The Puffer Forum

Hello all. I believe my new gsp is stressed. I want to do whatever I can for him and need some advice. I'll do my best to answer the red questions. My general concern is that he is black along his sides.

ph 8.2 ( substrates is black and white cichlid sand)
temp is 78
o,o, 10-20 ( i have a hard time telling the difference in the color on the chart. I think its like 15)

Waiting on my refractometer. He was at walmart in freshwater with aquarium salt added (so says the walmart fish expert). I started with fresh and have added less then a 1/4 cup of marine salt over the last couple water changes. ( tables spoon at a time). I plan on raising the salinity by .002 every two weeks until i get 1.008
Does that sound ok? faster, slower?

30 gallon tank, I want to move him into a 55 gallon when he is like 4 inches and ready for saltwater( had him in a 10 gallon hospital tank for 8 days when I first got him. I treated him lightly with paragard and melaflix -had some tail damage-)
he has no tank mates other then a handful of ghost shrimp that he has not shown interest in eating so I'm leaving them until he does. Ohh and I scattered a bunch of MTS to stir up the sand.The tank is in progress. We have not decided on the final set up and we are creating our own rock scape with flagstone slate chips. However, it is not bare. It has 6 fake plants, and 3 live plants with more java ferns and a few other brackish plants on the way. We have a medium sized castle (temporary, from my kids tank) and some caves and tunnels made out of extra slate pieces. He shows a lot of interest in his tank; he swims through the castle and the tunnels, but shuns the caves, hunts through the plants. He runs through the bubbles from an air stone. He spends a good amount of time hiding by or I don't know, looking at the filters I guess (cause there really dark maybe ?).

I got an aqua clear 70 since I read they need a lot of filtration. I'm also running my old filter from my guppy tank. I had an ammonia spike two days in a row and I can't find the source so I upgraded the 10g guppy filter to an aqua clear 30 and put the old one on the puffer tank to help. Which it did, ammonia went back down. I had also done a couple water changes and tried to remove old food and I cleaned all the suction cups (cause I read that that had been a cause of ammonia for someone).

I'm feeding him soaked krill by hand (twice a day and he only will take 4-5 bites at a time) since that is the easiest way to get him to eat right now, he has no interest in the krill if it is floating at the top or at the bottom. He loves snails. We are feeding him a 3-5 snails every other day right now. I've only seen 1 MTS shell so far and there are 11 in the tank. He is not eating the ghost shrimp. (which is a shame since I set up 2 one and a half gallon aquariums to breed snails and shrimp. And I have been successful with two shrimp giving "birth" and snail larva everywhere. I was giving him blood worms in the hospital tank, but he hasn't noticed them in the 30g. I got some frozen brine shrimp as a treat and I'm thinking about ordering some baby clams.
(What do you guys think about the spirulina added shrimp and worms? I almost got some but went with the plain stuff for now. )

Water changes are every other day right now at 40%. I thought I was going to be slick by getting my media filter for my aqua clear early and putting it in my established guppy tank. I had it in there for quite a while. When I set up my hospital tank I also used a gallon of my guppy water, and i used seeded media in my new filter. I did daily water changes for the 8 days he was in there and had the temp a little warm at 81.The numbers were really good while he was in there. I moved him over to the 30 and started cooling down the tank and it was good for the first couple of days then had the ammonia spike of .25. Like I said above, did extra changes, added an old filter and began using stability again. Prime is my conditioner.
So its been about a week now in the 30g and my readings have been stable since my two day spike; o, o, and around 15 for the last three days. Still goona do water changes every other day for a while just to be safe.

Okay I think that covers all the red questions. Now on to my concern. He is black along his lower sides. His very bottom belly is white. At night the black seems to go away, but as soon as there is any light hes black again. We have a low watt light that were not really using. Were just turning on a lamp next to the tank. He's been black since I got him, but he was not black when I picked him out. I figured that it was just stress, but I'm worried. I can't imagine being stressed all day for two weeks is good for him. I'm trying to do everything I can to make him comfortable, but nothing is working. I don't think its the tank decor, its not perfect but he does not show signs of boredom anymore (pacing the tank walls). He is active, eating and curious. Just really, really shy and with those black patches. Besides the two ammonia spikes which were fixed very quickly, all the parameters have been good according to my research. Am I missing something or do you think he just needs more time to settle? Also how much damage do you think the two spikes could have done? I started water changes late in the morning and did two each day. The color of the testing liquid never got darker then a light yellowish-green. His coloring and behavior never changed. Could the Prime give me a false-positive reading or something? Is there anything that treats ammonia poising or damage?

Last thought. I think he already had black "stress lines"(?) thats why the name blackbeard came up so quickly. But, I'm not suprised that he was stressed at walmart.

Thank you for reading and any advice you offer,
Luluaroo

Can you take a picture of his tank. This could just be an issue of too little decor. They really appreciate complex environments. A picture of the puffer would help as well

For feeding, avoid the krill...it can potentially cause a disorder known as lock jaw in puffers, plus he needs more crunch. My gsps love crayfish, mussels, and crab legs for their crunch and live earth worms for treats.

Here is an article about feeding puffers.
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

Now about the turning black. Puffers will turn black if they are sick and stressed out. But, they will also turn black whenever they want to...when they eat, or sleep or if the mood strikes them. So, turning black could be something or nothing. A full tank shot could help decide...He just might not feel secure in his new environment. Or maybe he just needs time to settle.

However, you said you have black sand....so he could be turning black to blend in with the sand, like camouflage. I have dark substrate in my gsp tank. When my puffs are sleeping, they turn dark. But, when the are swimming about the are much lighter.

Agree with staying away from the Krill. Also, MTS are not the best for puffers, you'd be better off with just pond snails. MTS shells are really hard, and puffers can break their teeth plate, but some do have success "sucking" the snail out of the shell.

I'm not clear on your water parameter readings? If you had ammonia, are you also testing for Nitrites? When you say you have a 15 reading are you referring to Nitrates?

Black on the side isn't a big deal, I saw that when mine had a good meal. As far as the pace you are raising your salinity, that sounds good. Slow is better to prevent a crash with your tank parameters. Refractometers are way more accurate than the kind that have the swinging arm.

Oh, and you want snails to be about the size of the puffers eyes

Ok, I think the problem with my posts are solved, my last two disappeared.
I am testing for all three and some others. ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 10 ph 8.2 temp 78 Like I said the ammonia spike was only for two days and it hasn't happened since. I'm not sure what caused it, but its all good now.

The krill is gone, I picked up some nightcrawlers and a red claw crab. He seemed intimidated by the crab after it tried to pinch him. The crab was super aggressive as well and I was worried about leaving it in there so I removed the crab and gave him an icy bath then disabled the claws. After that the puffer really tried to eat him, but was not successful and gave up. He is still really small so maybe this is the problem? He eats snails no problem. Should I chop up the crab and feed it leg at a time? I gave him a piece of an earthworm this morning and he tore that up. He has been a picky eater even with the krill, not ever taking more than a few bites, but he loved the worm.

The snails I have are pond, rams horn and the MTS. Can I give him the MTS when they are still teeny tiny or should I be fishing them out of his sand? I put a dozen in there mainly to stir up the sand. I haven't seen more then one MTS shell, so is it okay to leave them as sand stirs?

I can't find crayfish. Also, he shows no interest in the ghost shrimp, is this normal? Are regular store shrimp okay?

About the krill. If its the thiaminase that is bad, wouldn't most clams and shrimp be bad if not cooked first?

I will be including pictures of the tank and the puffer. The two tank pictures are a before and after. It was set up for a week with the castle, tunnel, cave and plants. I was having a hard time deciding on the background and my air pump was not producing many bubbles, which he seemed to like, so I ended up at the store and picked up some stuff. The tank is in progress and the castle and slate will be replaced with a slate and river stone structure. I'm also adding more brackish plants as I find them, I have three java ferns and java moss on the way. I went with a black back ground for now. I don't really like the fake grassy backgrounds and the only one I liked was a slate wall, but I think that might be over kill in my tank. I went with black since I thought it would be soothing. What is your guys thoughts on backgrounds?
I thought about it not being complex enough so I took out the one cave and replaced it with two terracotta pots, but he still shows no interest in them. The new air pump added a ton more bubbles that he seems to be enjoying.

Nothing wrong with krill, if added to a varied diet. It's just that so many lazy LFS & puffer owners feed ONLY krill, because it's easy to open the container or break off a frozen chunk & toss it in every day.

You sound like a great puffermom! If the parameters are good, he's swimming & eating normally, I'd stop your worrying about the black. Some puffers just color themselves like that for no reason. Mine did, every time they ate.

+1 I have a GSP who seems to stay dark a lot but will brighten up sometimes after eating or when the lights are off.

Nice avatar lulu. I think my pupils even dialated when I saw that for the first time

Thank you all that is good to hear. I'm doing some more research about thiaminase and I'll be asking some more qustions in other forums if I can't find my answers.

If you like the avatar check out the other Cassini photos of Saturn, there out of this world. (hehe hahaha) I like the ultra violet pics of the rings, there pretty awesome.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/halloffame/

luluaroo wrote:
The krill is gone, I picked up some nightcrawlers and a red claw crab. He seemed intimidated by the crab after it tried to pinch him. The crab was super aggressive as well and I was worried about leaving it in there so I removed the crab and gave him an icy bath then disabled the claws. After that the puffer really tried to eat him, but was not successful and gave up. He is still really small so maybe this is the problem? He eats snails no problem. Should I chop up the crab and feed it leg at a time? I gave him a piece of an earthworm this morning and he tore that up. He has been a picky eater even with the krill, not ever taking more than a few bites, but he loved the worm.


I can't find crayfish. Also, he shows no interest in the ghost shrimp, is this normal? Are regular store shrimp okay?

The live crab might have just been too much for him. If you are having trouble finding crayfish, try seafood markets, Hispanic markets or high end grocery stores. I have more luck at those three places than just regular grocery stores.

Sometimes with hard shelled food you need to break the shell a bit, I use a hammer to tap the shell a little bit.

One pretty easy to find crunchy seafood are crab legs. Those need to be broken up. I break off a chunk of the leg, hammer it a little and drop in.

You can feed raw, thawed shrimp as well. And I have heard of puffers not eating ghost shrimp, depends on the puffer.

When you add salt to the tank are you dissolving it in water first, or just tossing the salt straight into the tank?

Cool, thank you for the food tips. Makes sense.

I am premixing my salt in a 5 gallon. I stir it, let it sit for a minute and then scoop ( I use a pitcher, the buckets to big) almost all the water from the bucket. I pour out the rest in case there is any undissolved salt.

Get a powerhead & let it mix overnight.

Okay, I'll do that. So like 6 to 8 hours circulating first with a power head.... sounds smart. I was afraid of adding undissolved salt so I wasn't pouring it out of the bucket but just scooping the water from the top, hoping that anything undissolved settled at the bottom.

Plus, you're not getting a proper reading of SG.

I got my refractometer yesterday. Its .001. I'm raising it to .002 tomorrow, I have the salt water sitting in a tub. I don't have a powerhead yet, I'll get one this weekend. I do have an air pump and stone in it right now and I'm stirring it every so often. I'm letting it sit over 12 hours this way. I'm hoping that that is enough time for the pump and myself to dissolve the salt? Or should I really wait for the power head?