The Puffer Forum

HELP! My GSP has not been eating for a little under a week now. I have tried everything. Looks as if he might pass away in the next day or so. His mouth is extremely red and receding, showing his beak. Mouth open all the time and beak opening and closing. He has been swimming irrationally and crazy, running full speed into the sides of the glass multiple times. Scary! On the right side of his body near his right fin, it is bulged out and sunken in where the fin inserts back into the body. I don't know what to do?!?!

I added Metafix and a phosphate reducer in today to help more.

Water Parameters:
PH: 8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate 50 (I have been doing 20% WC every other day for the past week)
Phospahtes: 2.5 + (Algae bloom, going down now, another reason for the WC)
Alk: 9.2
Ca: 450
Salinity: 1.026

Set-up:
25 gallon with protein skimmer and a canister filter. Running LED on top. 3"+ sand bed with over 60 lbs of live rock.

The GSP is over 6 years old and has gone through everything from moving twice to going through 2 semi-cycles. The tank currently has been set up for over a year near in this location but is over 6 years old altogether.

It sounds like he has IPs. Have you added any fish to his tank?

25g with 60lbs LR, am I correct? How does he have any room to swim?

No need for the SG to be that high, unless you're keeping corals in there. 1.020 is fine. I'd up the WC to 50% daily, until you can get the nitrate to stay <20. I'd also remove 2" of that sand, move the rock out & shake it out well, in a bucket of tank water & stir up the remaining sand. I'll bet there's detritus stuck all over/under that rock.

When's the last time you cleaned out the canister filter? Those things are nitrate factories for SW systems. Bet all the above advice will take care of your phosphate problem, too.

As far as the puffer though... I HTH him, too.

I guess I forgot to mention inhabitants, I have a small clown fish and a frogspawn in the tank. Along with a handful of hermit crabs (cleaner crew).

Canister was cleaned last month and nothing has really been added for a while. I just installed new LED lights about a month ago with I believe I had them to intense so I correlated that with the algae bloom. I have since dialed them down and lowered the time in which they are on. It has helped bring phosphates and nitrates down along with WC.

As for the puffer, I don't think it would have IP because I really haven't introduced him to anything. What does HTH mean?

Edit: I mislead yall on how much rock there is in there. There is 3 pieces of rock. A 50lb Texas holey rock as a base (size of about 3/4 of a football and two cylindrical fiji live rock glued on either side (making a twin towers looking structure)

Hope This Helps. Your tank is way too small for all that rock, the puffer & a clownfish. I'd move up to a 55g, if he lives. He should have grown to 6" at his age. Many more WC for now. Offer him live worms.

Somehow he's actually only around 2 inches still, maybe right under. He hasn't really grown at all in 6 years since I got him lol...I was planning on moving him into a larger tank but he never really grew bigger. He seemed happy until now. Like I said, I've had him for over 6 years, never had a problem, same tank and everything. Only recent upgrade was the LED lights within the past month or so but I don't think it would have caused this much of a problem.

I'm very skeptical of this set up and these numbers. Do you have any pics of the puffer? What kind of test kit? Are you testing before or after wc? How are you mixing salt?

Tests were done at a reputable local salt water / coral fish store. Paid $10 to have all tests done. All water both fresh and salt water is purchased from them and I have been purchasing it from them for over a year now. Water was taken mid day before a water change for that day, however I did do water changes earlier in the week. Two other 20% WC to be exact: 2 and 4 days before..im trying to upload a picture of the puffer fish but it keeps saying the file is larger than 256 kib....all my pictures are larger than that.

I am currently trying to upload pictures of him. It says that the files are too large, larger than 256 kib (every picture is larger than this?)

As far as the test kits, they are done at a reputable local fish store / coral store. They use seperate tests for each (liquid) and compare the buffer solution with the corresponding titrate color.

All water, both fresh and salt water are purchased there and have been for the past year or so with no problems in my tank. Only current changes were the LED's that I upgraded. I just remembered I changed the brand of the frozen mysis shrimp I use but I do not know how much of an impact that will be.

Update: Since this morning to now, about 8 hours, the white bump on the left side of his body near his left fin has expanded. Now it looks like a giant bleach white circle encompassing his fin.

https://sharedrandom1.shutterfly.com/pictures#n_5

Pic of my puffer. I'm not holding him tightly, just enough so I could get a picture of his mouth

Poor fella... That looks painful! Looks bacterial, you need to treat with antibiotics. Can you set up a QT for him?

Yeah I tried to put him in a little fish bowl so I could put an increased amount of Metafix to help heal him but he wasn't very happy. Kept on trying to jump out so I ended up just putting him back into the tank.

Dosing with Metafix however still for the next 6 days.

Edit: He's still not eating, tried to hand feed frozen mysis, clams, and pellets. Nothing. It has been about a week now since I've seen him eat. His lips are almost none-existent and you can see his beak (like a burn victim that has had their lips burns off and teeth revealing). The while lump on his left side is larger and a more protruding bump before his left fin coming out of his side.

I don't know what to do. Doing another 20% WC today as well.

You're not listening at all... Please reread my suggestions.

*50% WC got it, yeah I used a turkey baster and blasted the rocks right before the water change. The rock is large and heavy and the two side columns are epoxied on so they're pretty fragile because of how they are built. I'll clean the canister filter again. Anything else I'm missing?

Melafix isn't strong enough--it's an antiseptic, not antibiotic. You need something much stronger. If you add something like that to your current system, it will crash the bacteria. Your sand bed is too deep & there is too much rock to clean around. I said to lower the sand to 1" & move out ALL the rock, cleaning around & under all of it, shaking out the debris into a bucket of tank water. Then clean the remaining 1" of sand. A better suggestion is to set up a 55g for your fish, move everything from your tank into that one & use the 29 for a QT.

Melafix is not going to cut it. Like Pufferpunk said you need to be using an antibiotic.