Dragon Puffer fish

I have in the last week rescued a Dragon Puffer which was living in terrible conditions ,about four inches of dirty water with a pump on it's side with a dog drinking water from the tank.the fish was apparently feeding on earthworms. I have cleaned the entire tank added an air diffuser replaced the substrate with sand and made the tank puffer friendly (I think),I added some disease control formula(interpet),I have even added a tankmate (food) in the form of a small fish.the fish in's self seems to have picked up a bit in health but after 5 days I haven't noticed it eat anything ,food offered ,prawns,tankmate,worms,small amount of bloodworm,aquatic snails,mussels all to no joy. any help or direction would be gratefully received.

 

Welcome to FishLore! Hope you find the site as enjoyable and informative as I have over the past year. Lots of good fish-keepers here willing to help you out all you have to do is ask. Advice is free, patience a virtue and having fun while learning mandatory. You will soon learn that your “spell checker” doesn’t know fish and our chemistry class is easy and the only testing is done by you.

Did you rescue the dog too! Please take time to read up on the Nitrogen Cycle if you don't already know about it. It is required reading in our hobby..........

 

Welcome to fish lore! I'm sorry but I'm not to familiar with the puffers but there are a lot on here that are. I would highly recommend heading over to the puffer section of the forum and ask some questions of the experts there.

 

Welcome to fish lore! I'm sorry but I'm not to familiar with the puffers but there are a lot on here that are. I would highly recommend heading over to the puffer section of the forum and ask some questions of the experts there.

I agree with you. First welcome! There should be a puffer sub forum so I recommend starting a thread there and asking for help. I think this is the link of the puffer sub forum

 

Good morning and Welcome to Fish Lore!

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Thanks and best wishes for your fish.

Ken

 

Ok, so I'm no expert on Puffers - let's just make that clear

First - congratulations on rescuing a fish in poor conditions

Second - Welcome to fishlore

Your profile indicates you don't know about the nitrogen cycle (as many of us didn't when we joined fishlore), so please take some time to read up on the cycle.

but I'm curious, how much of the existing setup did you clean/replace? The reason I ask is that you may have unknowingly 'thrown the baby with the bath water' so to speak. Don't stress, it's not the end-of-the-world, we can help you to accomplish what you set out to do.

Depending how much has been replaced, it may have removed a lot of the beneficial bacteria that was keeping your lil guy alive (refer nitrogen cycle). But again, don't panic, there are steps you can take to help lessen the burden on the lil puffer (I love puffers, they're very cute)

Do you have a test kit? We generally recommend the API liquid tests, particularly the master kit, which has all the tests you need, but I appreciate these can be expensive. Many local fish shops (LFS) will test your water for you, and of particular interest is ammonia and nitrate (good to know nitrItes too, but not 100% required). Again refer to the nitrogen cycle.

Next is looking after your guy (or girl) that you've galantly rescued, while the tank is (most likely) cycling, a good quality water conditioner that helps detoxify ammonia. Seachem Prime or Kordon Amquel+ are your best bets here, and a regular water change schedule will help

In my signature, you'll see a link to fishlore references that I've found useful, in there is a link to guidelines on using a product called Tetra Safe Start, read this guide, and follow the directions for what we call a fish-in cycle.

Best of luck.

And again, congrat's on the rescue, don't be disheartened, you've done the right thing, and we'll all help you through this.