The Puffer Forum

Hi ladies and gents! I've been lurking and soaking up as much info as I can for a while now and have some water readings to spit out. I have 1 GSP (2 inches roughly) and 1 lowly fish store saved F8 (very small and emaciated) that I've switched over to a 38G Marineland bow front. Half inch argonite substrate with 3 large river rocks and at 1.004 salinity, temp 78. Running an Aquaclear 70 along with a power head.

I kept my cycled sand and filter of course and about 10 gallons of previous tank water (as well as a live plant).

A day later my readings look like this:
Ammonia .5
PH 7.8
Nitirite .5
Nitrate 0

GSP is acting sluggish which I assume is because of the ammonia; thinking of a 50% water change and add more Prime.

Thoughts?

Keep up with as large & as often WC as is necessary to keep the ammonia/nitrite as close to 0 as possible. You could try Safestart, as the SG is so low or lower it even further, until the parameters are stable.

Did a 25% water change and added a bottle of Safestart....not Safestart plus though, not sure if that'll matter. I also have Prime.....do you recommend one over the other?

Also added a second filter, the 200 BioWheel that came with the bow front. Not a fan of this filter versus my Aquaclear but it'll do for now. Gives me 500 GPH combined with the AQ70. Does anyone know if I can fill it with the same media material as what's in my AQ70?

My GSP seems to be jetting around the tank now like he normally does so that's a good sign. I'll test my water again tomorrow. Thanks.

Safestart & Prime are 2 totally different products.

I wouldn't keep a GSP and fig. 8 together long-term, as they require different salt levels. The GSP will also likely end up becoming aggressive to the fig. 8. Is this currently a temporary arrangement?