I just had to put my freshwater Twin Spot puffer to sleep and it's permenant rest.
The cause of the fishes death is part the lfs fault, and mine.
I had seen the almost 8 inch Twin spot puffer for the first time at the lfs. I fell in love wth him, had to have him. They said to me, he is an extreemly aggressive fish and can not be kept with any other fish. I felt so bad for him because he was in a tiny tank, mabye about 8 gallons. The water was dirty. I was ready to accept the facts about him and had a 50 gallon tank that would be his only.
I asked the fish store to hold him for me, (I paid $100 bucks for him). I needed them to hold him because I had a total abdominal hysterectomy on December 9th and some tanks needed to be converted and moved around before i could take him home. Here I was 3 weeks post op and in a fish store, the geek I am and wanted this fish badly - but couldn't take him for a couple weeks at least. 3 weeks became 5 weeks before I could go get him - I did the best I could with my physical limitations.
I was all happy to bring home my Twin Spot puffer. Went to the store and found him lying on the bottom of the tank. I asked one of the workers what happened. He said that he has been like that for the last coule days and hasn't been eating. Then he proceeded to try to blame customers for teasing him and saying "That is why we don't like to hold fish for people". I was devestated and was tempted to pick a fight by saying, why - because most fish that come to the store are already stressed and sick and you had this guy in a tiny tank and filthy and they wouldn't move him for me when I asked.
I also understand, to some small extent why they didn't move him. That is because he would eat fingers of customers if they stuck them in the tank. But people ignorance of fish is a whole other discussion.
I brought the little guy home, that I named smiley when I first met him. I gave him water change, added some salt to reduce stress, put air line in there and some raw shrimp which he used to love, I used to feed him at the shop. And even put in a couple feeders. He wouldn't eat. He got skinnier and skinnier and layed on the bottom of the tank, once in a while he would dart to another corner of the tank if he was startled. I talked to him, cried at him.
Today, he made a big change for the worse. He was lying on his side, breathing patterns were very eratic and with great effort. He also had a look of death in his eyes. This poor little guy was dying from the inside out. It broke my heart, I have cried like a baby today.
I called the lfs to see if they had any other ideas....of course, nothing I haven't tried. I asked them if they knew of a way to humanely put a fish to sleep. He said to do the following.....
1) Get a zip lock bag and fill it with their tank water, make it shallow so it just covers the fish.
2) Place the fish in the bag of the water
3) Drop 2-3 Alkaseltzers into the bag of water.
I did this and it ended his suffering almost instantly. I cried all the way to the vets to have him cremated. I am so heart broken. It sucks to loose a fish or an animal. I love all my animals. My 4 dogs and my 6 fresh water tanks and 1 sw f/o tank and 1 reef tank.
Luv everyone. Putting a suffering animal to sleep is so bleeping hard. But I know it was the right thing to do.
I will see you again someday over the Rainbow Bridge, my little smiley man. I wanted you so bad. I am balling my eyes out and my heart is broken. I only had him home a couple days. At least he died in a clean fish tank and loved.