The Puffer Forum

my puffers go from good to great to walrus in a matter of days.... now they look foggy in color spots faded and cloudy its just strange i found them laying on the bottom of the tank just sitting there laying actually on the bottom.. when i feed them the perked up ate and then went back down and laiddown.. my levels are all where they should be... i dont get it.... tank mates are 4 glass eels 12 nerite snails and 2 pearl shrimp.. yes thats right my shrimp are not dinner yet and its been about 2 weeks... the puffers must be sick! SG is .015

Puffers? I thought you only had one with a turbo snail in a 40g?

What exactly are your water parameters? Try answering all of the questions stickied at the top of the forum so you can get the best chance of figuring out what the problem is.

they are now in there new home... i was cycling a tank for them.. they were just hanging out in the 40 while things got working.. i was talking about that in one of my other posts how i ordered shrimp and snails from arizona aquatic gardens.. i ordered 2 bumble goobies as well but they were backordered.. nitrates and nitrites are 0 ph is 7.5 alk is 300 SG .015 temp presently is 76

Ammonia?

Ugh, I've known too many people who have had issues with dead and diseased creatures from Arizona Aquatic Gardens that I'd never touch any of their livestock. Are those the shrimp and snails that are in the tank with them? Did you QT them first?

wow i always heard good things.. but hey ya live ya learn.. and yes they are the ones in there now... and yes they were qt'd the puffers have been behaving this way for over a month... i dont think its to relavent to there new home... but i may be wrong... my wife was all up set today when we got home and they were laying on the bottom.. it was her idea to get the tank and the puffers... and they grew on me alot too... so i would like to do what i can to help them.. but i have exhausted tons of time and research and there good for a few days then back to faded white and lazy behavior... i dont know if its ich or what.. i have never seen the ich.. actually do you know where i can see a pic of a young gsp with the ich so i can compare?

Ich looks like tiny round salt grains, not color faded and cloudy. It doesn't sound at all like ich to me.

How long ago did you move them into their new home? Did they acting like this before or after the move?

Do you know the ammonia levels?

they have been in for not quite 2 weeks and been acting this way for over a month amonia let me check right now

How long did you QT the snails and shrimp for?

Also, I went back and read through your original thread as much as possible (hard to read your messages sometimes, they're all one huge run-on sentence). I'm a little confused about something. You said you slowly raised their salinity after you got them starting at 1.010, correct? Is that the salinity they were kept in before you got them, or is that what you put them in when you got them and then started to slowly raise it?

i dont know what they came in, and yes i do have run on sentences. most were typed at 3 am... pet store said there was salt in the tank they didnt know how much.. so i went from fresh to that over a 5 hour period then raised gradually over time from there... the fish are fine now... it seems they get depressed when were not home.. its so wierd one minute fine and the next bad.. the snails were in qt for about 11 or 12 days...

Did you ever test your water parameters to see what they are?

5 hours isn't nearly long enough. You shouldn't up it more then .002 a week I believe.

i was under the impresion of a salinity that low with gsp's could aclimate in a few hours. and i always test the paramiters..

I could be wrong but I believe that may be too fast for the puffer's health. Its definitely too fast for the bacteria. If you raised the salinity in the tank, as opposed to in a bucket, you probably killed off most, if not all, of the good bacteria and restarted a cycle.

I know you said you had a sick F8 in that tank that died, correct? Did you clean the tank out before adding the GSPs and if so, how?

Did you test your ammonia yet?

yes i cleaned it. and i used a 10% bleach mix... and i acclimated them in a 10 gallon tank for a few hours..

as i re read your question no i didnt clean the tank between the puffers because they were together.... i cleaned the tank prior to ever puttin anything in them...... and my amonia just came back more than fine.. my fish seem to be ok at night when i am home.... but when i first arrive some times there just awful looking and behaving...

puff_puff_pass wrote:and my amonia just came back more than fine..

Do you have the actual water parameters? "more than fine" sounds fishy (pun intended)...ammonia should be 0 and nothing else. Do you have a test kit for nitrite and nitrate?