The Puffer Forum

I'm currently cycling my tank with 2 guppies and a few snails in. I think it's been roughly 3 weeks now and today my ammonia has FINALLY gone yellow which indicates there's no ammonia according to the colour chart. However there is still a trace amount of nitrite present.

Is this looking pretty normal, can I expect the nitrite to go bye-bye in the next few days?

Not if there's nitrite. Keep in mind, you have only grown enough bacteria to support the waste of the fish that are in there now. A puffer will produce much more. That's why it's best to use the ammonia/fishless cycling method.

the guppies can't be very happy

I dunno they look happy surfing in the stream like loonies!

I know it's not cycled but is it definitely on its way? Is it normal to see ammonia drop first?

I'll be moving them to another home along with the other inhabitants when the puff comes along once nitrite also reads 0 for a few days. Then I'm going to do a water change, treat with Prime and keep seeding the tank with bacteria just in case the load of the Puffer is that much more than the others combined, only lightly feeding at first.

I was going to do fishless but the fish shop talked me out of it. I kinda wish I had now though because you can let the waste levels go higher so there's plenty of food for a big colony of bacteria.

Do you think I will get an ammonia spike on adding the guppies? I could take them out now and dump 4ppm ammonia in and finish fishless if it's worth it!

Probably will lose my reserved puffer but if I could lose it through poisoning I'm not risking it.

Or, you could just do a 90% WC, add Tetra Safestart to the filter & be done with it.

I did put safestart in but is hasn't taken care of the issue. However after today I think my test kit might be wacky.

I actually have 2 different branded kits for testing nitrite, my first one showed a tiny bit of it present however the second shows nill. So I took my water to 2 fish shops, both said the ammonia and nitrite is 0.

So now I'm confused. Gonna order an API kit which I was gonna get before, if that reads OK I guess I'm good to go!

Well it's still looking good do I'm going to pick up the Puffer tomorrow and just keep a very close eye on the water parameters, using my kit plus the shop for the first week or so. I'll be using Prime to treat the water too as a precaution.

Get some more safestart too, good luck

Well I picked him up plus another bottle of safestart to be sure and did a water change before hand.

He's bombing about the tank slaughtering the snails I left in thinking that he probably wouldn't eat for a while, it's literally like a massacre in there. Well at least I don't have be to worry about him being hungry!

I'm trying to figure out how much wormer to give him orally as the instructions say to dose the tank!

Did you add the safestart to your filter?

Yup! I split it between the two filters. I'm still continuing to add Stability on a daily basis just in case.

He's looking perky today and still has a nice white belly. I'm so paranoid he's gonna get sick from all the other posts about them getting ill I've read.

He's a complete pig and eats pretty much anything, bloodworms, clam in the shell or snails. I've obviously not fed him too much and removed the waste and uneaten food straight away though.

I still can't believe he annihilated all the snails I had left in, I really thought he'd be too stressed from the move to think about food!

I will leave it a week and continue to test the water before attempting to put salt in

Still testing the water daily. Ammonia is now showing 0, nitrite could possibly be showing on one test in tiny amounts and in my other test it's 0. Nitrates are going up very slowly. I've made a couple of water changes since he's been in just as a precaution.

I do think the Puffer is well though, he's very active and not shy at all. Even when I'm vacuuming the gravel he's following my hand around hoping to try a sample of my finger, absolutely not phased by anything!