Rescued GSP

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CHBGator

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jul 28, 2006
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Last night I rescued 3 Green spotted puffer from Walmart. All 3 were in horrible condition with Ick and Fungus. The 3 fish are in different conditions unfortunately 1 looks like he is well on his way to a full recovery the 2nd is moving a bit around in the Quarantine tank and the 3rd isnt doing well at all.

Question is I have them in a 10G tank (yes I know its to small but I'm working on that) I have added Fungus and Ick cure to the tank but I was wondering if I added Instant Ocean and brought the Salinity up to the proper SG for a Brackish water enviroment would that kill or help speed up the Recovery Process?

I also need to add that it was late at night when I went and fortunately for me and the fish there were only 3 tags under the tank 1 read Bala Sharks the 2nd was Assorted potted plants and the 3rd was Algae Eaters @ $1.97 each. No where in there Display was Green Spotted puffer :D . So when I finally got assistance it was a very old employee and her guess was Algae eater which I replied "great I can use some of those" IMO all Walmart fish sales need to stop there is no way they do enough business to make it worthwhile for them to continue. I bet they kill more fish than any 5 yr old ever could.

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Keep them by themselves in a species only tank.
They are actually pretty hardy, so I shouldn't be too surprised if you save the lot.
A little bit of salk and a lot of TLC won't go amiss.
They're fun fish. Enjoy. Jeff
 
Unfortunatly 1 has passed he was belly up just a few min ago. The other two seem to be doing well tho.
 
They must have really been in bad shape then.
Could the medicine be the culprit? Jeff
 
I wouldn't feed them too much, but if I remember correctly, they like to chew and flakes won't do. Jeff
 
Congrats and nice jog on saving them, at least two of them. Now the challenge is to give them a home they can survive (and thrive) in, otherwise you'll just end up killing them at a slightly slower pace than Walmart would have done. ;-)

Green-spot puffers (GSP) can grow up to 6" and eventually will need at least a 30g tank, and likely a larger one than that. While they can survive for a short while in fresh water as juveniles, they really need brackish (strong brackish) conditions to grow & develop, and very high end brackish to full saltwater as adults. They require a variety of live foods including regular amounts of live snails in their diet to keep their teeth/beak filed down; if they don't have this, it will overgrow, prevent them from being able to eat, and kill them. I suspect you already know this but I throw it all out just in case.

As for giving them the proper water conditions, don't just do a massive water change with brackish-condition saltwater, because you'll likely send them into salt shock and kill them. Mutliple websites I've read suggest raising SG by no more than 0.002 per week, in order to give both the fish and your filter bacteria time to adust.

Lots of good info out there, places like fishprofiles.com and pufferlist.com would be places to start in your search for more info.

Good luck with them!
 
Well the 2 Survivors atm are looking better. I bought some Instant ocean and some frozen krill. The Box I bought was for 5G and I currently have them in a 10G. Don't worry I did not dump the contents of the box into he tank. I took about 4 or 5 cups of water out of the tank into a small bowl and added about 2 tbsp of the salt mix. I'm waiting on it to all dissolve in there now, I've got an airstone working in it right as I type so Ill slowly add the mix in an hour or so little bit at a time for the rest of the night. I'm going to VERY gradually over the next month or two take them towards brackish water conditions where I hope to have a 30G (Anyone near cleveland have one cheap for sale?) all set up for them. I also thawed out some of the Krill and dropped it in the tank where the healthiest one went to town on it :D the 2nd is bigger and still not in great shape but he's becoming more active. The gross part is before I left for the store when I checked on them he had a big mass of fungus moving in and out of his mouth. :( its gone now and I can see the fungus slime on him slowly starting to slough off of him mind you it still hasent been a full 24hrs of treatment. Ill keep this thread updated with Pics and notes every day or two to keep those interested updated on their health.
 
Day two and two are still alive The smaller one eats every piece of krill I put in there and I also pulled some small trumpet snails out of my 55G to feed to them which the smaller of the 2 chased to the bottom of the tank and started snacking on. Its funny to hear the snails crunching through the glass. The larger still has some fungus on him but its not completely covering him anymore its there in clumps now which brings me to a question should I net him and try to remove the hanging fungus with a Q-Tip or just let it fall off on its own? The medication said to wait 4 days to add a second dose so Ill see what he looks like in 2 more days.

Here is the Smaller one he has no more fungus on him just a few spots of Ick.
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This Is the Bigger of the 2. They don't sit still to get a good picture but you can almost make out the patches of white fungus.

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Well the Big fella kicked it now :cry: THe one left still has a few spots of ick on him but no fungus. He is still very active and eats everything I put in the tank. He even chases the gravel cleaner as I clean the tank and bites at anything that he sees that might be a tasty snack. I will be getting a 30G next week just for him.
 
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