The Puffer Forum

i got my t. suvatti 2days ago at the lfs he looked good i couldn't see any signs of parasites or other diseases, he put up i fight to get out of the net they used to get him with. He was looking good seemed to be normal behavior of any newly introduced fish a little shy, but today it seems he cant smim upwards and looked like his nose was stuck to the bottom and had to roll over to get back into possiton, he hasn;t eat yet i offered 2 small feeders and i offered shell on shrimp twice he didnt even seem interested, what do u think could be wroung

he's currently in a 20gal 3-4" sand subtrate the tank uset to house a a small jaguar cichlid but was moved into my 75gallon so i know the water was well cycled i checked the water parameters yesterday and they were fine btw i use ro/di water and the pH is 6.8-7.2 should i raise this

and is it normal for t. suvatti to have all his fins moving constantly

im starting to worry please help

tia

That ph is a little low if he did not get acclimated to it slowly. How did you acclimate him? As long as the water chemistry is ok,(do you add anything back into the tank if you use straight RO??) and there is enuf surface movement (the fast fins could also mean fast or heavy breathing, surface tension is what is putting in sufficient oxygen), he just sounds stressed out. He doesnt need to eat instantaneously, either. Give him a day to settle in.

he bit through the bag so i tried getting him in bowl to finish the acclimation.It didnt go over well at all the whole process only took 30mins. It wasn't a slow acclimation at all. Never thought that could be the problem.

He just is like flapping his fins not really moving and doesnt appear to be breathing hard. He must just not be fully acclimated i hope.

I dont add anything to the ro/di water.

Thanks for the quick reply

RO/DI water is incapable of supporting FW aquatic life. I fear you may have been on the receiving end of some very bad advice.

Unless there's something really off about your tap water, you should be using it.

All fins moving constantly is not a sign of poor health; it is normal.

How did you cycle your tank? Could you please post your precise water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, salinity (if applicable - let's hope not) and temperature.

What kind of water did he come from? As far as GH KH and PH? If the water he came from was a lot harder, and now he went into neutral nothingville, quickly, and his other stress issues, that will do it.

Repeat and re-emphasize what Bred has already stated - straight RO water is not suited to tanks of live fish. Please correct this before the fish is injured.

Bred wrote:RO/DI water is incapable of supporting FW aquatic life. I fear you may have been on the receiving end of some very bad advice.

Unless there's something really off about your tap water, you should be using it.

All fins moving constantly is not a sign of poor health; it is normal.

How did you cycle your tank? Could you please post your precise water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, salinity (if applicable - let's hope not) and temperature.

First off i've been using ro/di water because my first tank was saltwater taht i got in june of 2004and i use it for mixing salt in the reef tank. I stared a 75gallon red belly tank in march and have been doing 25% weekly wtaer changes with ro/di water and they have been doing fine
now for almost 4months with no problems.
I've been using ro/di becuase its their and i can make it easily. Ill have to look into this more but that tank is fine. But piranhas like more soft acidic water. I dont know i'm really confused now and that tank is planted with some elodea, amazon swords, and jungle val.

Ill stop using ro/di water in the arrowheads tank for now just because of pH reasons.

The 20gallon that has the t. suvattis. was first setup in late may to be a guppy breeding/quarentine for my piranhas. I didnt like using live food so i stopped. I got i cycling with 10gallons of water change water from the Piranah tank and 10 gallons of ro/di water. Once i got rid of the feeders i made it a grow out tank for a jaguar cichlid i moved the cichlid to its new home in a seperate 75gallon just last week.
the water parameters yesterday were

ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate-10-20
pH- 6.8
temp- 79

if straight ro water is bad im very very lucky at least now i know i had no idea it wasnt suitable

Kohan, you do want to fix the water, but you dont want to do anything drastic. If your puffer is in 100 percent RO, there isnt anything good left in the water for your fish. It is too pure. Fish need minerals and trace elements for their bones to grow. (Just like using ALL spring water for your fish is bad, so is using ALL RO water. Spring water has the opposite problem. Too much of everything, which makes the water way too hard, with a pH of possibly 9.0 and up.)

So, fix it slowly. Going from whatever that the fish was in, to instant nothing, back to normal all in a few days is too much. Do about a 5 gal. water change every other day for 10 water changes or so, and check out that chemistry. Dont do actual stressful, stirring up the gravel and the whole deal, just take it off the surface.

If you tap water for some reason is insanely hard, thats when you would use some RO with your tap water. (some people use maybe 20 percent tap and 80 percent RO, depending on what your water chemistry actually looks like.

Hopefully your puffer will be ok, and hopefully I have helped explain the situation a bit better and you can understand, rather than just yelling at without an explantion.

i dont know its not 100% anything cause i have never did a 100% water change so their are still some nutrients left in th water taht was not change i hope he makes the transition im gonna go as slow as possible and check out my tap water
dang i need to buy dechlorineater

thanks for all ur help

it seems he cant smim upwards and looked like his nose was stuck to the bottom and had to roll over to get back into possiton

Is it possible that he has air in his belly?

AS PP has suggested it seem there is a possibility that it could be trapped air especially if the puffer was netted.
Read this

http://www.thepufferforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=744

As for the fins constantly moving, this is normal for suvattii. I call it their 'alert' state.

i thought that he might have air in his belly but i noticed that the desribition of what happeneds to the puffer like float upside down at the top of the tank. is the opposite of his problem. It seems almost like his nose is sometimes anchored and his tail is up in the air. Is this a sign of him trying to stay down.

edit
now that i think about how they got the puffer out with net and a normal holer he could have been exsposed to the air, he doesnt look puffed though

I think he's got trapped air. Try getting him in a net UNDERWATER, hold his tail end and point his nose skywards, then gently jiggle him about, and hopefully some bubbles will appear from his mouth.
Get back to us when you've tried that, but don'e leave it too long, as trapped air is dangerous for the fish.
Pami.

Before you torment this poor fish any further, arrowhead puffers sit like that, (nose down, tail up,) when they think they are hiding and blending in with their surroundings. Especially if he is next to a peice of driftwood or someother camelflouge looking thing. I would think 'gently shaking him about' would be more likely to have the opposite effect and further stress him out. Hasnt this guy been poked at and stressed out enuf in the past 72 hours?!?