Sick Mbu Puffer Fish

[Nicolajane]

Hi There,

I don't know if anyone can help but we have a 3 and a half year old mbu puffer fish that has always been healthy abd fine until a few weeks ago when he seems to have started having problems with his back. He no longer seems to be able to swim, when he tries to swim upwards he falls back down to the bottom of the tank, it is almost as if the back end of him is disabled.

Initially he was off his food forabout a week but he is now eating mussels.

Does anyone have any idea what may be the problem and if it is in fact anything that can be cured?

Any advice gratefully received

Nic

 

[WILDER]

Need abit more info on size of tank in gallons or litres.
How many fish and which type.
Water stats in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,and ph.
Sounds like swim bladder does it look like his tails weighing him down.
What do you feed the fish as too many dried foods can lead to swim bladder and constipation.

http/www.pufferlist.com/puffer/freshpuff.php?puffid=8

http/www.fishtanksandponds.info/care-mai...swimbladder.htm

 

[Nicolajane]

Hi There,

Thanks for your reply.

The puffer is in a 4ft tank with around 30 fish including tetras, clown loaches and Kribensis.

After reading about swim bladder it does seem that this could be a possibility as he usually sinks to the bottom if he tries to swim.

The site mentioned antibiotics, can these be bought from a tropical fish shop?

Nic

 

[WILDER]

How big is the puffer as they need very large tanks.
Once swim bladder has progressed hard to cure.
Antibiotics depends on which country you are from, only available in the uk from a vet.
Also using a antibiotic will wipe the bacteria colony out in the filter, that why its best to issolate the fish for treatment.
Your tank well stocked, can we take a look at your water stats in ammona,nitrite,nitrate,and ph.

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

I am surprised that you can even keep that many smaller fish with this puffer. If I understand right, this is the all-to-awesome 'giant puffer', correct?

As well as the swim bladder issue, are there any odd looking 'lumps' on your puffer near the tail? Some are hard to see and will usually be on one side ro another, but I have seen one case in which both sides seemed to look the same and it was hard to tell that anything was different without looking at pictures from before.

Puffers can obviously puff up...but this is a bad thing to do. However, if they are going to puff up, they can use either air or water to do so. However, if your puffer did puff up, even slightly with air, it cannnot effectively remove the air from its body leaving it with a bouyancy that it cannot really deal with well. Could this have been the case with your fish? I know that some puffers do regularly puff, but only a little bit when they are trying to eat or if there is something going on in the tank that stresses them. It could be possible that it grabbed air near the surface.

It might also be a water quality issue, but thinking logically (or as logical as I can think), I would assume that you would be seeing other signs in your other fish. I also have a feeling that if the puffer you have and the one I am thinking are the same, your tank is basically too small, even if it is four feet long. I believe that for the giant puffer, a tank of 200 gallons, four feet long and at least 24 inches from front to back is needed to allow the puffer ample room to swim as is needed to keep it healthy and in 'shape'.