The Puffer Forum

since last night my figure eight has lost its colour...he isnt as active as he was in the past few days..salinity is 19 and SG is at 1.014..and there are no nitites..there is two fish in a 20g....the other guy is perfectly fine...i noticed it last night that he was losing his colour but i thought he was just going to sleep..since that is what i read inother posts...but when he hadnt changed by the morning i am becoming worried...and his tail is also never opened he keeps it all closed up..its really weird

please help someone

The first big issue that I see is the salinity. You can lower that down to about 1.005, such a high salinity isn't good for them. Why don't you do a water change right now and lower the salinity to about 1.012. To do that you can do a 50% water change with water at 1.010.

Am I correct in assuming that you have 2 F8s in the tank? How large are they?

Can you answer any more of the following questions? It will help a lot

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.

there are two...they are only about 1.5 inches each....i dont know the ph or nitrate levels...ammonia and nitrita are 0 and SG is at 1.014..there might still be a ghost shrimp in there unless they eat him...and i got 4 tiny snails from the pet store..i dont know what they are called but the guy said they are good to feed to puffers...i changed the water last wknd..so it is due for a change tomorrow...i am using marine salt bio support and a water conditioner...the tank has been set up for almost a year now

It's very important to check Nitrate levels and the sg is too high for Figure 8 puffers (1.003-1.005)

i just did a water change...the nitrate level is at 13 and the SG i now at 1.008...i will keep updating if i see any changes

How did the SG drop so quickly. Watch that you don't crash your tank, keep a close eye on these parameters. SG should only be lowered or increased by .002 per week.

Yes,...if you alter the salinity by more than .002 per week you stand a good chance of upsetting your biological filtration. Keep an eye on the Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate readings.

If you could post a pic, we might be able to ID the problem better.

sorry for the late reply..my internet was down last night...he seems to be getting a little better...heres the best pic i could get..he moves around too much..lol..compared to the oether guy in the tank who looks completely healthy

No pic?

its up...:s

I see it. That's pretty distorted by the corner of the glass though.

heres a better shot i hope...he likes the corner..and when he swims i cant catch him quick enough lol

What are you doing for him now?

he seems to be doing much better....his colour is starting to slowly go bak to normal