The Puffer Forum

Hello guys! I bought 2 Dragon puffers which were a couple! But something very weird happen.... I already have a tank about 200lt and I have a Walking CatFish (Clarias) 2 upside down Catfish and a "Cleaner" I forgot the name of the Fish that sucks on the glass! Anyway I put the Dragon puffers inside and for some unknown reason they just started breathing heavily and their eyes were rolling a lot! As if they were anxious or they were going to have a heartattack... I removed them and put them in a new tank with new water and see what they would do... the 1 puffer died suddenly the day after... It just stopped moving and was totally dead! The second one has also stopped moving but whenever I touch him he moves his fins... He is not even breathing though.... and he is not eating anything! Did I do something wrong? I can't understand this behavior, I have so many different kind of species and aquariums and I never had any problem with any fish! I even have Axolotls and they live all perfectly fine! What is wrong with the puffers?

It sounds as if they suffered shock from a drastic change in water parameters. How were they acclimated?

Do you know what water parameters they came from?

Do you have a test kit to test your water parameters? If so what are your readings?

Unfortunately I don't have a test kit to test my water parameters! My second puffer died today, I slept and when I woke up he wasn't moving his fins anymore and part of his body turned into yellow! Still can't handle it... I don't understand what went wrong! Are they really so difficult to keep? I've neved had trouble with anything else before....

Were they removed from water in the bagging process at the store or in your unbagging to put in the tank? If yes, did they suck in air? I have seen air causing death in as little as a few hours (granted I can't say if they had same thing happen when they went into store tank)to a week later. It is almost amazing how few fish shops know that you can't take a puffer out of the water, I have taught several local shops this.
Anytime people have watched me move a puffer I always get asked why I don't just net him out, instead I chase them into a container that I can keep water in with them.

I removed them and put them in a new tank with new water

Sounds to me like they were placed into an uncycled tank?

Well actually I removed them from the bag and placed them inside the water and they were swimming for a few minutes... But then 1 started acting as if he was about to have a heart attack... and staying still and wouldn't move that much! It was breathing heavilly.... The other one was also sitting still on the bottom but not acting so weird... So I removed one of them and put them in a second Aquarium with new water just to see if it will look or act better... Guess what, It didn't he just stayed on one spot moving it's fins but not even doing any effort to breath... Then the one that was breathing heavilly died 12 hours earlier when I came back from work he was just lying there.... and the second one was also like in a coma but moving it's fins... and passed away this morning.... Still can't believe it... I didn't even felt like going to the PetShop asking them what I did wrong.... All my fishes have been with me for years and only these 2 Puffers died suddenly after 1 day of me getting them....

Richie47 wrote:All my fishes have been with me for years and only these 2 Puffers died suddenly after 1 day of me getting them....

sorry for your loss, but a proper test kit is probably the only thing that might have shed some light on these deaths (or prevented it)