The Puffer Forum

i was looking for someone with a similar problem that i am facing and the closest one was posted by fishfish

i have a leopard puffer that i caught acting funny yesterday and again today when i got home and assumed it was dying!

different from fishfish my puffer isn't curling his tail and all the fins that normally flutter like crazy are doing exactly that, fluttering like normal, only thing is he just floats all around the tank (not like regular swimming) sometimes upside down, sideways, facing the bottom, top, etc you get the idea, bumping into things in the tank, then BAM, just starts swimming around eating, picking on the other fish like normal activity!

is he just sleeping? my other leopard and figure 8 usually find a resting place as far as i can tell when they are sleeping.

i also wondered if it was true what they say about scats being poisoness cause i thought maybe that might have had something to do with it since i recently purchased 2 of them or if it was just a coincidence that i noticed the puffers behavior in the same week i put the scats in there. everywhere i read says its fine to put them together.

hopefully you guys can tell me something and i hope he is just resting but wanted to make sure.

thanx for any info, Andrew

It is their dorsal fin that has the sting.

Please enter all the info asked for in the top post of this forum.

http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vie ... php?t=2602

the link to the other guy w/similar probs ^^^^^^^^^^^^^even though the only real similarity which i mentioned before is that puffer is acting funny when i first saw him and after awhile started swimming around like normal, mine, unlike his, is not laying there with his tailed curled and only flapping one fin.

my best description would be......imagine and astronaut floating around in space, unconcience, and bumping into meteors and other crap that might be there!

as far as parameters im pretty sure i got a good handle on things since i have had aquariums for about 10 yrs but if it helps.....
nitrate.......is right at 45 (which is a lil high but not deathly)
nitrite........right around 0
alkalinity....around 185
pH.............bout 8.0

feeding.....frozen brine shrimp (unarguably the best food for them)

fish have been in the tank for about 2.5 weeks so there hasn't been any kind of changes to the tank except for the addition of the of the 2 scats which was last weekend, and since its only been about 2 weeks i obviously have not done a water change yet but i happen to be one of those people who stick to regular changes as well at filter maintenance and gravel bed cleaning.
uh, right before i added the scats, because they where already in slightly brackish water when i bought them, i went ahead the night before i got them, with a 2 gallon bucket that is devoted solely to the brackish tank, and added enough instant ocean to bring the count up to 1.004 in the tank and it wasn't just dumped into the tank, i left it in the bucket for nearly 20 hrs with an underwater filter keeping it stirred the whole time then via drip method added the 2 gallon to the tank over about a 3 hr period.

so, since there is a very, very, very, very small chance that there is something wrong in the tank, (especially since all the other fish seem to be just fine) and because the puffer seemed to suddenly come out of his comatosed state, could my lil astronaut just be catching a few Zzzzzzzzz and just be doing it in his own little funny way?

feeding.....frozen brine shrimp (unarguably the best food for them)

Why do you say that? Is that the only thing you feed your fish/puffers?
I can't exactly figure out what's wrong w/yours yet. Did you QT the scats? How large are all the fish in there? Why do you think you're showing nitrites? Nitrates should be <20. Definitely up the water changes.

as far as the brine shrimp go, yes, so far that is the main part of their diet and the only reason i said that is because everyone i asked and everything i read, the shrimp are on the top of the list so i assumed with no question that's the main thing you feed them. Ive tried some other foods but non of them seem to be appealing to them, what are your suggestions on feeding?

all the fish are relatively the same size (small, no more than an inch) i made sure i got young scats so they wouldn't cause a prob cause i heard they can be a lil more aggressive over the puffers.

nitrite/nitrate...i checked it again....nitrite was more like 0 which my kit tells me is safe and .5 being cautious, nitrate was more like 35 and my kit says that 0-20 is ideal and 20-40 is ok. what can i do for a brackish to bring the nitrate down cause for all my freshwater tanks i usually use a balancer to keep it in shape between water changes but the one i use for nitrate levels doesn't really say for use in brackish or salt?

just occurred to me is there any chance he is taking in air for some reason and not releasing it?

he has been doing his lil floating around thing ever since my 1st post this evening so if he is just sleeping then he must be some king of party animal after the lights go out and staying up all night. don't think that's my case cause i finally netted him and he hasn't responded from that as far as acting normal but i needed to do something to separate him from the other fish for a few to see what happens cause this is the same thing he was doing yesterday evening but finally snapped out of it!

I'm really getting concerned though cause while he is doing this some of the other fish in the tank would nip at him (of course they nip to begin with) and he will respond by moving a bit more but wouldn't you wake up if someone was nipping at you, if there isn't anything wrong and he is sleeping then couldn't there be other problems with the fish picking on him while he is dozing off. it even looks like i can see a couple marks on his belly where they got him

also i have noticed his fin movement is at a real slow pace right now and basically now he is facing pretty much straight down, head first and will basically only move his fins when he starts to lean one way or the other.

i dunno maybe he has been doing this for awhile and yesterday was the 1st time i noticed it cause for the most part he has been fine every time i sit down to watch them

Yeah, might be a good idea to QT the fella.

Brine shrimp is actually one of the least nutritious foods you can feed a fish (mostly water). If you read the 2 articles on GSPs in our Library (a new feeding article to come soon!), you'll get lots of good ideas.

NitrItes aren't acceptable at any level--should be 0 at all times. .5 is actually quite toxic. Puffers have no scales or gill covers & are more sensitive to toxins, hence keeping nitrate levels <20, if possible.

I'm not sure what kind of "balancer " you are using, but the best way to keep all your fish happy/healthy (FW & BW) is by doing 50% weekly water changes. I've been doing this for 27 years.

Also, adult scats are huge ammonia/waste producers & grow the size of a dinner plate. They will require a much larger tank as adults. I also don't keep adult F8s w/adult GSPs. the GSPs grow 3x as large, get much more aggressive & require SW as adults (as do the scats). F8s are best kept in low-end BW (1.005).

So, was the water in the tank FW until you got the scats 2 weeks ago? That's the impression I got. Perhaps you killed off the bacteria by upping the water too quickly (not to mention stress on your little puffer.) Do you have an ammonia test? I'd be intersested what that level is.
I suspect your puffer isn't sleeping. Sounds quite serious to me.

This tank is unlikely to have any good outcome.

None of these fish should be together in this tank.

The scats would be fine by themselves.

The puffers should be separated by species.

Brine shrimp is a poor diet choice.

Your nitrate test kit indicating 20-40 as "ok" is also not correct - the kit makers have no idea what species are in the tested water.

Read the library articles.

thanx for all the info.....i guess i hadn't done enough reading up on brackish yet and this is the 1st forum i found, guess it didn't cross my mind at first that i could get other info on the actual tank in a forum that was mainly for puffers!

its kinda funny too that all the pet stores i went to to also get info on the tank set up and stuff that every one of them said scats and puffers do fine together, i would like to know where they find some of these so called knowledgeable people at but i cant completely blame them cause alot of the web sites i have been to also say they are good tank mates.

anyway, the gsp that i was worried about has no more worries, he wasn't moving this morning when i left for work so i took him out of the tank and prolly sometime this weekend i am going to set my 30g tank back up somewhere (if only i had my new living room added on) and start getting it ready to house some fish. so now can someone tell me what i can put in the 55g along with my 2 scats after i get the other fish to their new home? its going to seem kinda empty with just the 2 of them and all that room! i was thinking about finishing my collection of brackish fish with a 1 or 2 archers or maybe a mono of some sort but once again alot of the places i have looked says they will do fine with puffers or scats so i don't know where to go with them!

I can't find the article in the library on food for the puffers, can i get a link?

never mind, i found it, it just didn't load completely the first time i went there!

Archers & monos each grow to 1" & monos are schooling species. The 55 will be tight for even just 2 adult scats. How many puffers are going into the 30g?

well i am not really sure casue i am also trying to find out what kind of tank mates the avocado puffers have so i was kinda thinking about putting those 2 in the 30 along with the figure 8
then i was thinking about trying to leave the other gsp in the 55 with the scats for awhile and just make sure i keep a closer eye on the parimeters in the water until i can do something else?
what do you suggest?

Oops! That was a typo, the monos &archers grow to a foot, not an inch.

The "avacado" (Ceylon, T fluviatilis) puffers will grow to 8" & require at least 40g each. Looks like you have your hands full!

MY PUFFER IS ACTING WIERG TOO, FLOATS ON THE TOP AND DOESN'T EAT, I KEEP EXPECTING HIM TO BE DEAD BUT HE'S HANGING IN THERE, DON'T KNOW FOR HOW LONG THOUGH