Alright so i had a previous post asking for help on my brachish water tank because my gsp had fungus growing on it. turns out my ammonia was at 3.5 (ya i know burning my fish alive-- i was new to tanks and didnt know u needed to cycle them) so i made an emergency spare tank, and got completely new water for the first tank, added 6 tbsp salt to 30 gallons of water, looked, found, and added Biospira and the new fish. i had my water tested yesterday, 48 hours after the biospira was added, ammonia is at 0.0, nitrites are at 0.0, all seems well. i also added a small heater and the water is now at 77 degrees, whereas before it had been at 71. i also added an 800water pump and an air pump/stones to aid with circulation/oxygenation since i dont have any live plants.
now my GSP was still sick, but was looking a bit better when i had him in the second tank. i had added melafix and pima fix to the water. but now with all the fish back in the first tank, the GSP has regrown a lot of his cottony growth and my other puffer, a f8 puffer, has a lot of ick on him; ie what look like sugar crystals all over him. now they are both laying on the bottom of the tank almost lifeless. i really am trying to cure them, im adding melafix and pimafix everyday for 3 days now. im making sure they have enough food allthough they seem to have lost interest in the frozen bloodworms i give them.
what do i do now? does pima/melafix cure ick?
for those who need to know i have a 3"pleco, the puffers are about 2.5" long, i have 3 1" tetras, and 2 3" guaramis making up 17 inches of fish in a 30 gallon tank (what i have been told is sufficient?) i know the puffers will need more space when they grow up but i figure ill get to that later.
any help with curing my puffers would be greatly appreciated.
Good tank; Sick puffers; Couple questions.
Forum rules
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.
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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Nick
- Former Staff Member
- Posts: 3231
- Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:47 pm
- My Puffers: Mine:
GSPs - Shakespeare and Jillybean
F8 - Velvet
My fiance:
DP - Emma Goldman
Narrow Lined Puffer - Ulrike - Location (country): Northeastern USA
- Location: Middletown, CT
- Contact:
The salt will cure the ich, just takes a month or so to get going. You can't keep those fish with the puffers though, period, the puffers are brackish fish. You need marine salt for them. The puffers can't even stay together for all that long, the figure 8 is nearly grown and should have an SG of 1.005, and the GSP is half grown and needs an SG about twice that soon. Fungus is VERY common in puffers that are being held at an SG below their ideal, it's a plauge in fish stores where they rarely have a brackish tank. Either of those SG will kill or extreemly shorten the life of the other fish. Leave the GSP on his own in the 30, get a 15 for the F8, and another tank for the remaining fish if they are important to you.
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