puffer with cotton growth..help!!

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
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Read this before posting!!

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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manutius
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Post by manutius »

It was one of those moment when after I walked out I thought "I should have asked him how old they were" :lol:
jfudge01
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Post by jfudge01 »

wait...walrus. alright so the bacteria die without the fish in it? because i took all the fish out of the old tank because the ammonia levels were sky high (3.5) and started adding the biospira to that tank to lower those levels. i didnt wanna leave the fish in there because thats painful. you're saying i have to leave them in there? what should i do?

could i possibly just change the water and add bio spira from the start or will that be too stressful on the fish??
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Post by Nick »

Put one or two tough fish in there, and slowly add the rest. Ideally, you would have done a nearly 100% water change before adding the biospira to remove the existing ammonia and nitrites. Since the tank is filled with ammonia it will be ok for now, but just make sure as soon as you see the levels go down to near zero you add fish immediately, because it only takes a day or two for the bacteria to die without food.
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Post by Pufferpunk »

Do a 90% water change, don't use any ammonia-removing products, add the B-S to your filter & then immediately add fish.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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Boxermom
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Post by Boxermom »

jfudge01 wrote:... and im adding biospira by the gallon...
Ummm... Biospira doesn't come in gallons commercially for home use, and if it did, it would be horrifically expensive. Are you sure what you got is really Biospira?
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