Duke Silver

Here is my dude growing fast. When we first got him he was in rough shape (skinny and a "S" shaped bent spine) but we have had him for about 6 months now and has made a great recovery!

The wife was finally able to grab a picture of him with his tail fanned. He's getting so big 😍

Merry Christmas ⛄🎄 it's been a while, but bender is doing well. Someone made a pig of himself this morning and looked like Santa!

@eatyourpeas I had planned on it. I've watched all of Cory's club presentation on puffers that I could find online and I know that is always one of the big things. Also exciting news is I decided to try different food again today since it's been a while. Bloodworms he still has no interest in, but raw shrimp (as long as it was in small bitesize pieces) he was all about! This makes my life so much easier since I can just go buy this! He is a pic of his fat belly after eating 😍. I've also attached full tank shots of both his current 40b QT tank and his 125 he will be moving into.

I know its been while so I figured I would post an update. Bender is doing well, I followed up with another treatment of Prozi/Metro on 7/21. He is still eating his small snails and cherry shrimp. Wondering now if I should keep him in his 40B incase I need to treat again or if I should move him into his 125? A lot of stuff I have read says it usually best to move them to their permanent tank soon as possible.

hoping so! going to try to keep feeding the tiny snails he will eat to try to keep his teeth down and then supplement with the shrimp he likes.

Thanks @eatyourpeas I'll keep them in mind. thankfully I have a colony in a 40b and a second colony in a 20g. hoping these are just an interim food till I can get him on snails better, have a ton of ramshorns going for him if I can get him to just eat them

Welp.. discovered what he ate yesterday. found a bright red poo in the tank today, so it must have been a cherry shrimp. He ate a couple tiny snails for me today like we usually does so I decided to try a larger snail, still no luck with the larger snails. decided to catch out a juvenile cherry shrimp from one of my colonies and decided to try to feed that since most the cherry shrimp that are left in his tank are larger. Boy was I shocked when I saw how interested he was in it, he pretty much swallowed the first one whole! I did a slightly larger one after that and he took his time with this one and I was able to grab a pic. I'm super excited if this is something I can actually get him to eat since I have plenty on hand and can breed more.

Went down to check on Bender this morning after tank lights came on and he was already swimming around hunting so I dropped in a tiny snail and he went after it and ate it. I decided to try a slights bigger one, same as always. cut off a chunk of raw shrimp and thawed it for him. he went after it and actually bit it and shook it a couple times then decided to leave it alone. Decided to just leave it in the tank while I went to work (there is enough snails and cherry shrimp in the tank they will take care of it). Happily to my surprise when I checked on him after work, his stomach looks to be fuller and rounded like he was eating something. there is still the shrimp left, but idk if hot a piece off or if he has just finally been getting the snails that have been in his tank. Either way I'm super excited and hope this is the road to him getting better! 🤞

Thanks @Patrick_G I'm hoping tomorrow he eats better. At this point if I could find live blackworm I would get them since that's what PetZoneSD said they were feeding when he was in their care. Unfortunately my LFS is a PetSmart and I don't have anywhere locally to get them. I'm starting to wonder if his teeth are an issue and that's why he is only eating the small snails. I have no idea how fast their teeth grow, he is only about 1.5 - 2 inches so not sure if his teeth could be an issue this soon.

Well after doing a water change and gravel vacuuming he did eat some for me, but its still the same of he will only eat the tiniest of snails. the top photo he will eat (dont have many that size since most fahakas I've seen are ferocious eaters so in my breeding tank they are mostly larger) the bottom photo is the size of snail he will chase, try to bite it once, then just swims off. He will do the same with the cherry shrimp that are in his tank. He will see one, do the typical puffer stare down, bite at it once and usually miss, then swims off and goes what looks like hunting for more food? Im at a loss with this guy. He will even try to bite my finger if I put it up to the tank

@Odd DuckI did a water change yesterday and dosed Levamisole again , so soon as I get off work today I'm going to do another water change. 🤞

@Pacers94I second Hobbit, I would do a small water change to try to get the ammonia down.

I wouldn't change water unless there was a need for it in the water parameters. What is your lighting schedule like? if its a little green it its probably an algae bloom starting. Getting some floating plants or fast growing stem plants that will feed from the water column should help pull out some of that excess nutrients. Do you have an updated photo of you tank, would be curious to see if there has been any changes since sunday

@Pacers94 did you do the trick with the white container? after your posted pics that top shot looks like it might be a little bit green to me. Also, is there a reason your wanting to do a water change?

@Odd Duck thanks for the advice. If he doesn't eat today I will probably dose again. Should I do levamisole over the prozi/metro combo?

July 13th 2021: its been 48 hours since doing the 75% water change. Bender is being very active as normal, but still wont eat. He is still acting hungry and chasing food, but wont bite it. His poop looks even more stringy than yesterday. Not sure if this is him trying to pass some IPs. Just really thrown off because everything I have read says he should have an appetite after treating with Levamisole and he doesn't. I sat at his tank and just watched him for a while, he is only going after the snails that are literally the size of a grain of sand. I tried feeding the smallest snails I could get out of my snail tank and he still wouldn't go for them, tried crushing them for him (this worked in the past) and nothing. Even tried some frozen shrimp that I thawed, he bit it then went about his business and left it. I dont want to see him stop eating because he is still skinny and needs to be fattened up, but I'm at a loss as to what to do. Not sure if I should do another round of dewormer or just let things go and see what happens?

was able to get some pics, although im pretty sure this isnt the same bowel movement lol

July 12th 2021: Levamisole arrived and I dosed his tank on 7/10 per the instructions then blacked it out as best I could for 24hrs. On 7/11 I did a 75% water change and a gravel vac per the instructions after the 24hrs was up and turn his tank light back on. I haven't noticed any apparent signs of him expelling any internal parasites. After his large water change, he just kind of pouted in the plants and wasn't to active, but when I checked on him later he was out and swimming around. I tried to feed him as he acted like he was interested in eating. He would swim after the snails I would drop in, get right up to them, then just leave them alone. I am just chalking it up to him stilling being somewhat stressed after the meds. Today when I went down to do my normal routine He came up to the glass and seems very active, I grabbed some small bladder snails (even when crunched he wont eat pea sized snails) dropped them in and same thing. Swam up to them all excited and then just left them alone. I did see him having a bowel movement though, and it looked like 2 little black beads connected by some white string (not sure if that's him passing some IPs or from him not eating to much). I'm assuming the black beads are some tiny snails he must have snacked on at some point, but wasn't sure if the white string was from a parasite. I wasn't able to grab any pictures, but ill try to later if possible. Does anyone know if the not eating is from the levamisole? he was eating just fine before dosing his tank.

@Pacers94best thing to do is just be patient. I know cloudy water isnt pretty to look at, but water changing and cleaning the filter is going to just restart the cycle process and more than likely make the bloom worse. The white cloudiness is free floating bacteria the needs to establish in the filter, on the substrate, etc. Just monitor you water parameters and keep an eye on your fish. I wouldn't do a water change unless you get an ammonia/nitrite spike and your fish are struggling.

Easy green does contain nitrates, so that 10ppm nitrates is more than likely coming from the fertz and not actually the nitrogen cycle, which still makes me think bacterial bloom. Best bet is to just let it run it's course and it should clear up here in a couple weeks.

I would get a white sour cream container or something and pull some water out of the tank and look at it. If it is orangish it would definitely show, also do you have any driftwood in your tank? If so the orange you talk about could be tannins. Another question, do you dose your tank with any ferts?

To me it sounds like your tank is still cycling if it's only been a week and it's more than likely a bacterial bloom. To try to better help I have a couple questions 1. What color is the cloudiness? Cory mentions in a couple of his videos about getting a white container and using it to examine the water color. 2.when you say what is pretty much perfect, can you give us the exact water parameters? 3. Do you have any live plants in your tank?

that doesn't seem like a lot until you do the math lol I used a taco bar calculator and that 10.7472 lbs of meat/cheese/lettuce for 38 tacos (not including the shells) 🤯