P puffer refuses to eat

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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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.
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Brooke.Kx
Puffer Fry
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2022 12:33 am
Location (country): Hello,
I have a fresh water dwarf puffer fish that is refusing to eat. He/she looks extremely skinny and hardly swims. Two days ago everything was just fine but it was still skinny then. Today he/she was sitting on top of the heater in the tank. I have replaces the heater and adjusted the heat because my water felt cold. It seems to be at a better temperature now, but my puffer has turned down bloodworms, brine shrimp and snails for about 4-5 days now. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do? He/she is getting picked on by my other fish now because of swimming slower and having less energy.

P puffer refuses to eat

Post by Brooke.Kx »

My dwarf puffer fish is refusing to eat. I have only had him for about 2 weeks and have only seen him eat twice. He is extremely skinny and has now turned down snails, bloodworms and brine shrimp. Does anyone know what I can do to help him? He’s hardly swimming now and I did notice the water was somewhat colder than usual so I replaced the heater and readjusted the temperature but I’m very new to owning fish and am not sure what else I can do. He’s starting to get picked on by my other fish because he is sluggish and lethargic. I have not done a water test but he is in a tank with about 10 other fish that are more than fine.
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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
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Re: P puffer refuses to eat

Post by Pufferpunk »

Please answer all the questions above, in red.
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!"
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