The Puffer Forum

I need help. I have a stars and strip puffer fish. Ive had him for about 3-4 months now an he has been acting fine until now. He use to eat regularly no issues there i would walk by his can of food and he would know he was about to get fed. Now he wont eat and when he swims it seems like he cant see. His eyes look fine are not glossy or cloudy and no he does not have ich no white spots on his fins or anything this tank is cycled and never had an issue but it seems like he cant see. He runs into the glass into the sand and rocks i know he can see me though because his eyes do follow me. I just dont undersand why all of a sudden he wont eat and seems like he has a hard time swimming now. He is about 6" long maybe, in a 90 gallon tank all levels and silinity are correct so i dont see why all of a sudden. If anyone can help me PLEASE i dont want to lose my puffer. He is always hungry and hasnt ate in about 3 days. Someone please help!!

This sounds like the levels are off, but no way to know; could you please answer all the questions above the post in red?
Also include his diet, specifics on what he eats.

Sure sorry new to this lol

Ph 8.0
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Salinity 30 or 1.022/1.023
Size-90gallon he is the only fish in tank besides one crab and chocolate chip star fish
Eats jumbo krill shrimp canned food have feed him live crawl dad once
Water change about every weekend or 2 weeks about 30 precent change
Nothing has changed nothing added had this tank up about 6 months now like i said just recently in the past week or so acted strange when we did a water change and turned everything back on he freaked out and hasnt been acting right. Usually very active puffer

Does he only eat freeze dried krill?

I have almost an identical set up to you, all the way down to the puffer. Mine was the same as yours, always cruzing the tank and would know when he was getting fed when I would go to the food area. The all of a sudden he was running into things and not eating. Well I did an 85% water change and dosed the tank with epsom salt for constipation. He ate this morning for the first time in 2 days. Check your levels, like seven said, they may be the cause for the weird behavior.

We have a rodi system making own water

I'm with Flutter on the krill, could be lockjaw.
I don't know the treatment for it, but I'll try to find the link.

Yes he has always ate the canned dried shimp he LOVES them. About 100lbs of live rock i know what ich is and had to treat another tank for it so i know its not that so i checked the levels today and they seemed to be like always thats why i was wondering why hes acting like this and didnt know if anyone else has seen this.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19421
Read this, Pufferpunk provides a link in this thread.

Very helpful thank u i just wish i knew why hes running into the glass now and everything in the tank.

It's a classic sign of nitrite poisoning but if your values are fine then I'm really not sure. I'd do a large water change but beyond that I don't know. Best of luck.

Because he is likely sick, if he's only been eating krill, that not only isn't nutritionally sound, but it has been linked to lockjaw, as the link explains.
If he's feeling sick, he's likely to not be able to control his movements as well, or he's just too weak, or he's distracted with how he is feeling.

What kind of test are you using? Maybe it's faulty.

Ok i have fed him frozen shrimps the ones u let thaw too but he would just filter most out of his gills so i figured he liked the dried shrimp better.

We use a heavy duty salinity refractometer and api saltwater master test kit