The Puffer Forum

To answer the above questions ..
1 water ph is perfect ammonia nitrite nitrate are all perfect according to petsmart as of yesterday
I do not have any salt in the water currently
2 45 gallon tank and only one gorami named Igor
3 I feed him freeze dried shrimp for now cuz he's so tiny ( only like 2 inches long I haven't changed the water yet because it's only been up and running for a week now and only have added live bacteria and water conditioner
4 no changes have been made to the tank
5 tank has been set up for exactly 1 week now and yes we cycled it for 3 days before putting any fish in

As for my issue bagiras tummy is black and he's kinda slow in my opinion he's my first puffer ever I rescued him out of a Walmart tank n I felt so bad for the little guy
He eats pretty good like 5-8 little shrimps in the morning 3 in the afternoon n 5 in the evening
And when he eats his tummy turns white and he perks up but after like 10 minutes it turns black again n he gets all slows down
So I'm pretty worried about him

What kind of puffer is he?
"Fine" is not an answer to water parameters. We need to know exactly what they are. Get yourself an API test kit. 3 days does not cycle a tank. What kind of "live" bacteria did you add?
Gouramis are not BW fish.

How did you cycle the tank - it doesn't usually happen in 3 days unless you have used an instant start product and were maintaining the bacterial colony with an ammonia source in the period between setting up, adding the instant start and introducing your fish?

I'd guess bagira is a GSP as I don't think Walmart sells any other puffers, but it would be good to know.
Petsmart probably uses test strips rather than liquid test kits, so their "perfect" readings are probably not accurate at all.