strange gsp reaction to water change

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kcandiotti

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Aug 22, 2008
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As i have posted earlier i have 3 gsp's in a 10 gallon tank. All three are under 2 inches. (i know i need a bigger tank =p) Yesterday I changed their water, moved some of the decorations around, and refilled the tank. I filled it with more water then I have before, its maybe 1/8th of an inch from the black strip boarder around the tank. Since yesterday the fish have been swimming around with their heads up at the top of the tank... practically with their forehead out of the water. They keep swimming around like this and havent seemed too interested in food. One of them has graying of the belly near where the white blends into their yellow. When I changed the water I noticed the water i was putting in was around 85 degrees. Currently it's 83. The ph is 7.2 but beore the water change i believe i was closer to 7.6. The nitrate and nitrite levels aren't perfect, ive never been able to get them there, but they are very close... probably the best I've ever had it. Has anyone else seen this happen before? Could it be lack of oxygen since the water level is closer to the pump's water outlet and its not bubbling as much?

any help would be appreciated!
keith
 
I had this happen, I put an air pump in just in case and fed them. They stopped after a while. So idk which it was, try an air pump and also make sure the filter is functioning properly, also get rid of all algae, that also can decrease level of oxygen in a tank dramatically especially because it is a 10 gallon.
 
firstly, yes, you REALLY DO need a bigger tank, I wouldn't be surprised if that is the main cause of this weird behaviour, your looking at a minimum 120G for 3 fully grown GSPs, hopefully they aren't already stunted and will grow to their full size.

Any nitrites at all in a puffer tank are bad, being a scale-less fish, they are much more sensitive to toxins than others.

o2 could also be a problem, if the temperature was higher than previous, warmer water holds less o2, so try and air stone, and also move the output of your filter up to just below the surface so it is disturbing the waters surface.

I'm assuming due to where you have posted this you have them in the correct salinity for a fish that size, hopefully you are matching the salinity with each water change, as a change of greater than 0.002 can kill of your bacteria causing your tank to re-cycle

if you aren't already a member, get yourself over to http://www.thepufferforum.com and read the GSP articles in the library, that place has been a MASSIVE help to me and mine, fortunately I was pointed to that place before I had any real problems.

hope this helps :)
 
You absolutely need a bigger tank even if you want to keep only one of them. I had one in a 10g at 1 in. but still too much bioload. Moved him into a 30g and the water parameters all improved greatly. Also how much filtration do you have? Don't go by the ratings on the filters. Overfiltering has worked great for me.
 
I have 2 filters on my tank that filter the tank for a total of 15 times per an hour and that seems to keep conditions great along with 20% water changes every 4-7 days
 
Same here, I have an aquaclear 70 and an aquatech 15 on my 30g, cycles 14.5/hr and I change about 15g weekly. GSP is happy, white bellied and quite the little piggy.
 
Your puffers aren't going to make it in that tank I'm afraid, unless you do daily 50-80% WC. It's just too much bioload for that size tank. The symptoms you describe could be from gill damage, due to constant exposure to nitrate and/or ammonia.
 
Sorry for the delayed response, but all is well. It seems that it was a lack of oxygen causing them to act this way. I removed about 3/4 of a gallon of water from the tank so the filter would 'bubble' more. Almost immediately the fish swam over to the filter side of the tank and laid on the bottom for a nap... if the went to the far side of the tank, they went back to the top. After about an hour the swam in all levels of the tank. Thanks for everyones responses tho, its greatly appreciated.
 
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