The Puffer Forum

Hi all I've got a sick mbu here

I've recently moved house so mbu is temp in a 5x2x2 much to small I know while the new 8x4x3 ply tank is in cycle as I managed to bring about 40% of the water out of the 5 footer I figured it would be best to keep him in a cycled tank and water he's used to for now about ten days ago I decided to clean out on of my externals which in turn led to a nitrate spike I've been doing daily 30/50% water changes since however he has now developed finrot on his tail I started treating with king british finrot and fungus not knowing if it was bad for him or not it was all I could get quickly without having to travel or wait for it to come offline since adding the treatment the puffer has stopped eating for about a week now he's spending all his time on the top of the tank in the flow of one of the filters his fin rot has got incredibly worse he has now got what looked like a heater burn which now looks to have a secondary infection looks abit like fungus I noticed the filament barb was nipping his tail so I removed them the water parimeters are now 0 nitrites 0 ammonia and 30 nitrate ( will be lowered to 20 ) just risen because of the nitrate spike ph7 tank mates are now 3 silver sharks a syndontis and a golden gourami is there anything more I can do to help this guy out (salt bath etc) he's around 11inches now and has done so well up to now I would hate to loose him while his new tank is so close to been ready I've only just been told about melafix so am going to order some in just wondering if anyone could shed any advice on the matter it would be much appreciated

Are you sure you mean nitrAte spike? Because cleaning a filter would not do this. What ingredients are in the meds you are using?

Hi pufferpunk thank you for the fast reply yes it was a spike in nitrates they have always stayed on 20 but shot up to 80 Ammonia and nitrites stayed on 0ppm I'm not saying it was the filter cleaning that caused it but it happened the day after the filter cleaning so presumed it was to do with this. The medication contains 2-phenoxyethanol 5.66% w/w

what is the nitrate of your tap water?
I looked up phenoxyethanol & i'm not sure this is a good med for your fish. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with meds available to you in the UK. I am treating a fish right now (sucessfully) with Kanaplex, Furan 2, Pimafix & salt (1tbsp/10g).