for now, or are they important now more than ever? Any advice would be great, I’m a bit worried.

A few things:

How long was the filter media out of water? If it was very long, your bacteria died and your tank is not cycled.

Your test kit should be showing some Nitrates. A cycled tank will always show nitrates. Under 40 is good. You should make sure you shake the bottles well- follow the directions on the back of the color cards exactly as they say.

Don't increase your salinity. Doing so faster than .002 per week will kill your biofilter/good bacteria.


I am not sure what is wrong with him. I'd retest your water for amm., nitrate and nitrite, making sure to shake the test bottles well where the card says to.

mrgreen wrote:Under 40 is good.

Nitrates should be kept under 20.

I suspect that your new puffer has internal parasites, and that he has been severely weakened. This is just a guess, though. Have you ever dewormed him?

The filter was probably out of water for about a half hour, but the media and biowheel were still wet when I got it up and running again, in fact when I lifted one of the filter cartriges out to see how dirty they were, it was still dripping, slowly.

I've never dewormed them.

I don't know if this makes a difference, but I run both carbon and purigen in my filter.

No change in symptoms this morning. I checked SG again this morning and it showed about 1.006, but while rinsing it I check how it read plain tap water, and it was on 1.004 on the nose. What the heck???? I did order a refractometer from ebay, but it hasn't arrived yet, so I will definitely put off any further salinity rises until I have more precise measurments. I don't know if it would be more valid for me to subtract the amont it measures tap water from the about it measures the tank water and assume SG is 1.002, or just assume all measurments are wrong.

Are you using a hydrometer, the swing arm type? Those are notorious for being inaccurate. First, make sure you tap it to get any bubbles out from under the arm. Second, and this is a good thing.. as long as you are getting the bubbles out, it really doesn't matter right now if it is exactly the right reading, because it is always starting from the same baseline, if that makes sense. So if it says your water is 1.006 and you raise it to 1.008, you still only raised it .002.. even if you really only raised it from 1.002 to 1.004. Make sense? But yes, I would leave the salinity stable for the moment.

Okay, purigen. That could be part of your problem.. that is a product to remove ammonia isn't it? That's fine, but it means your tank never, ever gets to really cycle, because the purigen removes the ammonia before the bacteria gets a chance to "use" it. So the bacteria starve to death, hence your zero readings on everything. What that means to you right now, is you better keep using that purigen or your tank will suddenly crash.. you'll eventually want to do a regular cycle, but with a fish obviously ill, now is not a good time to risk ammonia spikes. Using something like Purigen is not a bad thing, but you have to make sure you keep using it and don't ever forget.. or boom, ammonia and dying fish.

As for the sick fish, is the other one picking on it? Has it maybe gone nocturnal.. is it more active at night and just sleeping during the day? Obviously that wouldn't explain the nose-down, not reacting though. Remember, these fish are wild caught and go through a lot of stress and are exposed to nearly every disease and parasite known to fish while at the store.. that's why quarantining a new fish is so important, a new one will expose your existing fish to all of that.

What to do right now.. clean water is your best bet. Up those water changes to 50% and start doing them every day if you can. If he's still eating, you could try deworming him, but usually if they are physically not doing well that only adds more stress and can kill them. Sometimes they just don't make it.. the stress of capture/shipping/shipping/store stress, diseases, etc is too much.

LilGreenPuffer wrote:

mrgreen wrote:Under 40 is good.

Nitrates should be kept under 20.

I suspect that your new puffer has internal parasites, and that he has been severely weakened. This is just a guess, though. Have you ever dewormed him?

Oops. It was late. Typo.

Myaj wrote:Are you using a hydrometer, the swing arm type?

That's exactly what I'm using.

Purigen doesn't remove ammonia specifically, but it does filter out wastes and uneaten food, which I guess limits ammonia production (I figured some would be left behind, since not all uneaten food and waste gets to the filter. Some falls to the gravel, and I have still been getting some particles out when I vacuum the gravel during water changes). I use purigen with these guys because they're such messy eaters, seems only about half of the food actually gets into their bellies.

I haven't seen the other one picking on him, in fact when they first got put together it was the newer one, who is also about a half inch bigger (the sick one now), who was chasing my original puffer around. I will stick around after lights out tonight and see if he's acting different at night.

I'll try daily 50% water changes, for a while, but he's not eating at all any more. He hasn't in about a day and a half. I have a feeling this won't end well. When I got home from school this afternoon, he was laying in the same place as he was this morning, still gasping. I grabbed a net and picked him up to see if he would respond, and he didn't at all, he just let himself get scooped up, I brought the net up and am using the lid to hold in just under the water level, he's laying in it, gasping. The edge of the net is low enough under water level that if he comes to, he will be able to easily swim out.

Purigen does the exact same thing as carbon but can be regenerated. Nothing removes uneaten foods from the system, other than cleaning the tank with WC. You can mechanically remove the food with a filter but it still adds bioload to the system.

Pufferpunk wrote:Purigen does the exact same thing as carbon but can be regenerated. Nothing removes uneaten foods from the system, other than cleaning the tank with WC. You can mechanically remove the food with a filter but it still adds bioload to the system.

Okay, good. Then it shouldn't be interfering with the nitro cycle. I really don't want to stop using it, because the water just looks better with it than if I use carbon alone. I originally got it because I read that carbon is good at filtering out inorganics, and purigen is better at filtering out organic matter. I don't know if that's true, but when I started using 2 carbon and 2 purigen cartridges in my 4 cartridge holding filter, the water ended up looking way better.

Well, the little man didn't make it. Woke up this morning, and he was not breathing at all. The other puffer is acting the same as he always has. Is there something I should do at this point to ensure he stays okay? Should I continue with the raise in SG that I was originally going to do next week, or should I still hold off and watch this guy for a while?

From Seachem's website:

Purigen® is a premium synthetic adsorbent that is unlike any other filtration product. It is not a mixture of ion exchangers or adsorbents, but a unique macro-porous synthetic polymer that removes soluble and insoluble impurities from water at a rate and capacity that exceeds all others by over 500%. Purigen® controls ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by removing nitrogenous organic waste that would otherwise release these harmful compounds.

Sounds to me like it would starve the biofilter? Similar to Ammolock?

I wouldn't think it would starve the biofilter, since the stuff it filters out is still in the water. All the water that goes through the pump is passing through the stuff in the purigen before going back into the tank. Also, purigen doesn't remove ammonia, nitrites, or nitrate, it just filters the stuff that WOULD turn into ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as it was decomposing. Even still, not all uneaten food and waste makes it to the filter, as evident by the muck that the syphon still sucks out of the gravel during water changes. That stuff is still decomposing too.

If anything ever really removed all of that stuff from the water, it would not be necessary to do water changes at all, if you think about it. And whoever invented it would probably become rich.

I'm looking back at your original post. Are you absolutely sure that puffer was fine before you moved it, when it was living n the other tank? Is he a responsible puffer owner, feeding properly, regular water changes, housed properly? Why did he get rid of them? How were they captured? Possibility of air in it?

I watched the puffers in the tank for a bit before I bought him, they seemed generally okay. But then again, if an aquarium store is keeping GSPs in fresh water, they can't be all that responsible in the first place, from what I've read. I should go back to the store and see how all the other puffers that were in there with him are doing.

I've generally found that the stores who say "No guarantee on live animals" are the ones who tend to be doing a sub-par job on taking care of them in the first place. We have a better store the next town to the north of here who actually guarantees their fish for five days (all they ask for the exchange/refund is the dead fish and a sample of the water you put him in when you got home).

I just really hope nothing happens to Gollum. I've only had him for 7 months, but I've grown more attached to him than any fish I've ever had.

Oh, I didn't realize you bought therm from a store. I thought you got them from a private owner. Is Gollum (love the name!) showing any symptoms of illness now?

No, he's totally himself. Tossed in a frozen clam on the half shell a few hours ago, he pigged out big time. Now he's swimming around his favourite plant and glass surfing with a fat little belly.