The Puffer Forum

I have a green spotted puffer, and have had him in the tank since I got him, about 8-9 months ago. The tank has been set up for about the same amount of time.

Parameters:
SG: 1.008
pH: 7.2
Nitrite: 0/undetectable
Nitrate: 45 mg/L (doing a water change after I post this to bring them down)

He still eats just not nearly as much as he used to and spends most of his time just sitting under the filter intake. When he does swim around he goes up and down by the side of the tank. I've tired rearranging the decorations inside, I've built caves for him to swim through and just doesn't seem all that interested in any of them.

The tank is 55 gallons with the following tank makes:
1 Archer fish
2 celebes rainbows
3 knight gobies
4 australian rainbows
1 mono
1 Colombian shark that sits in the corner
1 orange chromide
Handfuls of nerite snails

I feed the tank once a day a mix of mysis shrimp, blood worms, flakes, brine. Also toss in regular snails 1-2 a week. Using instant ocean salt, and no other products are used in the tank. I've not added any tank mates or changed feedings or anything like that recently. I have a canister filter rated for 125 gallon tank, not sure the name of it off hand. Changed the media at the beginning of the month. The puffer has been like this since the last week of January, figured he was just bored and in a funk so I moved everything and no luck.

Suggestions? Thanks for you help.

Water change schedule? See if bringing down the nitrate helps him.

Ah sorry, it gets changed every 2 weeks, about 25 gallons.

Start changing 50% weekly.

Sounds good, I'll start doing that. Is it just the nitrates then?

Hard to tell until you get them down to an acceptable level of <20.