HELP awoke to dead fish

[dne63]

This morning when I awoke my porcupine puffer that I just got 3 days ago was belly up {dead} . When I first brought him home he was very sluggesh but I figured that was to be expected , the next day he was about the same but about 6pm or so he seemed to really perk up and was very active then yesterday again he was very sluggesh so this morning when I got up as I said he was dead, I had him in a 40g hex tank with a coral beauty so the first thing I did {after disposing of the puffer } was to test my water again and there was a dramatic change in the results. My PH was at 8.0 my NO3 was at about 2.5 or 3 and my nh3/nh4 was at .25 but my NO2 was at .25 so in fear or loosing my angel I change at least 50% of the water which right away brought my NO2 level back down to 0. I dont know enough about sw puffers yet to know if those levels would be enough to cause this to happen or if maybe I just got a sick fish to begin with. I have kept BW puffers for 2 years now and have had bad luck with the figure 8s but have yet to have any problems with ceylon of snow flakes.
If anyone can help with a bit more knowledge or advice as always I'd be grateful, Dave E

 

[Sk8r]

Test water before adding your fish, and if a fish or coral is looking 'off', test the water again. I keep fish and corals, and my nitrate is 0, ammonia 0, alkalinity 8.3-11 range, salinity 1.025, temp 80. Don't know if that NO condition preceded or followed the demise, but if it preceded, and he had any trouble, I'd be suspicious it contributed. The puffers may be more sensitive than the eels or angels.

 

[Billybeau1]

What do you keep your specific gravity at ?

How did you acclimate the puffer ?

 

[dne63]

Specific gravity

Specific gravity

I keep my sp. gravity at .022 to .024 and as far as testing my water before adding him to the tank all my levels were at 0 except my ph of course and it was at 8.0 . I slowly acklimated him to the tank first by allowing the temps to equalizing and then by slowly adding some of the tank water into the bag I brought him home from the store in over the course of ahlf an hour too 45mins , same as I did for the angel and he seems to be doing fine.

 

[Billybeau1]

Well he could have just been sick when you bought him is my guess.