i'm new here and you guys really are so knowledgable. i need some help please!! My puffer has been acting very strange and i need some advice. i will give you as much information as i have.
when i first got my GSP about one month ago from my LFS. he is still young- about 1-1.5" long. I put him alone in a five gallon and about 2 weeks later moved him to a ten. his belly has always been dark and he seems pretty averse to the tank lighting. his tank is heavily planted and aerated. i use marine salt to create brackish conditions and have gotten mixed opinions on whether to use marine or just regular aquarium salt. i've given him a wide variety of things to eat - live blackworms, freeze dried blood worms, brine shrimp, frozen brine shrimp, and ghost shrimp so far. he was eating really for a while, but over the last week he has turned dark throughout his whole body and just sits on the bottom of the tank. i can't tell if he's eating, but the food that i put in the tank for him is not left over in the morning so i'm assuming he is. i just got the water tested at petsmart and everything looks pretty good.
nitrates - 40
nitrites - 0
total hardness - 250 (normal for my area)
alkalinity - 80
pH - 8.4 - OUCH! super high- just found that out. is a solution all i need to lower it?
i'm doing a 30% water change right now and adding amquel and will test it again in about 24 hrs to see if that helped anything.
petmart said my salinity is at .36 and they didn't know how to convert it to a specific gravity for me.
my ammonia is at .5 - is this something to be concerned about? will a water change take care of it?
when he decides to come out he gains his color again and seems fine, but he is really not active at all anymore.
since the pH is so high i'm thinking that is the main problem. PLEASE HELP ME OUT!!! i'm new to brackish water, but have been extremely successful with freshwater.
Dark GSP. Please 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.
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.
-
Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32979
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Puffers I have kept:
T lineatus
T miurus
A modestus
T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
C lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Greenville, SC
- Contact:
Ammonia & nitrites should be always at 0, nitrates <20. More water changes are in order.
Use marine salt & measure with a hydrometer.
Read the article on them on our Library.
Why do you think the pH is so high? What substrate are you using?
Use marine salt & measure with a hydrometer.
Read the article on them on our Library.
Why do you think the pH is so high? What substrate are you using?
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!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
i'm just using regular aquarium gravel. i was told that a hydrometer won't measure the correct salinity because it doesn't go low enough to measure brackish water levels. i did a water change and he still isn't doing much better. he seems to be very sensitive to the light as well. even when he swims around his belly stays totally dark. thanks for ur help so far and any other words of advice are greatly appreciated!
-
Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32979
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Puffers I have kept:
T lineatus
T miurus
A modestus
T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
C lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Greenville, SC
- Contact: