New F8, have different question

[nurseshel]

Hi,

I have a new figure 8 named Ozzie in a 20 gallon cycled tank (moved other friends to different tanks). He is currently in fresh water due to fresh water in pet store. I am familiar with converting to brackish and I had a figure 8 about 20 years ago but I had to give him away when I was in nursing school because I didn't have time to care for a tank.

If I have the opportunity to have both my cycled filter on the tank (freshwater), and a cycled filter from a friend who is taking down a saltwater tank ... would I then be able to switch to brackish faster because of the friendly saltwater bacteria (clearly not overnight or anything)? Or would you still do it the same rate? I'm hesitant so I wanted to get others opinion on this. I've only done it slow with a hydrometer.

Another question ... he does have some tail damage from being in the store. Would you use both melafix and a low level of salt now (like 1 tsp per gallon)? He has a slight opaqueness to the center of his tail but no decay on the edges.

Otherwise he is happy, good weight, happy to eat, swimming around well and exploring, and good color / white tummy, no signs of stress. He is larger for a new store puff, almost 1.75 inches.

Thanks!

[Welch4]

Not sure what your friend was running for a filter on his salt water tank. This is normally done with live rock and a skimmer. Skimming won't work at the brackish levels your tank needs to be at. The only scenario that would work is if you had a filter off a brackish tank at the same salinity levels. If you vary the specific gravity more than .02 at a time you will have die off. So this .02 deviation is in either direction. So if your friend was running was running a hang on or canister filter, which they shouldn't have, you would still need to back the salinity down by .02 per week or you will crash the bacteria and be back to square 1.

Glad you asked the question I had the same one when I was raising the salinity in my green spotted puffer tank. Hope this helps.

I would recommend starting raising the salinity with the filter you have. The melafix should do the trick.

[nurseshel]

Hi,

It is actually a hang on filter ... not sure what he has in addition to that though. I don't know what he had in there either, I would have to ask and see what he says. It was also a 20 gallon, maybe a mini-reef but I'm just speculating. If the salinity would need to be the same then I will just stick with what I have. I was thinking of running both in tandem to see if I could get the benefit of both types of good bacteria while I upped the salt gradually. If they would just die off because the salinity isn't the same then there isn't any point in running two filters. Mine is a Fluval C2 - it's a decent filter for the tank. I'm glad I don't have a bigger one because Ozzie is clearly not accustomed to filter intakes and got stuck on it twice the first day ... he has gotten wiser and hasn't come that close again now. The pet store had a sponge filter so he didn't have to worry about filter intakes there. Fluval does have a sponge cover I can put on if he has the issue again but he hasn't since Saturday when I brought him home so I think he's got it.

Already put Melafix in Thanks! I just didn't know if the extra salt would be beneficial or stressful. If he was a molly and not a puff I would add it but since he has no scales was thinking to not but wanted to check.

Thank you!

[Welch4]

I always use sponge prefilters on all of my intakes. It is safer for your fish, extends the life if the filter, and allows me to toss friends established filter media just by removing the prefilters.

[bertie 83]

Adding the s/w filter will likely cause mass die off of bacteria in it. Just up your sg slowly you don't have far to go. You ca add the extra filter just thoroughly flush the media through or even better replace and add some of your media to it

[nurseshel]

Ozzie ended up dying a few days later ... his tail ended up much worse than it looked the first day when it was just some cloudiness on his tail in the center and had added melafix. By day two he had fin rot really bad (looked completely shredded when I woke up) and I added pimafix to the melafix on day two. Day three continued pimafix and melafix he wouldn't eat live food, and day four he died in the morning I had a bad feeling about getting him with tail damage, especially when the person at the store wanted to get me a different one, but he was the last one left. I thought it would be okay and nothing a little melafix wouldn't fix right up. I should have just waited until they got more puffers in stock so I could choose one that was in better condition.

We ended up buying a 30 gallon tank off of craigslist with a canister filter that has been running for a few years. It came with a 9" pleco and some other community fish. At some point we will find homes for the other fish and get another puffer. I'm not sure when ... it will be when they have more than one in stock so we can choose one that looks good. So we have a future puffer palace. We took down the 20 gallon because it's too sad.

[Pufferpunk]

So sorry for your loss. The"fix" meds are only antiseptic. When they are really infected, you need to use real antibiotics.