The Puffer Forum

Well I'm very concerned about my one-eyed GSP, Uno, because he seems to be doing that thing where he's sort of rolling around, upside down, head first and generally looking like he's close to death. But then he will be up and swimming around and seem okay. His belly is nice and white and he when he's up and swimming, appears to be just as normal.
He's in a 30-gallon tank, by himself. I've not done anything new or different to the tank. He started looking a bit funny yesterday, standing on his head, but then he'd be fine. Today several times I've thought he was dead, but then he would appear to be okay again.
The SG for this tank is approx. 1.010 -- so on the low side, but he's been doing fine and really made quite a recovery from when I first got him.
I tested for ammonia, which was 0.3 mg/L and also tested for nitrite which came out as 0.6 mg/L.
I'm not sure why those numbers were up, but I've just done a 75% water change to help things.

I am really worried about him, I've grown very attached to him and was so happy that he'd recovered from his eye injury so well. That appears to be all healed up and I thought he was fine.

Anyone got any ideas?

Well, the cause of the behavior seems fairly obvious to me. The water quality is poor.

I am not going to ignore what the water test revealed, however ... the water tested fine last week, and I don't know what has caused the ammonia and nitrite to be off, but would that affect him so quickly? It's not as if he's been in a poor quality tank for weeks .... this high reading is a recent event.

I've done a 75% water change and retested the water and it's much better .... and I will retest later and again in the morning. And if nothing's wrong with the water and Uno continues his unusual behaviour, then what?

*****
Just thinking, if anyone else had posted a problem with getting high readings on ammonia or nitrite, the response would probably be that something has caused the high readings .... but with me, it's "the water quality is bad".
Ah, that's right, I'm the bad puffer keeper.

not sure but the rolling around and being fine the next minute i think might be a sign of air being ingested somehow.

library/hospital/help-my-puffer-is-air-filled/

check out that link. as far as the ammonia and nitrite, was there any uneaten food that floated away somewhere? a tankmate that is missing and possibly dead rotting somewhere? have you done any salinity changes recently? sounds like some of the BB got killed off somehow

Yes even lower readings of ammonia/nitrite will affect them immediately and show those signs. what are the water parameters after the WC??? How are you cleaning the tank?? Are you getting the Substrate nice and clean during WC's?? How bout adding some fresh carbon too? carbons only good for a few weeks before its spent. If your still showing Nitrite/Ammonia at all even if its .001 do the WC's till its as low as you can get it. Even if you need to two big WC's. Just keep that ammonia out. It can cause damage to the puffer gills and isnt reversable. It will limit there ability to take in oxygen. Turn your bubbler up during all this too, since your gonna be adding lots of new water and you want to get lots of O2 in there after a WC.

Thank you both for some very good suggestions, I greatly appreciate it.

Yeah, not sure where that ammonia and nitrite is coming from, I always use the siphon to pull up the gravel and get all the junk from underneath ... so it's got me baffled. I got the airstone going though and will continue to do water changes if that's what it takes.

jus85411 -- Uno is behaving like he's unbalanced ... not really behaving the way I would think a puffer would from nitrite or ammonia poisoning. I wondered about ingesting air myself .... I will check out that link, thank you.

How many freaking puffers do u have?? Im looking at your side profile here. Thats alot. You still have them all?

you havent cleaned out your filter or anythin like that suzanne?
or increased the salinity too much?
i keep my gsp tank clean as well
and when i tested i used to get an ammonia and nitrite reading
but my gsp was absolutely fine.
i thought it was false readings coming from a freshwater test kit?

you can only do your best for uno, he would have been dead a long time ago if it wasnt for you taking him home!
hope you find out the cause of him being unbalanced
if all else fails... you have tried your best

all i can suggest is keeping up water changes and testing, and see if it helps :/
best of luck!

SammyDee wrote:How many freaking puffers do u have?? Im looking at your side profile here. Thats alot. You still have them all?

Yeah, still got all of them ... I think that's about 32 puffers in all, +/- 1. It's alot of work, but you can ask my husband, I am ALWAYS doing water changes, and I've got a list to keep me on track and I also have a little book dedicated to notes on maintenance, etc. So I really do try my best to keep them all in good condition, and other than this issue with Uno, all of my puffers are in good health and my tanks in very good condition.

Lesley -- I am unsure what's going on with that tank. I check my water weekly and last week it was fine. I always clean the substrate deeply when doing water changes .... so am totally unsure why I've got high ammonia + nitrite. I am going to keep doing the water changes until things get straight, but to be honest, I don't think that's the issue with Uno. You are right though, he would have died if I hadn't taken him ...so at least he got to live a bit longer than he would have. I am hoping I can get him through whatever the problem is, at least I'm going to try my hardest.

ammonia spikes can really harm a weakened fish. Just keep an eye on those numbers

It could be as simple as a missed piece of food. Those signs seem similar to nitrate poisoning that Dadof4 posted about a while back.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21534&p=228415&hili ... ng#p228415

You'll get him through this *fingers crossed*

I know a lady who disturbed (quite significantly mind you) the substrate on one of her planted tanks. The extra waste and stuff that she stirred up and exposed to the filters and the general water column were enough to cause a spike in her readings. Is there a chance you vacuumed more deeply than normal and maybe brought up a bunch of gunk?

How are all of your other tanks? Any chance something toxic was sprayed in the air near this tank? Have you tested your tap water? Might want to do so to make sure you aren't adding any ammonia with the water changes.

Good luck with all those water changes I'm sure it'll take a lot to get those values way down. It would help him a lot though if you got them down to 0 and they stayed there.

Honestly, I'm not sure what's going on with that tank ... but I'm willing to do whatever it takes to try and save poor Uno. I will continue to do water changes to get the ammonia and nitrite readings down to where they should be.
My other tanks are all good .... but now that you mention spray near the tank, I did clean the glass the other day, although I usually spray the paper , not the tank glass ... however, I suppose there's a possibility that some overspray could have gotten into the tank. That would explain how I've had this "spike" when all was fine before. I feel a bit foolish too because we were just discussing overspray and all that the other day and I was sure I'd never have that problem. Never say never I suppose.

A few Qs: What kind of substrate? Crushed coral can hold uneaten foods/detritus, unless thoroughly cleaned. Are you cleaning under everything? Any hollow ornaments in there that food could get trapped in?

pufferpuggirl wrote:Just thinking, if anyone else had posted a problem with getting high readings on ammonia or nitrite, the response would probably be that something has caused the high readings .... but with me, it's "the water quality is bad".
Ah, that's right, I'm the bad puffer keeper.

"High readings" of ammonia and nitrite fall under the umbrella of "poor water quality." I didn't specify the exact problem because I assumed that you would know what I was referring to.

Well the good news is that this morning ammonia and nitrite are reading at "0", which is good, however, Uno is still looking very unbalanced. I put some table salt into the tank last night .... should I continue doing that, and if so, for how long?
I might try to "burp" him and see if that helps any.

To answer your question PP -- the substrate is regular gravel, and there's no ornaments in there at all, just some plastic plants. Because Uno only has the one eye, he was hitting into things on his blind side when I first got him, so I took everything but the plastic plants out so he wouldn't hurt himself. I do pull them up and vacuum behind them though. The only thing I can think of is that the glass cleaner spray might have possibly gotten in the tank. Otherwise I'm unsure what went wrong. I tend to keep a fan on in the house, and wasn't thinking that the air from the fan might have blown some of the spray back into the tank, even though I turn my back when I spray the paper I'm using to wipe the glass.