Hi, I've had my 4 Dwarf Puffers in a tank in our tv room, for about 2 months now. The tank had previously had Rasboras and a African Clawed Frog in it, but I moved them out when I decided I wanted to start keeping Puffers (it all started with those little Dwarf ones). I'd never had any problems with this tank, but in the past few weeks it's been cloudy and very foul-smelling. I started doing water changes more regularly, but I have all my tanks on a weekly water change schedule. The tank would appear clear and I thought everything was fine. But when I'd test the water, the nitrites would always be way too high! I've since moved the Puffers to another tank I have already set up and I'm going to completely redo the tank they were in. My husband tried to tell me that by me doing all those water changes I was causing the problems in that tank, but I've always thought that doing water changes was a good thing. Does anyone out there think that I could have contributed to the problem with that tank? My husband said I was stirring up debris on the bottom each time I changed the water, but thing is, I didn't stir anything up, when I put the replacement water back in the tank, I always made sure that I didn't just pour it in so that it splashed debris around. I think my husband is wrong. I think doing the water changes is a good and necessary thing. I will continue to do water changes. He says I didn't have problems with any of the tanks until I started doing these weekly water changes, but I am going by the water tests, and if it's showing the nitrites being high, yes, I am going to change the water because I don't want to kill my fish.
Anyway, I'm going to fix that tank up and I'm going to get an Arrowhead Puffer to put in there. Looking forward to getting a bigger Puffer like that. I just have Dwarf and South American Puffers now.
So if anyone has any theories on why my tank might have had the smelly and cloudy water problem, I'd be happy to hear. I suppose I just want to be able to tell my husband that he's wrong and that it wasn't the water changes that was causing problems in the tank!
He's wrong. Some people I know that keep Discus do a 95% water change daily.
Do you have sand or gravel in that tank?
Do you vaccum the gravel or stir the sand each time you change the water?
If you don't this needs to be done on a weekly basis also to keep pooh and rotting food from building up and causing your tank to crash.
What do you feed your puffers?
How much do you feed them?
Could you be overfeeding causing the bad water quality?
What size tank is it?
This could happen again in any tank if your are not vaccuming the debris in the rocks or stirring the sand and if you are overfeeding.
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
schismy007 wrote:Hi, I've had my 4 Dwarf Puffers in a tank in our tv room, for about 2 months now. The tank had previously had Rasboras and a African Clawed Frog in it, but I moved them out when I decided I wanted to start keeping Puffers (it all started with those little Dwarf ones). I'd never had any problems with this tank, but in the past few weeks it's been cloudy and very foul-smelling. I started doing water changes more regularly, but I have all my tanks on a weekly water change schedule. The tank would appear clear and I thought everything was fine. But when I'd test the water, the nitrites would always be way too high! I've since moved the Puffers to another tank I have already set up and I'm going to completely redo the tank they were in. My husband tried to tell me that by me doing all those water changes I was causing the problems in that tank, but I've always thought that doing water changes was a good thing. Does anyone out there think that I could have contributed to the problem with that tank? My husband said I was stirring up debris on the bottom each time I changed the water, but thing is, I didn't stir anything up, when I put the replacement water back in the tank, I always made sure that I didn't just pour it in so that it splashed debris around. I think my husband is wrong. I think doing the water changes is a good and necessary thing. I will continue to do water changes. He says I didn't have problems with any of the tanks until I started doing these weekly water changes, but I am going by the water tests, and if it's showing the nitrites being high, yes, I am going to change the water because I don't want to kill my fish.
Anyway, I'm going to fix that tank up and I'm going to get an Arrowhead Puffer to put in there. Looking forward to getting a bigger Puffer like that. I just have Dwarf and South American Puffers now.
So if anyone has any theories on why my tank might have had the smelly and cloudy water problem, I'd be happy to hear. I suppose I just want to be able to tell my husband that he's wrong and that it wasn't the water changes that was causing problems in the tank!
SOOOOOOOO Wrong....
Your Filters could be the best in the business and you can over filter X5 but nothing is as good as a Water change and a gravel clean
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Exactly, water changes remove the dissolved "organics" from your water, where a filter just gathers them in one place, leaving the water dirty. In nature, water changes are constant (current in rivers, rainfall, oceans, etc don't have nearly as many fish per gallon as we do in our tanks and organics are generally not even measurable).
You can hurt your tank by suddenly starting water changes if you weren't doing them before, because your pH, etc will gradually change due to all the organics, then you do a water change, all your readings suddenly make a drastic change, the fish get shocked by the change, the biofilter can partially die... its all about keeping things constant.. Regular weekly water changes (most of us do 50%+) keep your levels nice and steady, by removing the organics and replacing with clean water to dilute anything harmful.
Okay, first of all, are you measuring NitrAtes or NitrItes, there's a difference, and a big one.
But the solution to either one, is... MORE water changes to dilute them down!
When I had a massive plant die off in my DP tank I did weekly %95 water changes after stirring up the gravel to get all the crud out, for about a month. That water is pristine and my DP's are alive and well.
The only thing I can think of is take a head count. When one of those lil critters go off to die they find the most inaccessable hidey hole in the tank and pass away, making body retrieval very difficult (One of my original 3 DP's passed away when I first got them...two remain...but trying to get that 3rd one out was a real pain...)
Personally, I'm not one to instantly say someone is wrong and pass off the blame. I think your husband's argument has some merit, but not for the reasons he thinks it does.
Doing weekly water changes without cleaning the gravel CAN cause spikes in toxins. Decaying matter in your tank releases ammonia, which is then converted to nitrite by the beneficial bacteria in your filter/substrate/decorations, and then to nitrate (which is the least toxic of the three). If even some of the debris is moved around, it will expose others, which could be why you're seeing spikes in toxin levels.
When you do a water change, are you putting in dechlorinator at the same time? If you're constantly barraging your bacteria with chlorinated water, you're going to kill that bacteria, which will result in that white cloudy look (which indicates a bloom in the beneficial bacteria as it recognizes the toxins it uses to feed on) and an increase in toxins. The water in my hometown is LOADED with chlorine/chloramine because they're poor at regulating it properly, so I know I could easily kill the bacteria in a tank if I had one set up there.
Lastly, if you had fish in there before and haven't stirred up the gravel much, it's incredibly likely that there is a dead and rotting fish somewhere in the tank. My suggestion would be to get a gravel vacuum of some sort (if you already have a Python, then you're set) and gravel vacuum that tank like crazy. Even if it's planted, it's much better to remove the waste than it is to have a few fertilized plants.
Also, check the parameters of your tap water. Numerous people on this forum have reported high Nitrate counts in their tap water, which can lead you to believe that it's being caused by your tank.
This situation sounds incredibly familiar to my 20 gallon community tank. Whenever I did water changes, it would look a tad cloudy the day after. This was because I wasn't vacuuming the gravel enough, and I was stirring up detritus, which was causing an increase in the bioload of the tank.
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Foul Dwarf Puffer Tank
