dma1976
New member
Hi, I have a 55 gallon FO setup that I've had for close to 20 yrs. Currently I have 1 green spotted puffer and 1 yellow tail damsel. Until recently I also had 1 very large domino damsel and 2 three striped damsels.
Long story short about 2 1/2 yrs ago I went away and had a friend watch my tank, the heater stopped working and all of my fish died. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep or break down the tank so I just grabbed a few damsels and never returned them. I got the puffer a few months later, all was fine until about 6 weeks ago.
The domino became very aggressive picking on everyone and about 4 weeks ago I re-homed him. This is when I started noticing changes in my puffer. He started hiding more and eating less and his color changed to dark most of the time. After the domino was gone the puffer bounced back and was eating and swimming fine. I treated the tank with Melafix for a week to heal everyones fins, etc. about then the three stripes started becoming aggressive and circling the puffer all the time. The puffer turned dark again and spent most of the time hiding in a cave or laying curled up somewhere on the bottom and would barley eat. Needless to say they were re-homed last week. I did a major WC and rearranged the tank to give him some more spaces to explore/ hide.
I can't get him to eat. In the last week he has only eaten a few small freshwater snails. I have tried clams, scallop, shrimp (al from the grocery store) mysis, krill, live ghost shrimp, hermit crabs, snails, black worms. He's interested in them but doesn't eat. He is still dark mostly and lays around and hides. I don't know what to do.
Water quality is good, no ammonia or nitrites, I have nitrates (about 40) but they are less than they were about a month ago, pH is 7.8 and salinity is 1.020 I'll be doing another large WC today.
Thank you!
Long story short about 2 1/2 yrs ago I went away and had a friend watch my tank, the heater stopped working and all of my fish died. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep or break down the tank so I just grabbed a few damsels and never returned them. I got the puffer a few months later, all was fine until about 6 weeks ago.
The domino became very aggressive picking on everyone and about 4 weeks ago I re-homed him. This is when I started noticing changes in my puffer. He started hiding more and eating less and his color changed to dark most of the time. After the domino was gone the puffer bounced back and was eating and swimming fine. I treated the tank with Melafix for a week to heal everyones fins, etc. about then the three stripes started becoming aggressive and circling the puffer all the time. The puffer turned dark again and spent most of the time hiding in a cave or laying curled up somewhere on the bottom and would barley eat. Needless to say they were re-homed last week. I did a major WC and rearranged the tank to give him some more spaces to explore/ hide.
I can't get him to eat. In the last week he has only eaten a few small freshwater snails. I have tried clams, scallop, shrimp (al from the grocery store) mysis, krill, live ghost shrimp, hermit crabs, snails, black worms. He's interested in them but doesn't eat. He is still dark mostly and lays around and hides. I don't know what to do.
Water quality is good, no ammonia or nitrites, I have nitrates (about 40) but they are less than they were about a month ago, pH is 7.8 and salinity is 1.020 I'll be doing another large WC today.
Thank you!
