The Puffer Forum

Alright for those of you who didn't see my intro thread, I figured I need to make a dedicated hospital thread.

Here is where I left off.

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=29357

currently he is in the 37 gallon marine tank by himself.

water params:

SG: 1.022 (slowly raising it up)
ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
pH: 8
Nitrate: Not exactly sure, not too high though.

His ich is all gone, his skin is clear, but he has become extremely lethargic, he spends 95% of the day with his head jammed under a rock like he's terrified to swim. his fins are clamped and he does not move unless I either feed him (he'll come out and gobble up some food, but not 5 minutes later he will go back into hiding, or move the rock he's hiding under, he will come out for a minute and go back to lay on the bottom. He's very dark colored now, his body is almost totally black, half the time it doesn't even look like he's breathing, so I move the rock to check if he's dead and he swims away for a minute before finding another spot to lay. I haven't seen him fan his tail out in days (then again, he's never really fanned his tail out for longer than a second since I brought him home). Though he was the largest, healthiest, most personable puffer in the tank when I picked him out.

I treated his water twice with jungle IP tablets, as well as soaking his food with a little medicated tank water and garlic (which he won't really eat, so I don't know how much good its doing) He still eats snails like a boss though.

here's a picture I just took a minute or two.




I'm seriously at a loss here. I've done everything I can think of to make this guy happy, and I've failed. All the while my girlfriend has a GSP in a 5 gallon fluval chi w/ fresh water, and despite my lecturing that it is not a proper environment for a GSP, MINE is the one dying, and hers is the happiest puffer I've ever seen. I don't know what to do anymore.

Start with a large waterchange while you wait for more input.

I just did one yesterday. His behavior hasn't changed. I just grabbed one of his rocks off the bottom and noticed that it had some globs/bubbles of a clear jelly on it. NO idea what they were, I rinsed them off though and put the rock back in.

Currently I'm waiting on a protein skimmer and power heads for this tank, it just has a 200w heater (temp is set at 76-78 degrees according to my marineland digital tstat) and Filtration is being handled by a marineland 200, and a decent hunk of live rock.

I know the tank setup is not ideal as I'm currently obtaining the equipment needed for SW, but every day its something new with him. He's very skinny, and when he's lying on the bottom, he's almost black, but if he gets up and swims (like when I feed him) his coloration almost instantly goes back to normal and his belly goes almost totally white again.

it sounds like he is nervous. What does he do when the lights are out?

his lights are never out. He has day lighting and moon lighting. I don't really see much change in behavior, other than sometimes right when I turn his daytime lights on he comes out to look around for a little while.

Today he's acting a little different, I got up to find him scanning the bottom of the tank, he actually ate a helping of medicated blood worms, and right now he's actually swimming around the tank like an almost normal fish. His belly is still really dark and his fins are all clamped, but he's swimming at least, albeit pretty slowly.

How important is a tank background? I've been thinking I should probably get one for him, but I'm not sure what color/design. I don't want it to look cheesy.

I skimmed through your thread, and the most recent tank picture shows only a couple things in the tank. He probably feels very insecure with so little to hide behind. Tank backgrounds can be helpful for nervous fish, since they make it feel protected by a solid wall on that side. If he's really nervous, you can extend the background around the sides for a while. If you want to avoid cheesy, just go for plain blue or black. But really, the #1 thing is to get more stuff in there. Terracotta flowerpots (new, not used - you don't want plant chemicals in your tank), coffee mugs, fake plants, whatever - he needs some things to hide in. The ironic thing is that when a fish has lots of things to hide in, it doesn't feel the need to hide all the time anymore - it knows that hiding places are at hand if needed.

Sounds like the poor fella is really suffering from IPs. Keep trying to get the meds into him.

today he decided to make a change of pace, he's been floating at the top of the tank by the heater since I fed him around noon. He DID eat most of his worms that I had soaked in medication today, which was good. My protein skimmer will be here on friday, and when I get paid next Im going to pick up more decorations for his tank as well.

His fins are still a bit ragged from a few weeks ago, should I treat him with melafix? Or should I wait until he's feeling better, I don't want to add any undue stress.

Melafix never hurts & actually may help him feel better, as long as you have good O2 exchange.

Updates.

Still very dark colored, still not swimming much, still skinny, but still eating decently from what I can tell.

I picked up melafix today and gave him a dose, as well as picked up more snails to soak in some jungle IP medication.

New water params as of today.

sg: 1.022
pH: 8
Ammonia: .25 ppm
Nitrite: .5ppm

so my tank is still cycling (obviously, its new). John at the lfs told me to do a small water change (1 gallon) just to dilute the ammonia/nitrite a little bit for him, and then check the water again on friday to see if nitrite is going up or down. My skimmer will also be in on friday, which will be nice because my tank is getting gross, lots of gunk building up on the glass and rocks.

short flick of him curled up sleeping that I took about 10 minutes ago. He always sleeps with his nose in the sand for some reason. Its like he's trying to keep from floating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ2k6RsM ... MPYT7XqBvm

You need to do as big a water change as is needed to get ammonia and nitrite to zero. One gallon out of 37 won't make any difference.

I agree, 50% WC. Any live rock in there? Skimmer?

Pufferpunk wrote:I agree, 50% WC. Any live rock in there? Skimmer?

LongGrain wrote: Currently I'm waiting on a protein skimmer and power heads for this tank, it just has a 200w heater (temp is set at 76-78 degrees according to my marineland digital tstat) and Filtration is being handled by a marineland 200, and a decent hunk of live rock.

LongGrain wrote:My skimmer will also be in on friday

LOL, thanks for the catch up!

What's a "decent hunk"?

I'm starting to think of asking the LFS to nurse my fish back to health while my tank cycles and establishes a proper bacteria colony. Ugh, killing me.