The Puffer Forum

Hey, need Your help Pufeer Maniacs...

Dirty Harry (10cm Green Spotted Puffer) living in a 200l tank with saltinity 1.015 suddenly felt bad and stopped eating.

Ph 7,5
NO2 0
NO3 < 25

He`s with us for 2 years now - since he was a fresh water little spot. Always ate everything we offered - he usually ate snails and shripms.
Now one day he was eating like always - crushed a snail with his beak and slurped him in, the next morning he seems to avoid even eye contact with food. We tryed all types of food, nothing works.

Any ideas??? I`m affraid we are losing him... he hasn`t ate for 5 days now - he`s "skin and bones"... ;(

He shouldn't be skin & bones after only 5 days. Maybe he has internal parasites? Has he ever been dewormed?

No, i never dewormed him - really didn`t even think about it. He was always eating a lot, but was also round and seemed happy - now he looks skinny...

What should I do?

Please answer all the Qs above, in RED.
Treating IPs: library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/

You could always try offering an earthworm, most puffers find them irresistable. Worth a try.

I agree, 5 days of not eating should not make a puffer skin and bones.

Deworming is a good idea at this point, but it works much better if you can get the fish to eat the medication. If your puffer isn't eating, that makes things harder. There are ways to dose the water, but that can risk your biofilter and its not as effective as getting them to eat it.

First step is water changes, get those nitrates down around 10 if you can. 25 isn't very high, but it just might be that you have a fish that doesn't like them over 20 (many puffers can be like that). See if that brings his appetite back.