Poisoned Tank

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pufferpuggirl
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Poisoned Tank

Post by pufferpuggirl »

Hey everyone. I have a situation I am hoping you can help me with. Last week a Cutcutia puffer I had died. He had been fine the evening before, eating and doing his normal thing. I had done a water change 2 days prior to his death. I had him for 2 years. And I thought he just died from natural causes. But then I got a replacement puffer, which was a very cute little orange Congo puffer. Next day, it was dead! I was gutted ... but obviously at this point, I know there is something wrong.
At first I couldn't think why there'd be anything to cause their deaths ... but then upon thinking what was the only thing that I had changed, I remembered. I had placed a piece of tile in the tank, to sit my sponge filter on. Thing is, the tile was used and I now believe there was chemical residue on the tile. That's what it has to be because otherwise nothing has changed in all the time I've had the tank set up. My Cutcutia has lived there happily for 2 years.

So what I did was to set up a filter in that tank with poly filter in the power filter. Poly filters are supposed to remove any chemicals from the water. I did a water change on the tank as well. And the filter with the Poly filter has been running since Sunday. My question is ~ I would like to get another puffer to put in this tank, but I want to be sure it's okay before putting another puffer in there. What I don't get is why the cherry shrimp haven't died. I have loads of cherry shrimp in that tank and none of them have died and they are behaving normally.

Should I do another water change, and how can I be sure if I get another puffer, it won't die in that tank? I don't know how long to wait before putting another puffer in there.
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eieio
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by eieio »

charcoal works for many chemicals as it absorbs them
I'd run it in addition to a poly filter
be careful to not lose the cycle of the tank by leaving it unoccupied
what are your current parameters?
monitor them carefully
water changes never hurt
idk how you can be sure if it will be safe for another puffer or any other fish, as we don't know specifically what the problem is
I suppose you could introduce several fish after "detox" as "cave canaries"
if the problem was caused by something that the regular test kits test for, then you might be able to pin it down
but if the problem is poisioning from a chemical on or in the tile, then who knows?
I wouldn't ever put anything in my tanks that I wasn't absolutely sure about
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pufferpuggirl
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by pufferpuggirl »

I know, it was a stupid decision to put that tile in there ..... sometimes people just do stupid things. And trust me, I've regretted it after losing two puffers, and two that I cannot replace so easily either.

I'm not sure what to do .... it's a lovely tank, very heavily planted, so I'd like to make use of it .... I have loads of cherry shrimp in there, would they keep it cycled, or will they not produce enough bacteria?
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eieio
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by eieio »

pufferpuggirl wrote: I know, it was a stupid decision to put that tile in there ..... sometimes people just do stupid things. And trust me, I've regretted it after losing two puffers, and two that I cannot replace so easily either.
“post hoc ergo propter hoc”, Latin for: "after this, therefore because of this"
it might have been the tile, on the other hand it may not have been the tile at all
what were your water parameters & temperature at the time of the deaths?
pufferpuggirl wrote:I'm not sure what to do .... it's a lovely tank, very heavily planted, so I'd like to make use of it .... I have loads of cherry shrimp in there, would they keep it cycled, or will they not produce enough bacteria?
the cherry shrimp will probably do the trick, and you can overfeed the tank as well
what are the water parameters & temperature?

speculation is not as good as measurements :)
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pufferpuggirl
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by pufferpuggirl »

To be honest, I haven't had to do water measurements in years. All of my puffers are doing well, so I don't actually own a water test kit. As for temperature, all of my tanks run about 80F, some just under that temp. The reason I think it was the tile is because nothing's changed in that tank for 2 years and in all that time my Cutcutia was just fine, eating well, being active and he grew to be the biggest Cutcutia I've ever owned.
I've racked my brain trying to think of anything that I did different that could have caused the deaths of two puffers, but the only thing I can think of is that tile I put in there. It wasn't added all that long ago, maybe a month before the deaths, and 2 days before the Cutcutia died, I did a water change and I actually moved the tile. So I think I stirred up whatever was leaking off it.

But I still can't figure out why none of my cherry shrimp died. I always heard that shrimp needed perfect water parameters, and if that's the case, then that just makes this situation even stranger. I can't leave that tank empty for too long because now that there's no puffer in there, I'm noticing lots of Malaysian Trumpet snails coming up and out of the substrate.

I was thinking of putting some guppies in there, but they aren't quite as sensitive as puffers, so that might not be a very good indication of what state the tank is in either. Not sure what to do. But kicking myself hard for making that stupid decision to put that tile in there! :(
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by Pufferpunk »

Keep in mind, there is only enough bacteria to support the life that is in there right now. When I add something like a med-sized puffer to a tank like that, I add Safestart.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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pufferpuggirl
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by pufferpuggirl »

It's only been without a puffer since Sunday, the 24th ... would I have lost significant bacteria in that time? And if I do get another puffer, it won't be very big, as the only one's I can source are rather small. And if necessary, I can always remove another filter from one of my other tanks to up the bacteria.

I just wish there was some way of knowing if the tank is clear enough to support the life of a puffer. I would hate to kill another puffer and lose the money too, so not really sure what to do. But I need to do something because my snail population is already starting to show itself.
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by Iliveinazoo »

Sorry to hear what happened.
2 thoughts would go through my head and one is that I could do about 10 100% water changes and hope that nothing had seeped into the substrate, and the other would be to bite the bullet and completely change the substrate and filter media and thoroughly clean the tank and filter with a mild bleach solution.

The second would be the one that I would have to recommend and the first would be something that I might try to 'get away with' knowing that it would probably end in disaster.
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pufferpuggirl
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by pufferpuggirl »

No offense, but I'm not going to remove everything and clean the tank with bleach. Thing is, right now I've got a large population of cherry shrimp in the tank, and I also have plants that have taken me months to grow on. So I'd be throwing all of that out, and I just can't see doing that. I think what I will do, until a time when I feel that tank is usable for puffers again, I will just put any new puffers in my other tanks. I can move things around and therefore I won't have to take a chance that something may or may not live in that particular tank. And if worse comes to worse, the tank will become my new shrimp tank. I have one upstairs, but I can combine them.

If I were to suss the tank out and get it "healthy" again, I'd probably move my dwarf puffers in there.

Once again, this has been a learning situation. Not ideal, but I still learned from it.
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by Iliveinazoo »

No offence taken - it's your tank. :D
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by Pufferpunk »

Safestart is cheap insurance, IMO.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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pufferpuggirl
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by pufferpuggirl »

I just wanted to give an update on my previously "poisoned tank". After doing a number of water changes and putting in two lots of the Poly Filter (which removes chemicals, etc. from the tank), my tank appears to be back to how it was before I ruined it and killed off two puffers.

I was given two very small puffers the other day, as the man who had them no longer wanted them and had been keeping them in a 2-gallon tank. So I took them and although some people may think it was wrong, I decided I'd put them in that tank and see if they lived. And they have. I've had them since Thursday and they are thriving, they are eating and they have plump little bellies. One is a F8 and one is a GSP. I know they are supposed to be kept in brackish water, but since they've been in fresh, I will be keeping them in fresh. I really don't have a tank I can make into a brackish tank, and if I were to convert the tank they are in, I'd lose all the plants that took me ages to get settled in, plus all my cherry shrimp that live in the tank as well.

So anyway, at least I was able to salvage a nice tank and use it again. Perhaps at some point in the future, I will once again attempt to get a Congo puffer ~ which is one of my favourite puffers.
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by Blinkey »

Although keeping the two puffers in FW sounds convenient to you, that sounds very unfair to the fish. What's the point in keeping fish (or any animal for the matter) when you can't provide them appropriate living conditions (?)
Hope for their sakes this is a temporary arrangement.
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pufferpuggirl
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by pufferpuggirl »

Well maybe you should consider what was going to happen to them if I hadn't taken them! (And this is why I rarely post on this forum, because it's mostly negative comments, not that I actually saved 2 puffers from certain death ... but hey, whatever).
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Re: Poisoned Tank

Post by pokeystar »

Am delighted that the tank has recovered. With two puffer fish in there I doubt the shrimp will be an issue for too long. Although I have some white shrimp in a high end brackish that went in as food and now live in the rocks and act as clean up at night.
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