I have a green spotted puffer fish in my 10 gallon tank. He's not any bigger then 2 inches. Well the past few weeks hes been acting way differn't. There are times we think he is dead. He'll be sucked to the filter then a little later be swimming around. Besides this he has now lost a lot of weight. It actually looks like hes shrinking, or shriveling up I love this little thing but i feel bad for him. I need to know if he is dying or sick or being normal. I don't know. If it helps I have a pleco and a dragon fish in there with him. All have gotten along fine for several months before this... please help me!
Deborah
Hi Deborah
I've been looking over your other posts and I'm curious about what sorts of tanks you keep. I'd love to hear about that 110g
As for your puffer, the other posters are right when they say that the GSP should be kept in brackish water. However, at 2" he shouldn't be this sick from lack of salt or even from being in too small of a tank. (By the way, "normal" for a GSP should be a fish that is lime-colored and lime-shaped! He should also be swimming around and looking carefully at everything before taking a bite from it
)
The first question that I have to ask is: did you add any new fish to the tank in the last month or so? Most sudden illnesses are caused by the introduction of new fish that are sick but don't show any symptoms. It might be that you accidentally infected your puffer with some sort of internal parasite without realizing it.
If you haven't added any new fish to the tank recently, then the problem is probably due to improper feeding. A lot of stores that sell puffers don't realize (or don't care) that most puffers won't eat flake foods or pellets like other fish. Other stores will tell you to feed your puffer feeder fish--this is 100% bad advice for a GSP.
If you can, pick up some frozen fish food from a PetSmart or a Petco. Frozen bloodworm or shrimps would be the best choice for food to get your puffer's attention. You should also ask them if they sell "ghost shrimp" at your LFS; "ghost shrimp" are inexpensive shrimp that stores sell as fish food. Since the natural food of your GSP is all sorts of invertebrates such as snails, shrimps and crabs, "ghost shrimp" are a great treat
I will warn you that pretty much all fish love to eat ghost shrimp, so you might want to get a dozen or so
One last thing that you can do to help your puffer feel better faster is to remove the pleco from his tank. GSP are very sensitive to waste levels and a 10g is a pretty small tank. All plecos, even the smallest, produce enormous amounts of waste and can really strain the effectiveness of your filtration system. "But what about the algae?" First of all, most plecos really aren't that great at eating algae and secondly, unless you have a planted tank, algae is your friend! It might not look beautiful but algae is very effective at removing waste from the water column--even nitrate, which is typically ignored by most true plants. Too much algae is a sign that there is too much waste in your water and that you need to increase the amount/frequency of your water changes. Its much more effective to increase your water changes than it is to add yet another fish if you need to decrease the amount of algae in your tank
I hope that some of this helps you and your puffer! Keep us updated, 'k Deborah?
