The Puffer Forum

I've had a Fahaka puffer for a little over a month and he is in really bad shape he was doing fine but recently I noticed he hadn't been eating and I thought it was ok to drop in one of those food nibble things in my tank and now he looks really bad. In the past week I've added some new fish as well a Green Terror which is 4-5in and a Bolivian Ram. My Fahaka Puffer is not that big so right now I have him in a 30 gallon tank all alone. This is my first puffer and have been cleaning my tank and maintaining it with water changes and drop a little sea salt every now and then and have the temperature at 87 degrees, he had been doing really good until now. He is breathing really hard and his eyes have lost that blue-ish shine to them. My tank is a 48 gallon that basically consist of south American cichlids a parrot fish and a couple of barbs. Any advice would be much appreciated

Sorry I'm a little confused? He is alone in a 30g? What are all the tank parameters? Stop adding salt, he doesn't need any and will do better without. He needs a much bigger tank asap

Please answer ALL the Qs above in red, so we can help your puffer before it dies.

1 - Your going to need at least a 125g
2 - Get us a picture of him ASAP
3 - Answer all the questions about parameters in the tank you have him in now.
4 - What foods have you been feeding him?
5 - Do not put him with other fish especially the green terror
6 - Soak some clam strips in garlic to get him to eat its like catnip
7 - Leave the lights low and make sure he has some sort of a cave.
8 - Sand Substrate is going to be best for him (Pool filter sand is fine and cheap)

All good advice by Tripp, although my fahaka doesn't seem to need sand.

87 degrees is much too hot for the fish. Is this ambient air temperature? If so, replace the tank top with a mesh screen and keep a fan blowing on it all the time. You need to lower the tank temperature slowly over hours to no more than 80 degrees. The fish is suffocating for lack of oxygen in the water. If you have a bubbler or airstone, add that to the tank as well.