The Puffer Forum

I went to feed my f8 puffer tonight and I noticed that he was not using his left fin at all. At first I thought maybe one of the other puffers bit it off, but it was there... just sitting flush with his body. I was worried so I put some food for him to nibble in a net and caught him. Once he was in the net, he started using his fin. Does anyone know what is going on with my puffer? Any info would be appreciated.

Moved to the hospital.

Can you please answer the following questions?

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

1. Water Parameters- PH=8 ; Nitrite=0; Nitrate=20; Salinity= 1.005

2. 46 Gallon Bowfront; 3 Figure 8 puffers all the same size and bought together; a few ghost shrimp (until they become dinner); I feed snails once a week

3. They are pretty small right now so I've been feeding brine shrimp once every evening; I do small water changes every other day (just enough to get the waste off the bottom floor) and a 25% every week. I just use water conditioner in my small changes. If any nitrite or ammonia is detected I will add Amquel and do a larger water change. Using Marine Salt for the SG.

4. I just put a new decoration in the tank. Wanted to give them some barrels to swim through and hide in. I rinsed the item before placing it in the tank just like I do with anything else that goes in the tank.

5. This aquarium was started on 12/27/10. I seeded the filter with filter media from an already established tank... also used some clean water (not from the bottom where the waste is) from my established tanks. I started with the fishless cycle and then added Guppies once the tank had cycled. Now the guppies are back in their 26 gallon home. I've had the puffers for just over a week now.

You say you started with the fishless cycle. How did you finish the cycle? Were you using ammonia?

If any ammonia or nitrite is detected, then that tank isn't cycled properly. Don't use Amquel, do more WC with Prime.

Why not use AmQuel? Will it hurt the puffer?

Because you aren't fixing the problem of poor water quality I believe. It's best to do water changes and get some fresh healthy water in there instead of adding products to unhealthy water.

That's just a random guess.

I meant in conjunction with the water changes. PufferPunk says to use Prime not AmQuel.... is there a big difference in the products? Is AmQuel harmful to the puffer?

(sorry should have been clearer with my question.)

I get it now Does AmQuel have a bunch of additives?

Prime is preferred because it doesn't contain a bunch of useless additives. It does what it needs to do and that's it. Plus, it's actually quite cheap because you use very little. Just get a larger bottle, at least here the small bottles are extremely expensive.

(ONLY IF THERE IS NO SIGNS OF ILLNESS AND WATER PARAMETERS ARE FINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Dont panic just yet .........i own six of them ..... i had noticed one of them just floating along only using one fin, time to time ......just watch it carefully ......and observe to see if it's actually fonctional (and not totaly paralized ).......the cause of it may be brusing from bumping around in the tank or may have been niped ..........

Flutter wrote:Because you aren't fixing the problem of poor water quality I believe. It's best to do water changes and get some fresh healthy water in there instead of adding products to unhealthy water.

That's just a random guess.

You guessed corectly

Well ty puffpunk.....I so due rule ! ")