The Puffer Forum

okay so i have had my ceylon puffer for 3 weeks now and the past couple days he seems to be acting strange he will look at his food and when he goes to eat it he misses i know hes not blind cause he swims around fine. he also spends alot of time on the bottom resting. i dont wanna loose my buddy
Still in fresh water
PH 8.0
Ammonia 0.1
nitrite 0.3
nitrate 5
2 small ceylon puffers 1" long
feed them frozen bloodworms 1-2 times a day they havnt touched snails or anything else tried snails once and they had no idea what to do with it
tank was cycled for 3 week
I have been doing 5-10% water changes once a week
i use seachem prime and stability for water changes

Nitrite poisoning.
Do 50% water changes, at least daily, until your
numbers are ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate <20, and they s stay that way.
Your regular water change
schedule needs to be 50% weekly

You can do larger than 50%, but start that immediately. These are sensitive fish, and won't last long in an uncycled tank without daily water changes.

^^^^ what she said

okay so just finished a 60%ish waterchange ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 nitrate 0. how long should i keep the 50% daily water canges going for sorry i feel like a bad pet owner for letting this happen to my buddy and not knowing how to deal with it

until you have ammonia 0 nitirite 0 and trate <20 before the water change, and stable like that for a few days

Exactly how was the tank cycled?

i cycled it by following this guide http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articles/ ... Page1.html

okay so now he doesnt react to me at all and is bumping into stuff so im pretty sure he is blind now. will he regain his vision if/when he recovers?

only time will tell

It's not really a lack of vision, they can feel so crummy, and are weak, that they just don't respond normally, they seem to lose awareness of their environment.
Keep doing water changes, clean water is vital to their health,, waste products can build up quickly. Don't wait to register an ammonia or nitrate reading, just keep his water fresh, do it twice daily if you can. Double dose the Prime, amount for the entire tank volume every 24 hours, and dose each new exchange water batch.

Classic signs of nitrite poisoning. If that tank was cycled correctly, it would show 0 ammonia/nitrite & some nitrate.

he is still swimmin around doing okay he at a couple worms today but still wont eat a whole lot. would it be a good idea to go to the LFS and buy some items from there tanks i know they sell them but i was wondering if it will help with the lac of bactiria?

If you could get some used filter media, that would help, but be careful, it has to be from a disease free source.
You could pick up a bottle of safestart, but make sure your pH is not below 6.5, and your bacteria won't fair well in really low KH, and for this puffer species, you want to aim for a KH of 10°. Aragonite sand and the marine salt you'll need to use to start raising his salinity will help stabilize that.
It would help to know the KH.
However, don't let the store talk you into buying a buying a buffer. They are expensive and dangerous. There are very safe and affordable ways to increase the KH.

Also, don't let the store convince you to buy ANY OTHER BACTERIA PRODUCT!!!