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Porcupine Fish Behavior Change

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:04 am
by Nickdavey126
1) Your water parameters - pH(8.0) Ammonia(0), Nitrite(0), Nitrates(20) and salinity (1.025).

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants.
Size (75 gallon)
Inhabitants - Porcupine Fish (3 inches), Chocolate Chip Seastar, Pencil Urchin and 2 Hermit Crabs.

3) Feeding (5 days a week with one feeding session done during those days. I typically feed squid, clams, snails, octopus, shrimp, cuttlefish, blood worms (on occasion), and Carnivore Diet frozen food), water change schedule ( weekly 10% water change) and a list of all products you are using ( Instant Ocean salt, Prime, Vita Chem)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference. ( I have not made any changes)

5) How long the aquarium has been set up ( About 4 months with the fish being added about a month ago ( Late May), and how did you cycle it (I used seeded media and sand
and after a week I added the hermit crabs and fed them to produce an ammonia source, I then slowly added the sea stars and urchin and eventually the fish)

Hello ! You guys are always so helpful so I thought I’d come here again to try to get some insight on something that I observed this morning, I will try to keep it short. Yesterday I fed the fish and then a couple hours later I did my weekly water change per usual. When I woke up this morning the fish seemed to be acting a bit off. It was swimming around as usually but seemed to ignore me (which isn’t typical) and also seemed to be breathing a bit heavier with its mouth open. I immediately thought it was water quality so I tested it and got the typical readings I tend to get each week. I then got out the ammonia test kit (API liquid test) and tested the ammonia and got a reading of 0. I was a bit stumped, but I ended up adding some prime , and changed out the filter pads sooner than usual to try to give some possible relief. Some other things I thought about is maybe she’s just too full ? Her stomach still looked a bit large and I have to admit she had quite a few pieces of raw shrimp yesterday, I may have over fed her , I’m just not exactly sure what is happening. Should I may be try another water change today or just let her be ? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Re: Porcupine Fish Behavior Change

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:32 pm
by Pufferpunk
You may be correct in thinking the fish ate too much. I'd try to get that nitrate down. Are you running a protein skimmer? How much live rock is in there? How deep is the sandbed? How large is the fish?

Re: Porcupine Fish Behavior Change

Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 9:01 am
by Nickdavey126
Pufferpunk wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:32 pm You may be correct in thinking the fish ate too much. I'd try to get that nitrate down. Are you running a protein skimmer? How much live rock is in there? How deep is the sandbed? How large is the fish?
Thank you for the reply , the fish is currently back to acting normal but I will be doing a series of water changes over this week to help with the nitrates, I’m also hoping to get a bit of macro algae in the aquarium as well. To answer your questions 1. I am currently not running the protein skimmer as it decided to stop working I am looking for a replacement, 2. Id say maybe around 20lbs of rock in, 3. The sand bed is about an inch to an inch and a half deep (Carib sea is currently what is being used) , and lastly the fish is about 3 inches and is the only fish in the aquarium.

Re: Porcupine Fish Behavior Change

Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 8:18 pm
by Pufferpunk
For a fish that small in a 75, you shouldn't be having nitrate issues. Possibly overfeeding? Are you stirring the substrate before WC? Rule of thumb is 1 1/2-2lbs LR/gal. Are you running FW filtration?