The Puffer Forum

Hi
I have posted about my F8 before but I am getting very worried about her and I am wondering if anybody has any ideas as to how I can help her.
I have had her for 2 years and she lives with 2 brine shrimp and quite a sizeable colony of snails in an 18 g (US) tank
sg 1.004
temp 27'c
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 12.5
Ammonia 0
pH 7.5

She has always had quite a wide open mouth and I had assumed it was because of her long teeth.They filled her mouth space rather than hanging over her front teeth like a lot of the photos I have seen! After 2 failed attempts over a period of time, I finally managed to clip her teeth successfully and was looking forwards to her being able to eat her snails again and hopefully feel more comfortable,.
Well unfortunately I clipped too much tooth off, and although she came round quickly and was behaving normally, she wasn't able to close her mouth and eat properly. After a week of her struggling to eat with no improvement with her mouth closing, I put her to sleep again to check her mouth for any sharp bits etc, Her bottom teeeth looked normal but there is very little visible on her top plate so I have obviously way over clipped her teeth There were no sharp bits or anything obviously wrong to stop her shutting her mouth but I wasn't able to close her mouth even by gently pushing her jaws together.
She woke up again fine , but was still not able to eat properly although she could manage a little bit of well chopped mussell meat.
Unfortunately in the past few days she seems to have got worse, she is now panting quite badly, is hiding away a lot of the time and doesn't look at all happy. Her mouth is wide open and she now doesn't even seem to be trying to eat. I have tried her with her favourite brine shrimp, bloodworm, fresh and frozen, cockle ,mussel and deshelled snail ( a disgusting job!!!)
She doesn't look horribly skinny yet but obviously she can't go on like this!!
What on earth have I done to my poor little fish???!!!!
She has always had quite a varied diet but I am wondering if she has some kind of jaw abnormaility or lock jaw or something.I bought some vitamins for her but as she is not really eating I have added it to the tank water but I am not so sure that will help her very much.
To make things worse, we are going away to Luxor in 2 weeks time and although my fish sitter will feed the fish and keep an eye on things, I can't bear the thought of her suffering long time.
Any suggestions would be very welcome
Thank you
Sue

What is the aeration like in the tank? If there is little surface agitation, it may be that the dissolved O2 is too low, hence panting.

Its a jewell tank with its own in built filter which seems to be pumping well. I also have a bubble disc running for several hours a day which I would have thought would give some extra oxygenation. The only thing that has changed recently is the population of snails. Someone one or two tolerated the brackish water and are breeding like mad, I left them becasue I assumed once her teeth were clipped she would eat them!!
Sometimes she seesm to just slowly swim/drift around the tank, other times she sits on the botom looking sad and this evening she has been slowly cruising around the surface so maybe there is an oxygen problem
What else can i do to make sure she has enough oxygen. I am changing the water in her tank twice weekly at the moment (50%) becasue I am feeding her quite frequently ( tiny amounts) int eh hope that she will eat something. The snails and shrimps think its Christmas!!! but I am more concerned with my puffers health than theirs!!
Sue

Yeah if fish are cruising around the surface, it can mean O2 defficiency, as most O2 will be at the surface. Have you got the juwel pipe that aims water up at the surface?

I do have a jewell pipe but its not pointing up , more to the side , I will go and pull it apart and give it a good clean out, she normally cruises the water flow so I put it in a position to give her a good ride
Thanks
Sue

Assuming the possible o2 problem(the odd behavior just might be quirks the fish is taking on since she can't eat) has nothing to do with the jaw problem, I'd say either it's lockjaw, or the teeth are now too short to touch each other when she fully closes her mouth, making swallowing difficult. If it's the length of the teeth, it should resolve itself in time, though you might have to force feed if she can't eat enough to stay alive till then. If it's lockjaw, a product of vitamin deficiency and most common in porc puffers, force feeding with vitamin suppliments is the only known remedy.

I can't imagine having to force feed her, she is a very nervous fish and goes ballistic when I try and catch her, I will watch her and see how she goes. Do vitamins in the tank water have any benefit at all?? The bottle says it can be added to food or water but I know these products don't always tell the truth??!!
Sue

I have added a few photos of her into my gallery.taken tonight, they are not brilliant, she is pretty camera shy right now so I had to take them with my camcorder and lift the ones that I thought best showed her mouth .
She is swimming more this evening but I haven't seen her eat anything today
Sue

sadly she now doesn't seem to be able to see anything , even when I put my hand in the tank, she didn't seem to know I was there . She is just drifting with the current now.
My poor baby
I can't say as I am looking forwards to the morning!!

Oh dear I'm so sorry to hear things are going badly. I would lowere the temperature to help with the O2 levels in the tank as a lower temp holds more available O2 and aim the outflow pipe up to the surface to increase the surface area of the water. As for vitmains she needs to be fed them rather than just added to the tank, looking at the picture I would suspect its lockjaw if her mouth is like that all the time

Sadly my precious little puffer has gone to puffer heaven
I found her on her side not breathing this morning, at least she isn't suffering anymore !
I would guess from her behavious last night that she had a stroke or something but I guess I will never know.
We will never forget our precious fishy. Its a very sad day today
Thanks for all your support and help
Sue

sorry about your loss

Sorry it went so bad for you

So sorry to hear that