Is my fish dying- small puffer fish?

4 responses so far ↓

• 1 Sarah // Nov 10, 2008

  Sounds like he might have a parasite, which could be causing him to want to scratch his head on the gravel. This is called Ich, and you should go to your pet store immediately and start asking for treatments they have for him, or else the whole rest of your tank could get infected, though it probably already is.

  This could also be that he has swim bladder disease, and is trying to dig his head into the bottom to stay down. This happens when fish go up to the surface for food, and end up inhaling oxygen, which goes into their body in bubbles, and can cause them to not be able to swim. To stop this from happening, feed your fish a cooked shelled pea once or twice a week, and especially some sinking foods like frozen or live brine shrimp, meal worms, and blood worms that come in cubes, when frozen, so that the heater will separate it fast, and the filter will push the pieces of food around your tank.

  This could also be a problem with your actual fish. Did you get it from a pet store that is not well-taken care of, or a tank that had dead/sick fish in it? If so, you need to know that your fish is probably sick.

  If this is not the case, and you've had him for a while, and he's just been recently acting this way, then it could be one of the problems above, or it could be that you have not remembered to condition his water lately, last water change, so he is right now breathing in, and living in the chemicals, and the heavy metals that populate raw tap water.

  Test your water, and see how it's doing. You should do a 25% water change if the results, even one is a bit off, like the ammonia for example. Test it again, if it is not perfect, then do another 25% water change. You should be buying water conditioner from your pet store, and you should be pouring that water in whenever you do a water change.

  As well, your Puffer fish NEEDS salt in his water. You should be putting one tablespoon of salt per 10 gallons of water. If you do not do this, and just keep him in raw fresh water, then he will become very fragile, and just one increment of the nitrate levels going up might in fact kill him.

  Good luck!

• 2 Suz e Q // Nov 10, 2008

  What kind of Puffer is he? That’s very important. If he is a figure 8 or green spotted puffer he may be looking for food. They eat snails, frozen blood worms and brine shrimp. They will NOT eat flake food.

  Also, they require brackish water conditions. If they don’t have salt their life span will be cut short.

  If you are doing all these things it could have a parasite. It is very common in these fish because they are caught in the wild.

  I suggest you do research and find out what kind of puffer it is. If it’s dwarf puffer they do not require salt.

• 3 mitch_ewing23 // Nov 10, 2008

  they prolly have a parasite maybe ich because i had one without knowing they are brackish water fish which means they need a little salt everyday. After about 2 days it died i had ich. I’ve heard this happen to a lot of people with “freshwater” puffers. Just a heads up

• 4 Elephant0628 // Nov 10, 2008

  If you have sand in your tank he is just trying to easy his body. Puffer fish really like to go under sand and fine substrate to hide and ease their skin. My puffers do it all the time. If you have gravel and your puffer is doing this then there may be two problems, either you do not have a good hiding place for you puffer or he has probably been infected with a skin disease. The skin disease can easily be treated with medicine.