Figure Eight Puffer Died Suddenly?

[Mystic88]

I'm extremely sad right now, my F8 just went belly up for no reason what so ever.

Yesterday he was swimming around the tank joyfully and full of life. I've been busy with papers all day so I didn't notice him not eat his food this afternoon. However, he swam up consistently today to see what I was doing.

I do weekly 50-80% water changes to make sure his water is always clean. Last water change was either Sat. or Sunday. The only thing I did different was let my boyfriend do the water change instead of me. He did everything I told him to, so I'm not sure why my puffer died.

I've had him about three or four months now. I don't know how old he is because when I got him he was about an inch and a half long--he hasn't grown that much since. I also bought him from a sketchy ghetto (literally ghetto, we were in the worst part of Baltimore) fish store.

He acted as if he was paralyzed at first and when I put my hand up to the tank, he did not respond. That's when I realized that his eyes were not responding. He then went into a coma it seems, twitching every so often. I transfered him to a mug with treated water, but by the time I transfered him I'm pretty sure he was dead.

Does anyone know why he died? Did I do something wrong? I feel like a horrible fish mommy.

I don't think I'm going to get another fish for a long while--I put so much effort into him.

Tank:
N03= 0
N0= 3
PH= 8

 

[Mystic88]

I'm also really ashamed to say that I've been keeping the F8 in a 5 gal up until now. It was meant to be a temporary home until I could upgrade to a 15 gal. I was planning on upgrading to the 15 gal this Friday. My 5 gal has a biofilter.

I also just realized that my boyfriend made the salinity of the tank 1.008 instead of the usual 1.004.

Could this be the cause of the sudden F8 death?

(Note, the N0 is really meant to mean N02 in the first post).

After this sudden death, I'm thinking about changing my tank to freshwater so that I can have two dwarf puffer fish instead in my 5 gal. Do I need to cycle the tank again for freshwater or can I just clean the tank, change the water out and introduce the little guys?

 

[Dan06]

Raising the salinity like that, I would think could have stressed him a little bit, but more than anything the rise in salinity probably killed any of the good bacteria in your filter and substrate, so I wouldn't be surprised if your tank goes through a couple mini cycles before it settles down and gets under control again.

I accidently spiked my SG once before with two F8 puffers and nothing bad happened, I just had to deal with a few mini cycles for a couple weeks.

But...like most LFS's, I bet your F8 was there in freshwater with little to no detectable SG. Many people don't acclimate properly and just toss their F8 into a 1.005 tank and the fish thrives almost instantly.

When my F8's arrived, I had a family emergency right after I got home and mine spent 5 minutes in a bag while I would drop half a tablespoon of my tank water in before I had no choice but to toss them in the tank. They were fine.. I think if you saw a spike upwards of 1.010+ you could tell your BF he owes you a new fish.

 

[Pufferpunk]

3-5g/each DP, so I'd just fo with one or get a 10g for 3 of them.

 

[Aaron89]

maybe your changing too much water in one go and taking out all the good bacteria

 

[Pufferpunk]

Good bacteria can't be removed with WC. I do 90% weekly WC on many of my tanks.