Hi. I'm new to this group, but hoping your expertise can help
A few weeks ago, I brought home a Solomon Island Midnight Puffer from my LFS. He was doing well at the LFS and had been there for several weeks.
He is in a Red Sea 300XL tank (approximately 75 gallons) that has been established for a year or so. The temperature is 79F, pH is 8.1, salinity is 1.024, nitrates are 15-20, I don't check ammonia and nitrites. I do regular large water changes, and last water change was yesterday.
His inhabitants are a squirrel fish, a small 6-line wrasse, a Valentini mimic file fish, a serpent star, and a purple lobster. The 3 fish are very docile. The invertebrates hide.
Initially when we brought him home and acclimated him, he was doing great. (I do not quarantine). He was eating well- combination of Krill, clams on the half-shell, and live grass/feeder shrimp.
However, over the last 2-3 days, he has been less active and it seems like his mouth is shut/he can't open it!
I took him out of the tank, into a small bowl to examine him better, and during this process he became very angry and all of a sudden began opening his mouth like normal! His beak is NOT overgrown. He also had a large bowel movement. I put him back in the tank, and he was doing great for 24 hours, and was eating like normal.
However, today, again he is not opening his mouth and not interested in eating. I took him out again into the small bowl, and the same process happened again. He got angry and began opening his mouth normally, and ate!
Tonight, he is again not interested in eating/mouth closed. I did dose his last meal with Selcon (as I read that puffer lock jaw could be due to a vitamin deficiency).
There is nothing growing around his mouth.
I have a huge dog faced puffer (in another tank) and am experienced, running several FOWLR tanks.
I can't find any information online regarding this weird problem, and am looking for your help! Thank you!
Solomon Island Midnight Puffer
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.
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.
-
Dadof4
- Tech Team
- Posts: 2862
- Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:50 am
- Gender: Male
- My Puffers: 1 GSP (Microfiche) RIP, 1 Monotrete Turgidus (Leon) in a 30gal. 1 Monotrete suvattii in a 40 gal FW. 120 gallon BW with 3 juvenile Dragon Gobies (so cool). 55 gal with a 2" GSP named Hank. 180 gallon being set up for a Fahaka in the next few months!
- Location (country): United States
- Location: North Wisconsin
Re: Solomon Island Midnight Puffer
Is he getting any heavy competition when you're feeding? What did the large BM look like? Just an aside, feeding krill to puffers is known to cause lockjaw but it's usually over a longer period of time. Try stopping that and see how he does.
"Darwin swings...annnnnnd a miss. Boy Jim, Chuck's suffered at the plate tonight. He's 0 for 3 and I'm not sure he's recovered from that shoulder pull a few weeks ago. I'll bet the front office is re-thinking that contract."