The Puffer Forum

Hey All

Some of you helped me last week with my fish's fin and so I went out and got some antibiotics to help him, per suggestion. However, before I could treat him for that, he started acting weird. First, he was sleeping all day (since we got him, he has been asleep during the day and wakes up around 5/6p for dinner). So, we checked our salt/water levels and temperature and found that the salt was very minimally low. So, we adjusted that and it tested fine.

He also hasn't been interested in food since Friday. We usually feed him every other day because we have noticed that it takes a day for his stomach to go down. Usually the day after he eats, you can see the bump by his anus and then he passes it and goes back to normal. I figured since he's so small (2-3 inches) that it was just the digestion process we were seeing.

Then, the next morning, we found him doing variations of the things attached. Some are small videos and others are images. Linked on google due to size. My boyfriend said that for a minute or two this morning he was swimming normally but every time I have seen him today, he was doing what is in the pictures/video.

Water parameters: Amonia - 0ppm PH: 7.8-8 Nitrates: 40ppm (I know these are high and we have been doing water changes since someone pointed it out in my fin post and have looked into new kinds of filtration!)

He is in a 46 gal tank by himself. The last time he ate was Thursday and it was a piece of frozen shrimp.

I thought maybe it was an air bubble. So, my boyfriend tried the burping method that we read on here but I am not sure if we were doing it right? It also looked like, while trying that, he was trying to fully puff but was unable to bring himself to full puff (which he has done before during "practice puffs" and recently did so a week and a half ago). When doing this, he held him under water and tried rubbing in an upwards motion.

We have never removed him from the tank but sometimes, he swims awfully close to the surface, especially if he thinks he's about to get fed. I also noticed the other day that there was a white piece of rock (it may have broken off from the live rock) that he kept picking up and spitting out (I guess he thought it was food?) But when he gave up after 3-4 tries, I didn't think any more of it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I tried googling vets in my area that know fish and couldn't find a thing so I am relying on the internet. I don't want to lose my little fishy ):


Pictures/Video of what he's doing:

#1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1peD2dZ ... sp=sharing
#2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f58-UB ... sp=sharing
Video #1 (this was this morning around 9am): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rEWjKO ... sp=sharing
Video #2 (about 15 minutes before writing this post): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PLbjyG ... sp=sharing

I can't seem to get the vids to work. How does his skin look?
You didn't post nitrite, I assume it is 0? It could possibly be the high nitrate making him uncomfortable.

His belly was still white. He was swimming vertically with his head towards the bottom of the tank. He was doing that all day. He also looked like he was trying to burp/throw up.

Also my boyfriend went to burp him and he didn’t seemed phased in the least bit that he was being netted (under water) to be held. And when he let him go he “sank” down to the bottom in the position shown in the photos.

This seemed like more than being uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, while I was researching what to do, he passed away ): but I would still like to figure out what happened and why so this never happens to another fish I own ever again! It was the saddest thing to watch ):

So sorry for your loss...
You could try cutting him open to see if anything is weird inside or if air comes out.