my puffer dying!

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PufferNewbie

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Apr 16, 2003
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i just went home for 9 days but left my puffers in my room... I talked to my LFS and apparently they dont have any snails or ghost shrimp so i ended up getting 3 feeder fish instead..

i just came back yesterday and ****.. all 3 feeders alive and kicking... my puffers been starving all these time ( one figure 8 + one green spotted) and worst of all, the tank is FULL of ich!!

my figure 8 barely moves around now with ALOT of salt-like spot!

i quickly clean did a water change using a gravel cleaner and added some maracide...

what else can i do?

( i live in campus so i dont have any " hospital tank" ) :(
 
Goldfish? Baaaad idea!!! :rolleyes: They are full of diseases, as you can tell. Maybe having fish in a place you can't care for full time is a bad idea too. What are you going to do in the summer? Ok, enough of the berating. ;) Raise the temp to 86-87 degrees & add a tbsp of salt/5gal (if there's no salt in there already). Do an 80% water change every other day. You don't need a hospital tank, the parasite has affected all the fish & is living in the water column. Be carful with all meds, as puffers are scaleless fish. Use at 1/2 recommended dose. How large is the tank?
 
Are you sticking your tounge out at me? I'm not the one that left my precious puffers for nine days with 3 disease-ridden goldfish. I was trying to help you.
 
Originally posted by PufferNewbie
i just went home for 9 days but left my puffers in my room... I talked to my LFS and apparently they dont have any snails or ghost shrimp so i ended up getting 3 feeder fish instead..

i just came back yesterday and ****.. all 3 feeders alive and kicking... my puffers been starving all these time ( one figure 8 + one green spotted) and worst of all, the tank is FULL of ich!!

my figure 8 barely moves around now with ALOT of salt-like spot!

i quickly clean did a water change using a gravel cleaner and added some maracide...

what else can i do?

( i live in campus so i dont have any " hospital tank" ) :(
Click to expand...

you fed feeder fish to puffers...baaaaaaad idea. =(
 
yea, not really a good choice feeding em the feeders, would have been better off feeding em real good and just letting them fast for the 9 days (especially since they didn't eat the feeders). fish can naturally go a pretty good amount of time between meals. I guess the auto feeder never panned out?

all you can really do now is ride out the ich life cycle. doing what pufferpunk suggested is your best option, but you must be rigourous in your water changes to remove the free swiming cysts. what is your current salinity? is there any salt in the system to start with? I assume there has to be some kind of salt since this is the brackish forum, but we need to know a little more specifics.
 
MELAFIX! MELAFIX! MELAFIX!
That is the only kind of meds I have ever used on any of my fish.
I agree about the goldfish. NOT GOOD!
If any feeders are used guppies or silversides (silversides rare to find live at LFS). Of course Silverside are way to big for puffers unless you have a full grown puffer (4+ inches)
What is the salt level?

What I would have done is bought some crabs, shrimp, and snails.
The shrimp would have been eaten first. then when they were all gone the puffers would eat the crabs or snails which are a little hard to get into, plus the crabs are a little smarter, they hide and can some what protect themselves for a little while.
 
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Loading a tank with live food for fish such as puffers is not the best idea just prior to a vacation. It has happened all too often that the puffer goes on a rampage and kills much or all the live food without eating it, then the decaying "food" overwhelms the biofilter and fouls the tank. Just the addition of significant live food itself can do the same - such as three goldfish of any size added to a 20 gallon tank previously housing only a puffer.
 
Robert, I thought the same thing. I just realized this is the same guy that we had a long thread with about what to do when he went on vacation. We all tried to help him with good answers & the conclusion was to get ghost shrimp & snails, or feed well & leave alone for 9 days, or get an automatic feeder. Goldfish wasn't even mentioined. Why even ask us?
 
yeh i was trying to plan it out during my finals but since i dont have a car yet i didnt really had a chance to go around looking to buy an autofeeder and rig it .. i did say i would get a bunch of snails/shrimp.. but i end up only having time to go to one fish store ( wrote my last exams on 2 pm, done packing at 5pm, bus at 6:30pm, my orginal plan was my mom coming up to pick me up *3 hours away*, and she would drive me around the different LFS looking for some snails or shrimp or what, but we ended up having a snow storm here so i had to rush to take the bus home while i still could * 47cm worth of snow mine you. .. and its stilll snowing now, yes in May* )

and as i said on my first post i asked for snails and shirmp and they had neither, and the LFS suggested the feeder. ( since im still new in the fish business.. and when i asked him if my puffer will actually kill it.. he said he would demonstrate and threw a feeder into a tank of 3 green spotted thats about half the size of mine. and they chased after that feeder immediately)
so as desperated as i am i had to grab the feeder and hope for the best.. and now im trying to deal w/ the consequence of my poor decision
 
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