**********HELP NEW GSP'S(3) HALF HAPPY HELP********

[SammyDee]

This appears to be the best place to ask for concise answers to the question/s i have. i have been a succesful freshwater hobbist for 10 plus years and never had a single problem with any fish... well until now these puffers can be annoying to care for but so easy to love . "oh gosh darn, ma!" lol any way i put him in a 45 gal freshwater with others and quicky learned thats not gonna work. i know i shoulda researched it first yeah yeah so ibeen scouring this site for answers and have really educated myself about these little guys and their requirements. by know your saying hes gonna eat ur fish and he ate a tagir barb and paralyzed another? old news....so i now have him in a 20gal tank iknow its too small i am searching craigslist for a 55gal he is 2" now and has two others with him about a halif inch smaller. i was using aquarium salt at first but the big guy was healthy and colorful all around and was always pacing the glass which is annoying and the other two smaller ones were very curous and excited to eat but there color was not as good but they still have the bright spot on their heads. i want them to have that super bright irredecent glow. also none are showing stress lines but a lil grey on the sides of their mouths its not black its grey. so anyways its a 20g heavily planted tank which i will move to a larger one very soon within 4 weeks. also a real coral rock with a hole in it and a tree trunk cave(common) and lots of live plants. there is room to swim too. so today i began acclimating them to BW conditions using instant ocean salt to raise the salinity from .000 to 1.002 i am new to this remember so ... the salinity now reads 1.004 is this BAD or OK but next time make sure i only raise.002. ?(also wats the easist way to maintain the salinity and raise it while doing fills or water changes?) my specs now are as follows and what my main question is how to lower or higher anything safely AMM,NIT, etc. here are the specs PH8.4,ALKALINiTY 80-120, HARDNESS 300, NITRATES 20-40, NITRITES 10.0 (BAD i know ) , AMMONIA .25 or lil bit lower. i have been doing weekly water changes and one today when i did the ocean salt. the water was prestine looking. so i added 10 drops of PH down , added one packeage of ALGONE NITRATE REMOVER for a 125 g but it was all i had. should i take it out soon? I also added water conditioner before and more after testing to lower the ammonia/chlorine. i will test tomarrow cuz now its late like 2:30am so someone with long time experienced help me keep these guys happy tell mewhat you think i should do and also if you have any other tips to make this not complicated. thx SammyDee oh yeah i also need 3 names for these guys got any idears hit me up. Ill check back here or you can email me at ChefSamD@Gmail.com Ps i used water from my very well established freshwater tank cuz he was beatin up on em lol.so i hope this isnt a cycling prob. THX AGAIN YOUR RESPONSE IS APPRECIATED SINCE MY LFS AND WALMART ARE DUMB.

[pufferpuggirl]

My first question is, did you cycle this tank, and if so, for how long? I realise you're not new to fish-keeping, but is the filter you're using matured? Only reason I ask is because your nitrates are high and nitrite a little high. And also don't forget, if you raise your salinity too quickly, it will kill your bio-filter, so that's something to consider.

[SammyDee]

no it wasnt cycled i used water from my FW tank that was years old but very healthy. was this bad should i do something like puthe filter from my other tank on it. or too late cuz now theres salt in it?

[SammyDee]

please tell simplyhow the bacteria works and when i clean my filter wat to clean. my FW tank filter gets really bad ita AquaCLear 70 on a 40g tank i just found out im not suppose to clean the spongy thing i have always cleaned the sponge,carbon bag, and the substrate things on top. my BW tank has the cartrigde style you know the flat blue square ones how should i properly be cleaning the filters without doing harm to the beneficial bacteria growth. also do u think i should put the gsps in something and use insta cycle

[SammyDee]

also please suggest the type of filters i need when i set up a bigger tank that will be high end BW

[pufferpuggirl]

Okay, well thing is, using just the water from your other tank isn't good enough I'm afraid. You should have moved the filter over to the tank you wanted your puffers to be in, that way it would effectively be cycled. So actually what you've done is put your puffers in an uncycled tank. Now what I do when I start a new brackish tank, is I start off with freshwater, if I'm using a mature filter from another tank, and I build up the salinity very slowly, so the bacteria has a chance to adjust to the change, otherwise you will just kill whatever good bacteria was in the filter and then you're back to square one again.

If you can get something that works, to "instantly" cycle your tank, that might be the best bet here. And I would try and get the tank right before worrying about getting the salinity right, again that's just my opinion.

When I clean my filters, I always leave one sponge "uncleaned" thereby insuring that some good bacteria remains in the sponge. So if you've got 2 sponges, just wash the one, but not the other, and I am guessing you know better than to rinse in tap water? I'm not sure what you mean by cleaning the "substrate things on top", but I do nothing more than vacuum up uneaten food every morning, but I try not to disturb anything else because again, there's beneficial bacteria on some ornaments, etc., and you don't want to rape all the good bacteria.

Because you are in the US and I'm in the UK, I can't suggest any filter for you to use in your high-end BW tank, but I'm sure someone else will come along to this thread and help you out there.

Is this more helpful to you?

[SammyDee]

i was told to not clean the filter with hot water from the LFS so i have been using tap wat should i use water from the tank ?

[SammyDee]

also the fish dont sem stressed should i just leave it now and let it do its this for a feew days or weeks? rather than insta cyle and have to transfer them to something and stress them more or am i really at a danger zone and should do it?

[SammyDee]

i did kinda rush them to a new tank B/c of advice i took from the LFS they said itll be cool to use the mature water. they were eating my other fish so... had to move em quick i am now realizing i am not that knowlegable b/c i never had to cycle a tank cuz thetanks i got were used and mature. oops thanks again your advice is greatly appreciated. also if i did cycle it, it will bring the levels nitrate,and nitrite down

[SammyDee]

just curious what do you mean buy vaccum are u using a syphon tube or a battery operated one with the little baggy on it or hose or something better also id love to see some pics i watch ppls tanks online as much as my own

[pufferpuggirl]

You should NEVER clean your filter under tap water, each time you do that you are effectively killing the bacteria that are there, and then back to square one again.
Well thing is, your puffers are in an cycled tank, they might make it or they might not. Personally I would try and get it sorted, and yes, it will bring nitrates and nitrite, ammonia, etc., all down if you get the tank cycled. If you care about your puffers, you will try to get it sorted. If you leave it, you are basically leaving them to go through the cycle which isn't very kind and can be potentially dangerous to them.

I use an air-powered vacuum that has a little bag, it doesn't remove the water, it just removes waste and uneaten food. I do that religiously every morning to get out what's not been eaten the day before.

I know you didn't know it, but you should always take what the LFS says with a grain of salt, most of the time, they don't know what they are talking about, and most of them employ people who haven't got a clue about keeping fish, much less keeping puffers.

[SammyDee]

thanks a ton i will do it today and i think they will survive they are looking healthly all around.should i use water from thetank when cleaning the filter? any other advice is welcome too. also how long should it take to cycle the tank?

[SammyDee]

specs are now as follows: nitrate 20-40
Nitrite 10.0
hardness-300
alkalinity 80-120
ph-7.8-8.4
ammonia -0
do you think the other levels are too high and if so how to fix?

[pufferpuggirl]

Yes ALWAYS use water from the tank to clean anything that comes out of the aquarium, that way you keep the bacteria, which is what you want.

Ideally you want the nitrite to be "0", and of course nitrate as low as possible, however mine comes out of the tap at 40ppm, so sometimes it's not so easy to get that down. But at least your ammonia is "0". One last thing, what sort of test are you using? Strips are useless, the best one to use is liquid where you add something to the aquarium water and then check it, that's optimum.

It depends on how long to cycle the tank. If you had brought the old filter over to the new tank, then the tank would have effectively been cycled, but all that word means is that you have sufficient bacteria to handle the ammonia and nitrites that are caused by fish waste and excess food. When you have the right balance, your tank is "cycled".

[Pufferpunk]

You've got a lot of reading to do!
Check out our Library for the Fishless Cycling article, Emergency Cycling & Green Spotted Puffers.