GSP hunger strike and stress lines 1/23/08
Hey there, thanks for the great site, it's been wonderful for all my puffer troubleshooting so far. However, I do have a problem that's been worrying me. First, back-story: a week ago my impulsive roommate bought two baby GSPs from Wal-Mart, the LAST two. Needless to say they were rather unhealthy. Both the 'big' one (about an inch long without the tail) and the little one (maybe half an inch? super itty bitty compared to the first) had concave bellies and I suspected IP.
<If my "IP" you mean internal parasites, I'm skeptical. Almost all instances where non-veterinary-trained aquarists declare "internal parasites" as the reason their fish are sick or die, the actual problem is something else, most often poor husbandry of some sort or another. Pufferfish have a relatively short digestive tract, and will appear to be "empty" quite soon after feeding. Assuming that the retailer wasn't caring for this fish properly, e.g., by offering them flake food, then chances are the fish are hungry and will need a few square meals to get back into shape. But beyond that, nothing too taxing.>
My roommate soon figured out she wasn't up to the challenge of GSPs and so gave them to me. I've been doing the best I can for them (upgraded to brackish water with marine mix salt, adding a teaspoon every day or every other day till I get to a SG of 1.010, offered fine gravel and sand for digging, lots of hiding spots, keeping the water parameters IMMACULATE, 10% water changes daily instead of 25% since they're still stressed, constant water temp of 80F, ph of 8.2) unfortunately due to my dorm's strict rules they can't be in a tank larger than 5 gallons (as soon as I move to my apartment this summer that will change big time and each will have his very own much larger tank).
<All sounds good. A few comments though. GSPs are truly euryhaline fish, and the actual salinity isn't all that important. Juveniles are found in brackish water, but adults, oddly enough, in freshwater. Under aquarium conditions, they don't do well in freshwater permanently, in the sense of being more sensitive to disease. But in the short term, there's no rush to change the salinity in your tank. It's actually much more critical you make sure the filter is happy, and rapid changes in salinity can stress the filter bacteria. In my experience, you can switch the filter bacteria from freshwater to anything up to SG 1.005 without problems. But once you go above that, there's some sort of re-jigging going on the filter that means you need to be careful. For the first 6-12 months of a GSPs life, there's ABSOLUTELY no need to raise the SG above 1.005, so I'd stabilise conditions there for now. Apart from causing less stress to the filter, you'll also save money on the salt, which will mean you can do more water changes more often. Nitrate (and old water generally) is FAR more unpleasant for your GSP than salinity. The temperature is far too high: 25 C/77 F is more than adequate. High temperatures mean less oxygen and faster metabolism, two things you don't want to have to deal with in a small aquarium. I agree a 5 gallon tank is inadequate for a GSP, and my gut feeling is that even by summertime this year, that tank is going to look very cramped. Once you have the bigger tank, set it up at, say, SG 1.008 to SG 1.012, as you prefer, mature the filter, and once matured, install the pufferfish from the SG 1.005 5-gallon tank. GSPs can easily adapt to this change in salinity within an hour using the drip method (i.e., put in a third-filled bucket of SG 1.005 water, dribble in high salinity water, and once the bucket is filled, lift the puffer out and put into the new tank.>
Other than the occasional stare-down at feeding time, there's no tank aggression so
far (I guess because they're still so young).
<Likely so. Males are believed to guard the eggs (if not the fry), so it is probable that only sexually mature males become aggressive. Much like cichlids, gouramis, killifish, etc.>
The bigger one pretty much ignores the little one, and the little one sticks to the big one like glue. I know this is a total anthropomorphisation, but the little one seems to enjoy the company?
<Entirely possible. Many fish are more or less social when young, and only become territorial as they mature. Angelfish are classic examples. The "friendliness" of pufferfish does vary with species as well as specimen, so it's difficult to make general statements with this particular group of fish. On the other hand, puffers are smart animals, and likely their default behaviour does get modified by being kept in captivity. My experience is that puffers in busy tanks are less likely to become nippy or aggressive, but others have had entirely different experiences. So who knows for sure!>
Whenever they get separated he'll furiously buzz around the tank till he finds the big one, then settles down and happily follows his friend.
<Heh!>
Anyway, to get to the point, the little guys just don't really have appetites.
<Try live food, and try variation. All my puffers love bloodworms, and they also get chopped seafood of various kinds, including squid, mussels, and prawns. Brine shrimp and daphnia usually work well with small puffers. They also love live woodlice (terrestrial isopods), and these are easy to find in the garden under rotting wood and flowerpots.>
Since they won't eat medicated foods I treated the tank with fizzing IP tablets. I've been offering dried krill, Tubifex worms, bloodworms, daphnia, and brine shrimp, and not much has appealed.
<I find freeze-dried foods a total waste of time. Others have success with them, but not me. Do try "wet frozen" foods as an alternative.>
I've been combing this podunk little town for snails to feed and have only managed to acquire 5 pond snails. The bigger GSP was all over the snails and finally got a little tummy, but the tiny GSP didn't seem to know how to eat them.
<Wild GSPs likely don't eat many snails, so you may be onto a loser here. While I agree snails are a very good food item, wild GSPs are more omnivorous taking crustaceans and insects alongside molluscs. They also eat plant material and, apparently, the fins and scales of larger fish. So broaden the menu, and you're more likely to have success. My puffers don't actually like snails all that much, so I've pretty much given up on this, except in adding some Melanoides spp. snails to the system and letting them eat any baby snails they find.>
To prevent possible bullying by the bigger one at mealtimes, I have a little container that I fill with tank water and put the little guy in with choice bits. I offered all
the dried fare and several snails the size of his eye. He seemed interested in the snails, but couldn't figure out how to eat them. I crushed one for him and he pecked at it, then just started swimming around the QT till I put him back in the main tank.
<Sounds good, but removing fish to feed them is kind of a hassle. Try hand-feeding. I use metal forceps of the sort used for dissections. Cheap and easy to obtain. Most fish, even quite nervous fish, will take food from forceps willingly. Also avoids the problem of you being nipped!>
Last night I got some raw frozen in shell shrimp at the grocery store and chopped one up into teeny pieces and offered it thawed to both fish (little one in the feeding QT as before). The big one absolutely could not get enough and filled up his little tummy (much to my relief) but the little one pecked at the pieces then ignored them.
<A staple food item for my tropical fish. Do remember that prawn contains a lot of Thiaminase, which breaks down Vitamin B1, so don't use it every single day. Unshelled prawns are the best: puffers love the legs, tail fins, and seemingly the eyeballs. I eat the meat in the tails myself! Sometimes they come with prawn eggs, and those are a rich, oily treat loved by most small fish.>
I know puffers are often stressed for a bit after a big move, and I know they can survive a little while without eating, but I'm so worried the little guy is way too small to survive a hunger strike!
<Force-feeding is an option, and I have done this once to reclaim a very sick puffer. But it's a last resort sort of option. Do try varying the diet as indicated above. Once you've done that, get back in touch if you really feel the need to force-feed the fish, i.e., it's condition is obviously declining.>
Other than the concave belly, the little one is acting healthy: white tummy, no stress lines, actively buzzing around the tank, fanned tail, responsive to my approach, etc. The big one, however, has had stress blotches on either side of his mouth and a dotted stress line above his tummy (though his tummy is snow white and he acts otherwise healthy; responsive and inquisitive and etc).
<All sounds fine. The colour of the abdomen is a bit hit and miss frankly, so while useful up to a point, don't put too much store by it. What matters by puffers is their [a] activity and [b]"chubbiness". Sick puffers tend to sit at the bottom and look bony, especially around the face.>
I have tried everything I know to help. I keep the aquarium light off to lower stress, obsessively monitor water parameters, keep the water sparkling and aerated, offer as much of a variety of food that's small enough for babies (ghost shrimp are WAY too big), I'm currently growing some sea monkeys to stimulate an appetite (but they take a week or two to mature), I even got desperate and tried the holistic garlic juice food treatment, which totally did NOT work.
<Didn't work when I tried it, either.>
Neither fish has lockjaw or overgrown teeth, and I've offered pieces of cuttle bone to add to their crunchy diet.
<Not sure they eat cuttlebone. I wouldn't worry too much about the teeth just yet. Some puffers never get bad teeth, and even the ones that do, it's an easy enough fix.>
I am so sorry this is so long, but I wanted to give you as much info as possible. I've spent the majority of my time over this past week researching GSPs and brackish setups, spent over half my budget on treatments and foods and general aquarium stuff, and pretty much done everything I can think of to help. When they grow bigger I can feed them larger and more appropriate fare like ghost shrimp, but right now they are just so little.
<I think you're doing all you can at the moment.>
Please help me, I'm so worried about the big one's stress and the little one's starvation! I feel so awful for not being able to give them a bigger home yet, like I'm totally failing at my responsibility to give these guys a better life, and if they end up dying for no reason other than their 5 measly gallons, I will be crushed.
<Only time will tell.>
On a completely different note, I have a question that my research has failed to answer. The bigger GSP occasionally comes up to the glass, opens his mouth, and makes a sound that can only be described as a cricket chirp.
<All puffers seem to make noises periodically. I think it's their teeth grinding. Seems to be normal, and in fact quite a few fish make noises, we just don't tend to notice them.>
He isn't puffing, and seems to do it without provocation. Is he bored or distressed? What in the world does this mean, and is it normal?
<Yes, don't worry about it.>
Thank you for your time
~Kimberly
<Cheers, Neale.>