GSP bends in half periodically and appears skinny

[eliper]

I've already learned a great lesson to never purchase a fish from Wal-Mart or, heaven forbid it, any other live animals they might decide to sell one day. I had just lost my halfbeak livebearer that I'd had for a year and a half to a random freak filter accident and hated looking at its empty tank everyday. I have to admit that the darling, goofy faces of the puffers called out to me right when I saw them and it ended up being a bit of an impulse buy. Even with that being the case, I am striving to do everything possible to give this little guy a happy, pleasant little life by upgrading pretty much everything from my old aquarium setup and hitting every forum I can find.

The WATER:
Knowing that the fish at our Wal-Mart are kept in pretty much straight from the tap water, I haven't yet begun to step up the water to brackish. I only picked him up (for all intents and purposes, let's just call it a "he" ) last week, so it's still in the first cycle of my home's tap water without any salt added at all yet and without any water changing. He is currently in a 10 gallon tank with a filter, bubbler and a few little nooks and caverns to hide in. He's discovered them and definitely uses them, but also does the typical "greet you like a puppy" whenever he notices that I'm around, even after just a few days.

The FOOD:
I initially had some trouble feeding him for the first day or two. I first picked up freeze dried krill, which were WAY too big and tough for him to even pick at with much success before giving up and swimming away, though he did go right in for the "attack". Next, I picked up dried baby shrimp which were considerably smaller, but nonetheless gave him the same grief of being too tough for him. At the same time, I also bought a cup of live meal worms, which gave me a little bit of hope though even the small ones were still huge comparative to the GSP's overall size. He would go right for the back of the worm just behind its head and take out a chunk about the size of his own eye before abandoning the rest of the worm. I figured that this was probably okay, but I had read that you should see a bit of a bulge in its belly after a good feeding and even the little bit of meal worm he was getting down didn't seem to really be giving him enough food. By day three I managed to find dried blood worms and was thrilled to be able to snag one with my big surgical tweezers, dunk it down into the tank and watch my little guy enthusiastically consume it. I have only given him 3 tiny little worms at a time because I finally saw the bulge in the belly I'd read about and wanted to make sure not to overfeed him. So his feeding schedule for the last 2 days has been a morning and a night feeding of 3 blood worms each time. I also kept little aquatic snails in my previous tank, which bred like crazy all the time making it so I have them in all sizes. So, upon reading that GSP's need to keep their teeth filed down by consuming foods that they can crunch and grind down their teeth with, I transfered all of the snails in with the puffer. He either has absolutely no interest in them yet or hasn't managed to find them even though they can frequently be found creeping up and down the aquarium glass.

The PROBLEM:
I don't know exactly how to put an age to these guys, but he's less than 2" long right now. I'm figuring that since the Green Spotted Puffer is supposed to eventually get up to about 6" that he is really quite young. So, while he definitely seems to be adapting well to his new surroundings, I walked in today to find him resting on the bottom and bent almost completely in half. His caudal fin was nearly touching his nose. Now, he doesn't seem to use his caudal fin a great deal to get around, but mostly seems to rely upon the pectorals. He mostly keeps the caudal folded up too rather than fanned out, but that doesn't seem too strange to me. He also would occasionally bend his body just a little bit to the side even when resting, but seeing him bent completely in half and seeming to be stuck in that position for several seconds really made me wonder just what's going on with him and what I can do for him if he's suffering because of it. He was stuck in that bent position, but still managed to swim up to me anyway when he noticed me staring quizzically at him. I checked on him again after an hour or so and he was right back under one of his choice hiding spots pretty much straightened out again. I have no clue what to make of this and any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Another quick note on the feeding. Since this is a fish body-type that I'm completely unfamiliar with it's hard for me to know if I'm over/under feeding him. That skinny little body with a huge head is really throwing me off! I've found several references to how often I should feed him, but not necessarily how much at each feeding. Right now he appears to me to be too lean, but I am unsure. I've been trying to get a decent photograph of him, but his excitement every time I come around has made it pretty tricky. I've attached a few that touch on the things I've mentioned, though I didn't get a picture of him bent completely in half - I'm sure you can picture it though and it's definitely not pretty. Any help at all to help both educate me and keep a little puffer happy will be greatly appreciated by both of us. Thanks!

[jus85411]

puffers are very delicate to unstable/uncycled water. cycling a puffer in the tank is not a good idea and there is a good chance he might not make it out of there. you will see in the link provided that they need pretty much 30 gallons per GSP because of their "nerf football" shape they get when they are full grown. i would upgrade the GSP as soon as possible to ensure there is no stunting. a diet of shrimp from the supermarket, littleneck clams, frozen bloodworm cubes(defrosted before feeding obviously) and you should look for some vitamins to soak the food in. feeding the littleneck clams will help with the teeth by the puff scraping his "teeth" on the shell trying to get all the meat off. there is also a good chance your puff came to you and walmart with internal parasites which if caught early enough wont have any ill effects on the fish. he definitely looks to have IP's though.


ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Brackish/T_Nigroviridis/

library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/

library/water-filtration/fishless-cycling/

[eliper]

Thanks so much for the quick reply and great links. I'm on it!

[jus85411]

no problem, hopefully things turn around and you can enjoy your GSP as much as i have enjoyed mine over the past year and a half!

[purplecandle]

IP's are probable so you should treat the food with IP meds..

But, your GSP looks like the typical Walmart special and is emaciated. Please feed a variety of foods, and in my opinion 3 blood worms twice a day is not enough..

If the little guy makes it, it will take a full month of a healthy diet to get rid of the big head skinny body look..

Good luck!! But I must warn you, a lot of damage has been done...out of many I have only had one survive that was as emaciated as yours..

[eliper]

Thanks to you both for your candor and info. I plan to check out one of our local and reputable fish stores today to see what they have in stock to handle IP's. The yet unnamed puffer is still hanging on and actually seems to be doing well aside from being ridiculously skinny. Hopefully, if it is parasites and we can get them knocked out quickly his little crooked body will both straighten out and fill out as a result.

I also remembered that I had a bag of raw shrimp that I purchased recently so I transfered a few to the fridge to thaw a bit to see how he responded. Turns out he was VERY excited about that. I'm now feeding him every few hours (about 3-4 times yesterday) rather than just the twice a day and again, simply stopping when that bulge in his belly pops out full. I'm also mixing up the food between the dried bloodworms, the live waxworms (not meal worms, I got that wrong in my original post) and now the raw shrimp.

I know it's way too early to tell if he'll pull through, but I at least feel armed with much better tools to do everything I can to see that he does. Thanks again and I'll post again in a few weeks with an update. Really, this forum is just completely great!

[jus85411]

how are the tank parameters? i think the bending is coming from cycling the tank with him in it and the ammonia/nitrites being high, especially being in a 10 gallon. i would do small daily water changes until the levels are stable and cycled.

[Flutter]

how are the tank parameters? i think the bending is coming from cycling the tank with him in it and the ammonia/nitrites being high, especially being in a 10 gallon. i would do small daily water changes until the levels are stable and cycled.

Maybe but not necessarily. I saw the SAPs do that occasionally and the tank was definitely cycled with great water parameters. It was nowhere near as dramatic but they'd bend, 'jerk' (maybe twitch would be a better word) a little bit a few times, then go back to normal. Only ever lasted 3-4 seconds max though.

[jus85411]

yeah but in "the problem" paragraph says that the puffer was stuck in that position but still able to swim up to see the owner. i see my GSP do this too but only really when hes sleeping. i saw him do this once while swimming around and i checked and did a water change, my nitrates were a little high and seemed fine after so i related it to the nitrates. i mean it could be normal but the OP also stated that the tank was in its first cycle of his tap water so i imagine that the puff isnt taking too well to being cycled in the tank and along with the IP's he most likely has, its causing a lot of stress(hence the bending often and getting "stuck" in that position)

[Flutter]

Or it might be cycled since she put the puffer in soon after her other fish died... I took it to mean that she hasn't done a water change so the tank is in it's first water cycle which is why she hasn't yet stepped up to adding salt yet. Salt may be added soon at a future water change.

Hopefully she comes back on sooner than a few weeks and sets us straight

[jus85411]

yeah true could have meant it like that. we shal see

[eliper]

Ok, it sounds like I need to clear a few things up before making you guys crazy wondering exactly what I meant. Here we go. First, the last fish was in a little 1 gal fully functional aquarium and did very well for the year and a half I had him. He never got sick, was active and always ate well. The puffer spent his first 24 hours with me in that tank, which had not had a fish in it for 2 weeks but was kept running for the snails. Terrible start, I know. The rest of the chronology is below:

Monday 7/26:
-Purchased puffer from Wal-Mart along with dried krill that he didn’t eat and put him in the itty bitty 1 gallon aquarium

Tuesday 7/27:
-Purchased 10 gal tank, filled it with home tap water
-Cleaned decorations and plant from old aquarium and put them in the new one
-Added recommended 1 tsp of “Start Right Complete Water Conditioner” to aquarium (claims to remove chlorine & chloramines; active ingredients: sodium chloride, aloe vera, polyvinylpyrrolidone)
-Immediately added puffer (I know! I know!)
-Bought dried baby shrimp and live waxworms, had a little more success eating, but not enough to visibly tell (from looking at his belly) that he was getting enough

Thursday 7/29:
-Aquarium already had a filter, but I bought an air pump for good measure since I read that these guys stay in the middle to bottom of the tank.
-Still not eating enough, but VERY enthusiastic about trying

Saturday 7/31:
-Bought bloodworms, which he went right for. This was the first time after feeding him that I saw his belly bulge. As I mentioned previously, after just 3 tiny little bloodworms, his belly bulged down way below the bottom of his head so I didn’t give him anymore until that evening. Again, after just 3, his belly looked near ready to pop so that was all he got.

Sunday 8/1:
-He’d been swimming with his tail going crooked – bending to both sides of his body at different times, it wasn’t favored to one side or the other – but Sunday night was when he performed his bending in half trick.

Monday 8/2:
-By Monday, one full week later (I hadn’t even realized a full week had passed!), he still looked horribly emaciated, regularly swam with his tail bending crooked and was getting down bloodworms and a little bit of waxworm. I was completely freaked out and put up the post that morning.

Tuesday 8/3: Here’s when EVERYTHING started to turn around!
-Bought “Oceanic Natural Sea Salt Mix” and did a 20% water change adding enough salt to get a hydrometer reading of just barely below 1.01
-The hydrometer I have also has a thermometer on it, but I also have another one suction cupped to the other side of the tank. One reads 76 degrees, the other 78 degrees F. This temperature has held well.
-Bought “Aqueon Ammonia Neutralizer” (sodium hydroxymethane sulfinate) and added recommended 1 tsp to tank
-Bought pH, Nitrate and Ammonia test kits and ran my first tests:
pH = 7.6
Nitrate = 0 ppm, didn’t even register
Ammonia = .25 ppm, a little high
-Bought anti-parasite medicated fish food (active ingredients: 1.0% metronidazole, 0.5% praziquantel, 0.4% levamisole). He’d suck a pellet right up, mull it around for a sec and then spit it right back out. Guess he knows what he likes and what he definitely does NOT.
-I also remembered that I had a bag of raw shrimp in my freezer I’d recently purchased and thawed one out in the fridge. He went nuts over the shrimp so that was added to his regular diet to keep things mixed up and diverse.

Wednesday, 8/4:
-Within 24 hours of doing a water change with salt and the ammonia neutralizer added, he seemed like a completely different fish. Even immediately after the water change, he seemed much more attentive.
-This is also the first sign of him putting on weight. Within several hours of each feeding, his “bulging belly” had sucked right back up as far as the day I got him. But by Wednesday, his sides began to fill out and stay filled out. That concave underbelly leveled out to be pretty much flush with where the bottom of his head is.

Thursday, 8/5:
-More progress filling out and I plan to run all the water tests again this afternoon.
-I know we’re not out of the woods by any means yet, but his drastic progress in the last 2 days gives me a lot of hope.
-HOWEVER, I have not seen any waste out of him yet. I know that his body is processing the food and that there must be waste in the gravel, but perhaps he’s only doing it while under one of his hiding spots where I can’t see it (???). I am used to most fish having some of it dangling from behind them for a little while and considering how often I’m checking on him (he’s not in a main thoroughfare area) I just find it odd that I haven’t witnessed it yet. Is that common for puffers or could this still be a sign of parasites? I want to take all oddities into consideration.

Again, I can’t thank all of you enough for putting your own time into helping me out with this. I took pictures just this morning so you can see exactly what I mean by how much better he’s already starting to look compared to the pictures of just a few days ago. The first photo is from Monday. The other two from about an hour ago. Note though that I had just fed him, so the bulge underneath is a bit more pronounced than usual (what’s usual for him anyway). But you can definitely see from his sides that they don’t look caved in anymore. He has a long way to go still, but I’m working hard to fix the many wrongs that both myself and Wal-Mart have done to him in his short little life. Poor little bugger.

[J-P]

congrats

Keep an eye on him and watch his poop. You're looking for stringy white and or poop that looks like a string of pearls. Both those are warning signs but it seems your on the right track

[jus85411]

post your parameters when you run the tests again this afternoon. once the tank is completely cycled you will see readings like this: ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and nitrate <5 or 10. the only dechlorinator you need is called "Prime", takes care of everything and from what i understand pretty much is the best stuff you can get. ammonia neutralizers only neutralize the ammonia(obviously lol), they dont remove it so it will still show up on tests for it. i didnt see anything in your notes about doing a water change yet. i would do one asap especially since you have ammonia readings. i would do several small, like 10-20% of the water over the next few days to help with the stress and possible ammonia/nitrite poisoning that could happen if exposed to these high levels for extended periods of time. he seems to definitely be making progress! good job on that! did you treat him just the once? you should also try soaking his food in the medication for a little while defrosting the shrimp or bloodworms. other than that the only other things you could do better is a bigger tank/setup and start doing the brackish/marine conversion

[purplecandle]

I am not sure about adding an ammonia neutralizer???? You say he is in a ten gallon...if you are worried about ammonia just change the water daily..I would do 30-40% and vacuum the gravel..

Your tank is not cycled..you should have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 10-20 nitrate..Have you thought of adding some live bacteria? Could you get some used filter sponge (media) from a local pet store to help this process along? Also, it might be best to get the tank cycled and then start converting to brackish

As far as seeing poop..GSPs that eat blood worms, their poop is burgundy/blood red in color...and you have red gravel...so I can imagine it might be hard to see if the filter does not take it away and it hits the gravel..

It is VERY good that he is eating..often the emaciated ones won't eat and that leads to their death.