Saw the healthiest baby GSP ever...

Tihsho · Post by **Tihsho** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 8:55 pm

So far it seems that whats left of the ich that one of the puffs had most of it dissipate since this morning. Now they just seem to be giving eachother the stare down. It's really weird though, I have 3 small pieces of PVC in the tank as reffuges but neither of them have once been in them! Maybe there clostrophobic puffs, heh.

Tihsho · Post by **Tihsho** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:00 pm

Well, I was posting before (in marine aquarium part of the forum) but I just wanted to put this here to see if it was possible to keep LR in a brackish tank? And if so what SG? I have a strong feeling LR can only be kept in marine conditions though. The main reason I ask is because it seems that keeping up with these GSPs are not going to be easy (well financially) just due to the amount of salt I seem to keep buying to keep making the solution for water changes or topping off the tank when water evaporates.

Going to look for a skimmer and LR saturday so hopfully I can get a response by then...

Thankz for all the help you guys have already given me, its helping me expand my knowledge

Pamela · Post by **Pamela** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:22 pm

Don't top off with salt solution....only H2O evaporates, not the salt.
Just add fresh water to top off, that way you're always in control of the SG, and you'll be saving salt!
Glad to hear they're doing great.
Pami.

Post by **RTR** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 5:32 pm

If you can get it without great cost or effort, RO or DI is super for top-off, restores water chemistry without adding anything but H2O. If you are doing good partials, it is less significant.

Tihsho · Post by **Tihsho** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:02 pm

Actually, I think I have a RO DI system (that is if it is the little canister that you attatch to your faucet and the canister contains beaded material that removes things in the water.) If thats a RO DI system I will sure use it.

So how bout LR, can it be kept in highish brackish? Or does the bacteria need full marine?

Post by **RTR** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:02 am

To me, live rock is full marine.

Tihsho · Post by **Tihsho** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:15 pm

Ok, will have to start looking for marine equipment again...

PetPirate · Post by **PetPirate** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:41 am

I would bump up the salinity more than .002. Bump it up to 1.010 minimum.. could do it over the course of a few hours. A bigger jump than that and you'd need to take longer.

This will really give the puffers the best chance to fight off the ich. If you raise the salinity gradually, by a few points each week, by the time you're killing off the parasites, the fish are already too far gone.

Of course, your bio-filter will be toast. But in a 6g tank with 2 puffers, this is going to happen anyway - and any other treatment protocol would also likely knock the bio-filtration for six. If they begin responding well, you might bump them up to marine salinity over a couple of weeks and employ marine filtration strategies. But this will depend on their response to the salinity increase (I bet it is positive though).

In the meantime, you're looking at daily water changes. Make sure you have plenty of aged saltwater on hand, and try to keep the parameters as pristine as possible. You can do big changes if you can match the temperature, salinity and KH.

This is all IMO - what I would do in your situation.

PetPirate · Post by **PetPirate** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:42 am

Tihsho wrote:These guys keept worrying me. I look in the tank in the morning and there soooo dark and then slowly brighten up but are the brightest once they have been fed. The only problem I see so far (other then whats left of the ich on just one puff (and yes I did say ich on only one puff ))

Also,,, you can't draw any conclusions about the ich... it's natural life-cycle is to drop off periodically and attach to the substrate. Once you have seen no ich for at least 4 weeks, then you can say that one or both fish are "ich - less"

Tihsho · Post by **Tihsho** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 7:34 pm

I got rid of their ich a long while back. Maybe a month or so ago atleast. One of them still likes to mope around till food comes in the tank.

Post by **RTR** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 8:04 pm

The reason for slow adaptation has nothing whatsoever to do with fish - drip acclimatization over hours would do for them. Too fast adjust of specific gravity can wipe out the bacteria rather than allowing for slow development of SW nitrification bacteria as the FW bacteria are slowed down and killed. So unless you plan on massive daily water partials, stick to slow density changes.

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Saw the healthiest baby GSP ever...