The Puffer Forum

my F8 puffer "bumb" is sick water qualities are good, and his friend is fine, he just seems to be sitting at the bottom of the tank and when he eats he seems to vomit his food back up (bloodworm) please help what would you do ? do you know whats wrong with him ? i dont want to loose my little buddy

Does he take some in and his belly gets round and does he then start to spit back out or does nothing seem to go down at all?

not sure he ate then a few minutes later he seemed to bring it back, you could see him like spitting out the broken up bloodworms (frozen) but about four mouth fulls came back out

are you thawing them first?

puffers may vomit when overfed. do you have a pic of your puffers?

Vomiting is not very good for your water quality. Did you check your nitrates?

Bloodworms are not good if they are the only type of food offered.

If nitrates are low (ammonia and nitrites have to be absent), the diet was varied and they are not overfed I'd consider internal parasites possible.

Overeating perhaps and coughing back up when he cant eat any more, try some very small portions or drop in a very little bit at a time and see how that goes.

sorry no did not thaw them first, ill check all the nitrates ect when i get home again, ive offered cockels and prawns, mixed and snails too but they just wont eat them

Definitely thaw everything in some tank water first before feeding. Try some Mussel, never had a puffer refuse Mussel.

"Good" isn't enough of an answer for us to help you. We need actual water parameters please (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, SG), as well as info on how often you do water changes, tankmates, tank size, etc.

Puffers need to be trained to eat a variety of foods. It can be done but takes patience.

Thread moved to Hospital section.

think ive made a big mistake ive been using aquarium salt not ocean salt, will buy some today, will it be ok to change half the water and add the new salt or should i wait a while.

adding the marine salt when you change the water is the ideal time to do it. You need to make sure it's fully dissolved before adding it to the tank by pre-mixing it in a bucket and using an air pump or better yet a powerhead to make sure it's fully dissolved. I speed the dissolving up by boiling the kettle and using the boiling water to help dissolve the salt then running it for half an hour with aeration before adding it to the tank. I have had no problems doing it this way.

You will nead something to measure the salinity, hydrometers are cheap and can be reliable if used correctly, do a search on the forums, there is plenty of posts on hydrometers. A lot of people like refractometers but they are more expensive.

have a read of this website, lots of good information and you can download a salt calculator which can be used as a rough guide to helping you calculate how much salt you need, measurement with a hydrometer or refractometer is recommended though so you can be sure what you have raised it to.

To be on the safe side you can raise the specific gravity by .002 a week this will allow the bacteria to have time to adapt to the new salinity so they shouldnt die off.

puffer up and swimming now, guess may have been the malafix and primafix plus water change but not sure, just happy to see him swimming again, thanks everyone

When using Melafix and Pimafix it can be advisable to add additional aeration to the tank if it's not already in place. If you've already got an airstone running along side a filter or couple of filters in one tank pumping out a lot of air you shouldnt have a problem.

Generaly, if a water change has perked up your puffer, you aren't doing enough of them.