What did we do wrong? - porc 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
Megangi
Puffer Fry
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 7:49 pm
Location (country): United states

What did we do wrong? - porc puffer

Post by Megangi »

Hello

I had a porcupine puffer for over 3 years in our tank and I can’t figure out why I woke up this morning and he was gone ): if anyone has any insight that would be appreciated. We plan to completely redo and cycle the tank before getting another porc puffer so I want to make sure we learn our lesson.

When we last took the water measurements two days ago, nitrites were 0. Nitrates were a little high at 40 and ammonia was a little high at 1ppm. The ph was at 8.1. Salinity was 1.021. Yesterday we did a water change to help with the ammonia and nitrates. We also used ammolock to help neutralize it. We were waiting for a new protein skimmer to arrive in the mail.

He was in a 125g tank by himself with sand, live rock, a silk plant and a fake log.

He also as of a week and a half ago had a small piece of cotton looking ball on one spike. We tried to google and it said it was fungus so we did a 7 day treatment cycle of pimafix and melafix. Then per the bottle instructions did a 25% water change after the 7th day.

After the water change last night to help fix his levels, we went to bed and he was still “chasing” us around his tank and seemed in good spirits.

However, we woke up this morning and he was gone. Laying in the bottom of the tank with a black tail. ):

Previously we had dewormed him and treated for parasites (around the time we got him). Last year he appeared to have lock jaw but we were able to force feed him vitamin soaked foods and his jaw healed/he was able to eat again.
User avatar
Pufferpunk
Queen Admin
Posts: 32755
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles
Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: What did we do wrong? - porc puffer

Post by Pufferpunk »

ANY amount of ammonia is toxic. How much live rock is in there? Do you have a sump? What is your water change schedule?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
Post Reply