Odd fahaka behavior?

[hybridtheoryd16]

Ok so i have had private fat body my fahaka puffer for around a year now.And in this time it has never once buried its self, even when it was in a sand substrate. It has been in a gravel tank for most of its life with me.

2 days ago it started acting really agiatated and started burying itself in the gravel. And has not come out in about 20hrs. I have checked the tanks parameters and everything is fine. Ammonia and nitrite are zero, nitrate is about 20 and the Ph is 7.8 or so. And the tanks temps is about 78. I have been doing water changes of 50-60% weekly all the time I have had it. And the last 2 days I have done a 50% each day just incase something is wrong and the test doesn't show it. It also has not eaten today which is very odd for him.

Any idea's what could be wrong all of a sudden?

 

[Fat Homer]

What size tank is he in atm? that could also be a contributing factor?

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

^ Agreed, tank size? filtration? Tankmates? diet?

 

[~ocean]

it look like the tank is big enough...

~ocean

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

Tank is 72g corner

Filtration is a cascade 1500 canister, and a emperor 280. So a 8.75 turn over rate. Tank gets weekly 60-75% WC's. All parameters are good per API liquid test kit.

Diet is raw frozen shrimp daily and live crayfish when in season 2x weekly. In the colder months he gets fiddler crabs in place of the crays.

No tanks mates. I have tried cardinal tetra's, pleco, convicts, black skirt tetra's. And all ended in a meal for the puffer.

Thanks for the help

I am currently treating the tank with prazipro. Because with the live foods there is a chance of a parasite. But no change yet. Also today is day 5 of no eating.

 

[RD.]

Because with the live foods there is a chance of a parasite.

That would be my guess. Feeding live crayfish (unless raised by yourself in a controlled environment) is like playing Russian roulette. I know someone who recently lost a Mbu from feeding live (non tank raised) crayfish.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Try live earthworms--my fahaka never turns them down.

Could you please post this up in the Hospital section of my forum?

 

[digger]

Tank is 72g corner

Filtration is a cascade 1500 canister, and a emperor 280. So a 8.75 turn over rate. Tank gets weekly 60-75% WC's. All parameters are good per API liquid test kit.

Diet is raw frozen shrimp daily and live crayfish when in season 2x weekly. In the colder months he gets fiddler crabs in place of the crays.

No tanks mates. I have tried cardinal tetra's, pleco, convicts, black skirt tetra's. And all ended in a meal for the puffer.

Thanks for the help

I am currently treating the tank with prazipro. Because with the live foods there is a chance of a parasite. But no change yet. Also today is day 5 of no eating.

My fahaka did not bury but it did start to act very strange when I did a prazi pro treatment. When you do a treatment you should leave the tank alone for 4 days then do the water change. Once the treatment is over and the water doesn't have any more meds in it he will start to come out about 3 days later. When I treated my tank he didn't eat either. Please give up dates.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Does he actually have any signs of IPs? For IPs you must soak their food in the meds. FW fish do not drink water. I'd do a 50+% WC & filter that med out of the water with fresh carbon. See if that helps his disposition.

 

[RD.]

For IPs you must soak their food in the meds.

While it may be ideal to feed food that has been pre-soaked in medication, it is certainly not mandatory when treating for internal parasites. In some cases, with certain medications it can even be counter productive, as some meds are potent enough to cause long term organ damage to the fish.

Typically I treat IP's with Jungle Parasite Clear, I've yet to run into anything that has survived a two stage treatment, and I have never pre-soaked food in that particular medication.