The Puffer Forum

This morning my striped puffer has been sitting on the bottom and on a rock all day. He is not floating around and being active like normal. He normally gets very excited when he see's me and today he isn't moving around very much. I have checked all of the ammonia/nitrites/nitrates and everything is in check. I put some food in there for him and he came up and ate the food but in between running around the tank and grabbing food he would sit down on the rock and acted like he was struggling for breath then would go back to get more food. He is normally extremely active so I am very concerned. We haven't added any new fish, or anything to the tank. The last water change was about a week ago.

If he's eating, that's a good sign. I'm moving this to the Hospital forum, so you can answer all the Qs at the top, in red.

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.

Ammonia - 0, Nitrites - 0, Nitrates - 20, Salinity - 1.024

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.

46gallon - Puffer, Flame Angel

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)

Mysis shrimp cube, roughly 1/2 cube daily. Change the water every 2 weeks. Water Declorinator/conditioner added when adding water or doing water changes. We use tap water.

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.

Water change last sunday.

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.

2 months. Tank was setup using the 2 hour method with live rock that had already been cycled for a long period of time.



Yesterday the puffer ate a small piece of cooked shrimp as well as his daily partial cube. He used to be in a tank with a lionfish and other large fish and eat cooked shrimp on a regular basis. This is the absolute only thing I can think of that was different from the normal everyday routine. My husband was feeding the anenome's in the other tank and the one wouldn't aceept the food so he gave it to the puffer. Doubt this is the cause of the issue as the puffer has ate shrimp many times before without issue.

I was told by our local vet office to turn the puffer facing the floor of the aquarium and rub his stomach as they believed he may have gulped air. We did this a few minutes ago and he basically puked out all of the food that I gave him today and yesterday from the looks of it. He swam around for a little bit but he is back to sitting on the rock and bottom.

Also 3 small snails reside in the tank, 1 for the last 2 weeks. Another for about 5 days, and one added yesterday morning. And I checked, all are still alive and well.

Is that your puffer in your avatar? Is he still that skinny?

Yes, that is him. When he holds his body certain ways he does look skinny, but other times he looks filled out. I am not sure what this particular type is suppose to look like when they are this size. He's my first puffer and we got him from a friend a few months ago.

Well then, now I know what's wrong with him.
He has severe IPs: library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/

Oh crap. I am going to run out to the store and get something to treat parasites with. He is in the tank with my flame angel, should both fish be treated since they have lived together for a long while?

Yes, they must both be treated, it is transferred in their poop.

From the picture in your avatar yes it certainly does look like Ip's. In the first picture you posted a while back he looked ok. At 6" you should be considering getting him into a larger tank. What happened to the 75 gallon your purchased him in? Good luck.

Long story short on the 75gal... It had a major ammonia spike due to the previous owners lack of interest in the tank after having it for years. He failed to maintain it properly with water changes and so on. And it had a few really large fish in it. We caught the problem before it seriously hurt the fish but I had to buy the 46gal and put the fish in it. Ended up deciding to keep both tanks after doing tons of water changes and cycling the 75 and just left the puffer in the 46. The 75 has pretty much recovered but still has pretty high nitrates and a few other minor issues.

After learning about IPs, I am kind of thinking the ammonia spike may have trigger stress in the puffer causing the parasites to get worse.

I bought some Metro MS and added it to the water in the puffer's tank. After about 3 hours I walked up to the aquarium and the puffer came out of his hiding spot and was swimming around and greeted me. He seems to be doing better. I am going to add another treatment in 2 days. Thanks for your help.

Since it does appear the fish has lost a decent amount of weight, should I change the way I have been feeding him to help him put some weight back on? Or will he be fine?

You should also soak his food in the med, if he's eating. Feed 3x/day until he's put on some weight.