The Puffer Forum

1) Water Parameters are

pH = < 6.2 (below the lowest reading) This is weird since my tap water has a crazy high pH.
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrates = 0

2) 40 Gal containing only a Fahaka Puffer and plants.

3) Normally gets feed blood worm 5 x/week, Frozen crab 1 x/week, the other day a mix sometimes more crab or ghost shrimp. Frozen food is first thawd in aquirium water prior to feeding. All excess food is removed from the tank. Change 50% water weekly and condition the water while refilling.

4) I put on a new lighting fixture: http://www.aquaticlife.com/products/277

5) The Puffer has been in the aquarium since the beginning of June, prior to that the aquarium was cycled for 2 months and contained other fish that have been relocated.

Hi, new here and to having a puffer.

My puffer was doing great until the past weekend which I noticed him either flowing at the surface aimlessly or hiding in his cave, where he use to be quite active. He has also become extremely fearful including going into swimming fits were he almost leaps out of the water. He has also not eaten since Saturday, i did even try soaking the blood worms in garlic water and he either had no interest or could not find it, it seems like he might be blind. That being said he does appear have a white growth on one eye and some white spots on the fins and gills. I went to the local fish shop and talked to them, they said it was pop eye and gave me melafix which I have been using for the last 3 days but he appears to be getting worse.

Here is a pic from right now: http://postimg.org/image/neaxcnjvb/

Now one thing I really need to add, a couple weeks ago I was speaking with the local fish store about feeding him, they suggested to feed him snails to control his beak and that I could just get them from the nearby creek. I was hesitant to do that but stupidly did (just the one time). That was about a week and half ago.

I hope the melafix will clear things up and that he will not starve before that.

It's not Popeye (which melefix will not help). It is cloudy eye, a funny enough melefix will help that! Sometimes those fish store employees give me a chuckle.

Puffers get that from bad water quality. It won't get better until the water is perfect.
I suspect something is wrong with your kit, bumping into things and cloudy eye are no the from high ammonia.

Is your test kit liquid? Those strips are inaccurate.

You also have a few other issues. His nutrition is not good & he needs more crunchy foods. Don't feed wild snails. They have parasites that kill fish.

You also will need a bigger tank. 100 gallons +

Please don't take advice about puffers from pet store employees...they are giving you bad advice.

Increase water changes and use melefix. For the Popeye.

He also has ick. You need to treat with salt and heat.

ICK TREATMENT
library/hospital/fwich/

FEEDING
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

FAHAKA INFO
ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Freshwater/T_Lineatus/

+1 to the above. It does indeed sound like poisoning. If its not your water it could be the snails from the creek. How big is he? Do you use any deodorants or air fresheners in the same room as the tank? Your low ph in the tank in comparison to tap could be a real issue. Stop doing 50% changes and do multiple 20% daily changes until it stabilises. Regular ph swings could be another factor to your issues. Welcome to the forum

Thanks for the information.

- My test kit is strips will seek out a liquid kit.
- I will be changing his diet as documented on the site, I just found this site on the weekend and he hasn't eat since then.
- The plan was to move up to a 120 gal.
- Until I found this site I had no other place to ask questions? I even joined my local aquarium club but was unable to get any assistance.
- I will increase my water changes and follow bertie's advice of doing multiple 20% changes per day.
- For the Ick treatment in that article is it just table salt or some special salt I need?
- I do not use an air fresheners in the house.

BTW, is just the couple of hours he looks to have gone downhill and now has dark patches on his skin.

Do you perchance have any large pieces of driftwood? Tannic acids released from such wood can drastically lower ph. I agree with the others, continue melafix treatment, do water changes, avoid wild snails, and treat for ich using heat+salt method.

Grab a liquid test kit and post the results or get a good lfs to test it for you but ask for hard numbers as often they just give vague answers like its fine or such and such is a bit off.

- There is no driftwood in the aquarium, only plants and a large artificial broken pot (that gives a great hiding place).
- I will be picking up a liquid test kit today!

He was looking pretty grim when I went to bed last night but surprisingly this morning when I walked into the room he came to the glass to greet me (he has not done that since last Friday). So I took that oppertunity to give him some blood worms which he ate! This is day 4 of the melafix and I just did another 20% water change.

Couple more questions,

I removed the carbon filter as the directions on the melafix indicated... that is correct, right?
When I do a water change the water is always so cloudy for the next 24 hours (this has always happened). Is this normal?
Still not sure about adding the salt, what type of salt do I use?

Here is a picture from this morning.

He has resumed swimming around the tank.

For the salt+heat method in the article you read, regular old table salt is just fine. It is actually the preffered salt to use, as marine isn't suitable for freshwater fish treatment, and freshwater "aquarium salt" as seen in your lfs has no legal definition (as rtr so often wisely states) and therefore could contain any number of things. So all you need is good ol' NaCl, the standard set that it is safe for human consumption grants some credibility that it should be safe for your fish. So in short, yes table salt =P.

I got my liquid test kit and here are the numbers:

pH = 6.4
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrates = 0

What test kit is that? It would be quite surprising, that that tank shows no nitrate.

I am using API Freshwater Master Test Kit.

Not sure why (but I don't really know and probably have to be educated) that would be surprising considering he just starting eating again today (since Friday) so it is not like he would be producing waste and since I have been doing massive water changes daily any other organic mater that would be decomposing would have been vacuumed up. So the nitrates would have to be coming from the tap them wouldn't it? I would agree that have 0 nitrates would be unusual if the water changes were not occurring and he was eating/being fed.

purplecandle wrote:His nutrition is not good & he needs more crunchy foods.

On the link to feeding, what be would considered "crunchy"? I have some frozen krill, it looks crunchy to me but is it?

And thanks again to everyone for all the great information!

Fahakas are waste machines, eating or not. You should have some nitrates showing. Krill is bad, it's linked to lockjaw in puffers. Snails, crab etc are crunchy grub

The scale on the kit goes 0 ppm, 5 ppm, 10 ppm, 20 ppm, 40 ppm, 80 ppm, 120 ppm. 0 ppm is yellow and 5 ppm more orange. I am not sure how different 0 - 5 ppms is but the sample was yellow indicating 0. I am not sure how the sampling works against the scale or if 5 ppm is a lot or not. What do you think it should be? Since I just got the kit I don't have a baseline from when everything seemed healthy. If he gets better, and as of now he looks to be getting there (24 hours ago I thought he was a goner, but now he is looking great) I will do a sampling right before a water change to get a benchmark of how things are normally.

How big is he? If lots of w/c are done ( I mean masses) it's possible your testing is accurate. You need to shake the bottles real hard to get accurate nitrate readings on Api kits lol. Arm ache.