The Puffer Forum

HELLO!

water parameters
from what the strip says the nitrates 0 nitrites 0 and pH 7.2
i have a 55 gallon tank with 1 green spotted puffer about 2 inches long, albino cory, bronze cory, anywhere from 1-5 ghost shrimp, 3 mystery snails, lots of pest snails for puffin to crunch, and a male red clawed crab.
tank cleaning 50% water changes a week every other week cleaning the rocks. use seachem prime for the water and some aquarium salt, he is still in fresh water i upgraded to a 55 gallon a few months ago, after i find a new home for my corys i will start the conversion to brackish finally.

i have a green spotted puffer named puffin. i feed him either live blackworms or shrimp pelets or alge wafers, and there are always snails and ghost shrimp in the tank for him to eat. he began to get picky about eating the snails i was bringing him so i figured i'd just put 10-20 snails in and they would make babies and puffin would eat them! fixing his growing teeth problem.. anyway i brought home a new batch of snails and he was eating one and a shard of snailshell cut the inside of his mouth! :O that happened about 3 weeks ago.. it got a little swollen and red the first week but after that it seemed to be getting better.. you can see a red little cut/lump on the inside of his mouth. so it got a little better but it wont go away. i know it is bothering him and i dont want it to get any more serious ( he's starting to like scratch/hit that side of his face on stuff in the tank what can i do to help him!!!!

i've had him for over 1 and a half years!!

It would help tremendously if you rehomed the cories asap, he'll probably heal faster in brackish. You can add melafix.
If he's eating Malaysian trumpet snails, they can do worse than cut his mouth, they can crush his dental plate.
What is the ammonia level?

At this point is just sounds like scar tissue forming. Not much you can do about that. I would add Melafix though. Ditto to 7's post.

yes i've been wanting to find them a new home for a little while now but i cant find anyone who will take them, i will have to take them to my LFS this next paycheck and buy some salt to start the conversion.. i've been needing to do this for a long time.. could anyone help me with exactly how to do this?? also if i added melafix would that effect anything else in the tank? is it just called melafix? or is there a certain melafix i should get?? i've never had any problems with my fish yet so im scared! i've been asking the people that work at petsmart/co what to give him and they are never very knowledgeable about what i should do so i've tried to wait it out ahh!! but i cant wait anylonger!!!! also i dont have anything to test the ammonia. the first week his behavior was normal then the second week it swelled up just a little and he wasnt as hungry which isnt normal but after like four days he went back to normal the swelling went down and the red thing has just been there for like 2 weeks. just now he has started hitting/scratching the side of his face on stuff....but other than that he is being normal! i am just so worried

In any case, I would suggest that there should not be "food" in the tank unless u want puffin to eat it right away. those pest snails, mystery and crab are food. Puffin would just overeat or kill them just for fun and contaminate the tank.

It's just called melafix. I believe there is one for SW and one for FW. You can get the one for FW. You will need a hydrometer or a refractometer to measure out the salt. You want to raise it by .002 per week, nothing more or you will kill of your bacteria. So, you need buckets to mix the salt in, a heater, and a powerhead. Salt needs to mix for 24 hours so it's completely dissolved, and the heater is so the water stays the same temp. as your tank. (Be sure to get marine salt, not aquarium salt.)

An example of how this would go is, you'd do a 50% water change, add new water to the tank that's at a salinity of .004, because your tank is at 1.000 (FW) and 50% fresh and 50% 1.004 makes 1.002. Now, if you don't do it this way, you will have to do the math to know how high your new water salinity will need to be, but that's the basic idea.

Nuclear_Glitter wrote:It's just called melafix. I believe there is one for SW and one for FW. You can get the one for FW. You will need a hydrometer or a refractometer to measure out the salt. You want to raise it by .002 per week, nothing more or you will kill of your bacteria. So, you need buckets to mix the salt in, a heater, and a powerhead. Salt needs to mix for 24 hours so it's completely dissolved, and the heater is so the water stays the same temp. as your tank. (Be sure to get marine salt, not aquarium salt.)

An example of how this would go is, you'd do a 50% water change, add new water to the tank that's at a salinity of .004, because your tank is at 1.000 (FW) and 50% fresh and 50% 1.004 makes 1.002. Now, if you don't do it this way, you will have to do the math to know how high your new water salinity will need to be, but that's the basic idea.

yes! i've asked so many people how to do this. at last you have explained it so well! thankyou! once pay time comes i will finally be ready to do this

Glad I could help. if you have any more questions, be sure to ask. Always better to ask than to make a mistake. Once you get your puffer converted to brackish his health will improve TONS.

scpion wrote:In any case, I would suggest that there should not be "food" in the tank unless u want puffin to eat it right away. those pest snails, mystery and crab are food. Puffin would just overeat or kill them just for fun and contaminate the tank.

yes i agree although he has only killed a shrimp for fun once otherwise i havent had a problem with him overeating or contaminating the water with dead uneaten bodies.. he hunts a ghost shrimp every week or so, all of the grown pest snails he wont bother with, occasionally one here and there but he loves hunting for the tiny tiny babies, this way i've kept his teeth down because they were over growing before when i was just putting one snail in a day..he would never eat it,,OR he would only suck the snail out and not crunch the shell.. does anyone know of anything else i could feed him to keep his teeth down??

U could feed him whole mussle or clams smashed with a hammer so he will need to bite the shell to get the meat. Dun worry abt him swallowing pieces of the shell.. They will be passed out eventually. Or, remove the meat from the mussle or clams and let him scrap the bits off the shell first then let him have the meat.

Think what they will eat in nature will probably be quite sufficient to prevent overgrown teeth..

Btw, did u see him get cut by the snail shell? Or could the crab pinched him somehow when he got too friendly.. These creature are designed to crush snails man..

scpion wrote:Btw, did u see him get cut by the snail shell? Or could the crab pinched him somehow when he got too friendly.. These creature are designed to crush snails man..

yeah i saw him get cut it was when i decided i'd put alot of pest snails in because he wasnt chewing up the shells,, he found a small one and a shard cut him! as if he already wasnt eating them after that he didnt even go near them!! but after like 2 weeks i realized all the snails had babies that hatched and puffin was hunting them and i noticed his teeth being shorter too..so that is workin out nicely. the crab is a wimpy one lol he hides all day i had to put him ontop of his raft to get air because he was too scared to go up himself. i had originally gotten the crab because i couldnt get puffin to eat the snails and i thought he might eat the crab but he didnt.. i think my gsp is not as aggressive as others

Think the crab should be 1st to leave the tank.. Dun think they could survive long being submerged in water..

i mean i have him with 2 cories and they eat together it is soo cute their tails swishin on his belly slappin him in the face with their fins haha!! he doesnt even care. eatin a wafer together all close together eeee haha sorry its just too cute!!!!!

yeah i made the crab a raft to get air on