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Help! - Mbu not eating!!

3K views 15 replies 5 participants last post by  Rastapus 
#1 ·
Hey everyone.. as most of you know ben_mbu and I have a mbu puffer fish named Kaleeko. He has been acting pretty strange recently.. he hasn't eaten for 3 days. We put a cray in the tank.. and needless to say the cray is still alive. We have not changed anything recently.. other then the light schedule.

Test results from last night
pH: 6.4
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: 50>20
Nitrites: 0
KH: 4 drops to yellow (soft)
GH: < 20mg

The only thing that I can possibly think of is the KH, GH and maybe pH but they are all stable and Kaleeko has been in these water parameters for almost a year and hasn't had any problems until now.. is he possibly becoming more senstive, or possibly sick??:confused::confused:
 
#2 ·
Tetraodon mbu are harder water fish preferring GH in the 10-15 dh range. 20 ppm is very soft still. It may or may not be a factor with your issue but I would fix it regardless. This in turn will adjust the pH up a bit which is a good thing. These guys are wild caught so it is best to give them similar water parameters to what they are used to .
 
#6 ·
Crushed coral will only adjust the pH. Take a look at my sticky on this subject under my sub forum. Many hobbyists rely on crushed coral to maintain their water. This is where the problem starts, it creates stability to pH but as I have been trying to get across for many months now, pH is not our problem but problems in pH is caused by the hardness problem. Many hobbyists are fixing the symptoms, not the cause.
 
#8 ·
Salt will raise GH effectively. We use marine salt to take advantage of the minor trace elements in there as well. Remember these guys are found in Lake Tanganyika as well so they are used to some salt. Another option would be to move to another province, bit drastic though.:rolleyes: This is a localized BC problem.
 
#13 ·
What I found with my Fahaka was that as he ages he seems to be less voracious. He went through a good period where he didn't eat much at all. Also have you upgraded his tank yet? Maybe he is unhappy with his tank size? I know when I upgraded my fahaka to a bigger tank he became a different fish.
 
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