Lethargic/sick puffer

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

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.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Post Reply
alealejandroxx
Puffer Fry
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2021 3:56 pm
Location (country): USA

Lethargic/sick puffer

Post by alealejandroxx »

Hi all,

Have a tank with some pea puffers and the last few days, one of them has started to act almost lifeless. Always had a great appetite, the biggest of the puffers. Within the last week or so has become pretty lethargic and at the point where now it just lays on the bottom. Got it a little quarantine box so it can be left alone. Will just lay there and sometimes get small spurts where it tries to swim but then stops. Can’t get it to eat. I can tell he’s breathing but he just isn’t doing well overall. Stomach is sunken in. Other pea puffers are fine, still have great appetites, no changes or anything with them. Not super sure what to do with this big guy sadly. He’s gotten super skinny and almost looks like a hunchback. Any sort of advice would be awesome. Got them from a specialty fish store near me, not a large commercial one. Puffers are bred and not wild caught from what I remember.

Water parameters (using the API freshwater master test kit)
pH - 7.6 (I tested high ph as well cause I’m not sure of difference and that one reads around 7.8ish)
Ammonia - in between 0-.25ppm (not bright yellow but the slightest hint of lime)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

Tank size - 6 gal planted, 3 pea puffers total, 2 nerite snails

Feeding - bloodworms 1-2 times a day
Water change - 25-30% once a month, was advised because of my plants I don’t need to do weekly/as often
Products - water is dechlorinated with prime. Use API leaf dose for the plants once a week, small dose, around 2-3ml

Last week changes - added nerite snails. Switched from sponge filter to regular filter (was waiting on replacement part so media had been in that tank and part of the ecosystem), use filter floss to cut down to almost 0 flow, added air stone for minor bubbling since there were no more bubbles from sponge filter

Tank has been set up for around 2 months now. We cycled it with a bottle of turbo start, dosed it with a measured amount of ammonia and let it cycle itself, water was tested and given the okay to add fish to it
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Post Reply