The Puffer Forum

I have had my goldy for over 2 years.
About 4 months ago I noticed he has problems breathing. His breathing problems were so bad that he would be swimming and immediately fall to the sand bed. Once on the sand bed he would breath really heavy.

I then put the puffer in qt and attempted to treat with diff medications, such as cupramine. As I tried doing the treatment, I kept on getting ammonia problems. After battling with ammonia and 4 months later, the puffer seemed fine. a couple weeks ago I put him back in my display.

today, the puffer still has some breathing problems, not nearly as bad as before, but his color has changed.
In the first picture, the fish was healthy, but I noticed some white spots appearing on his head,

The second pic, he is completely healthy.

Third pic is how he looked yesterday.

any help would be appreciated

Can you answer these questions?

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

saltyESQ wrote:I have had my goldy for over 2 years.
About 4 months ago I noticed he has problems breathing. His breathing problems were so bad that he would be swimming and immediately fall to the sand bed. Once on the sand bed he would breath really heavy.

I then put the puffer in qt and attempted to treat with diff medications, such as cupramine. As I tried doing the treatment, I kept on getting ammonia problems. After battling with ammonia and 4 months later, the puffer seemed fine. a couple weeks ago I put him back in my display.

today, the puffer still has some breathing problems, not nearly as bad as before, but his color has changed.
In the first picture, the fish was healthy, but I noticed some white spots appearing on his head,

The second pic, he is completely healthy.

Third pic is how he looked yesterday.

any help would be appreciated

Just from the pick i can tell you instantaneously my dogface puffer went thru the same thing, one day he turned dark brown and stayed in the corner. he looked really stressed after that his breathing got worse and his color got darker .He stopped eating lost a lotta weight and died. I notice your puffer is skinny now ! Is he eating at all ? Like your puffer my dogface did occasionally go up for air then drop back down again. the cause of his death was crap water quality and Very low oxygen in the water. Is your water Aerated? If not adjust your pump so it blows bubbles into your water! also maybe lower the salinity abit. While my dogface was stressed i noticed a 5min Fresh Water bath relaxed his breathing and destressed him a bit. As Lower salinity means the Puffer uses less energy motabilising nutrients and breathing. So Bathe him a bit, Also STOP ALL THE MEDICATION on your puffer hes breathing in crappy water and your adding more chemicals when you dont know what the hell is going on in your tank!!!!! Adding all meds in the hope he will be better is real noobish and should not be attempted unless treating specific diseases you know are on the tank! Which right Now you DONT.

The Golden Puffers whitespots / paler colour are its stressed sign coupled with loss of weight hes defo stressed.

Your tank is way overstocked. Not trying to bash you but i am just saying i would look into that and that is most likely we he is stressed because he feels cramped.