Green spotted Puffer Stressed?

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Pufferpunk

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That's what the hydrometer is for. It measured th specific gravity of the water sfter you add salt. Measure the water now, & bring up the salinity .002 points every weekly water change. I just add the salt into the filter stream. Eventually you'll be adding cups at a time, not tbsps.
 

Trouty

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Thanks! I think it worked. I bought a small box of Instant ocean, mixed in some water and salt and increased the salinity to 1.002. He's 10X better than before! I'll continue to gradually increase in the next few weeks. So 1.01 is ideal, correct?
 

Trouty

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ok... it's been about an hour and he changed right back to his stressed levels... Any ideas? He ate fine last week. He used to be the first one to eat. Now he's disinterested in eating although he looks full... I don't know if he's been picking up off the bottom... Sigh
 

Pufferpunk

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Puffers are wild-caught fish & a lot of them come in with internal parasites. I treat all my questionable puffers with Discomed, by Aquatronics. If you can't find it at your lfs, you can order it (& lots of other goodies) at www.bigalsonline.com. You will need to soak his food in it & feed 2x/day for a week.
 

Pufferpunk

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Some puffers puff for the heck of it. Folks say they are excercizing their "puffing" tecniques. I've never seen mine puff. Just to be safe, turn the lights off for the night.
 

Trouty

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Hey PufferPunk. That's for the support. I think I know what the problem is. I see little red string things hanging out from the gills and his fin adjecent to the gills. What type of parasite is this? I've never seen this before? What meds do I use? He doesn't want to eat... THanks for all your help. I think we narrowed it down finally.
 

Trouty

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Ok I took tweezers and we pulled out what was hanging from his gills. Didn't seem to be alive or anything. Looked like stringy grayish brown gunk. I'm going to take a look under a microscope.
 

cdawson

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puffer fish don't have gill covers, this could just be some sort of infection he got from nitrate poisoning or something (two plecos and a GSP in a 35 gal. is going to create ALOT of waste even too much for that tank). My GSP creates almost too much waste for himself and he's in a 50 gallon all by himself right now.
 

Pufferpunk

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Could be gill flukes. Like I said, wild-caught fish come with all sorts of parasites.
 
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