The Puffer Forum

Treating all the fish is not a problem. Just to be safe, I would. Excellent article on IPs in our Library.

BTW folks, nitrite & nitrate is tha same as ammonia. They do not come as a plural. It's like saying ammonias.

Nitrates: about 35-40ppm ("ideal")



Glad you're getting it sorted, but just so you know... that nitrate reading is way too high for puffs....

normal tropical could handle it, but it's not good for puffs....

extra water changes needed to remove the nitrates..... should be <10....

Also, I believe you can use Prime to help temporarily reduce the toxicity of the Ammonia and Nitrite until the bacteria forms in your filter. At least, that's what the bottles says! ^_^ It is also a dechlorinator, which is a staple item to have.

The bottle (surprisingly) tells no lies!

Yeah i think im going to have to isolate him. Hes REALLY thin i just fed them and his stomachs puffed up but down by the base of the tail its extremely thin and hes REALLY small compared to the rest of them. Yeah i moved the log the other day when i cleaned the tank out. havent noticed any food under there since, now it lays right in the middle of the tank in the open and is much easier to scoop out. lol does this python thing have a vacuum on it? and if so do you think it would work with sand? I want to buy a vacuum but im afraid that it will just suck up all the sand lol

Yeah the python does. I syphon sand and lose very little to no sand.

lol i didnt see the second page of this lol and since i hear that pufferpunk is the puffer guru on this site i think im gonna take his/her advice and treat them all just in case. yeah BTW the 35-40 ppm nitrate thing i just tested again today i meant to put "okay" and not ideal lol sorry but good news is its down to 20ppm today which according to the strip is still in the "okay" area. everything else is still in the "ideal" areas. I will be doing a water change probobly tomorrow or wed and see where the levels are at and keep you posted (hopefully on salinity also lol). im going to read up more on this pumpkin seed thing.


Crazedpuffer - Do you have fine sand or the more coarse stuff? Mine is the really fine stuff. its like hourglass sand lol

PP is most definitely a her

but I hear the pumpkin seed thing is great. and to use meds as a last minute resort...

I do i with my very fine sand and sorta coarse sand without any problem.

With sand, you should hand-stir it & let the dirt settle on top, then skim over it with the Python. Definately sucks up my sand.

LOL ok well ill give the python a try and see if it works out. After reading about everything puffer health and food related the pumpkin seeds sound the best and im still concerned with what to feed them. i went to the pet store and they said not to introduce snails into my tank because they "will become parasitic" but i cant seem to find any shelled foods even in the grocery store, so i guess my next question is are the krill hard enough to keep their beaks trimmed? and if they are what other food have you found is the best for one and a half inch GSP's? I read the food section in the library and it says mussles and scallops and worms and such but i live in michigan so i cant find much of anything still in the shell that comes from the sea here lol maybe i took that the wrong way and just need the meat from them. but im still concerned with the teeth thing...

just get a couple of snails... the puffs will eat them before they become parasitic...

if you have another tank then you can get lots of snails and breed them...

Krill is treat only food, on a staple...

LFS rarely know what they're talking about when it comes to puffs.

Ugh, when they said "parasitic", they meant that snails will INFEST the tank, in the sense that they will keep multiplying and you will have tons of them. What they forget when saying this is that puffers eat snails like candy. So, in other words, ignore the worries about your tank becoming infested with snails, because the puffers will eat them before they even hit the ground!

I agree with t1gerbee, set up a 10 gallon tank (or 2 of them) and start breeding snails and shrimp (small shrimp like Cherry shrimp or Ghost shrimp). The shrimp also have some crunch factor in them, and they're great for puffers, especially because they still have to hunt for them! The only snails I'd try to avoid are MTS snails. As I *just* found out, they actually are extremely hard (watched my Abei wrestle with one, and could hear him crunching!). However, you can crush them with your fingers quite easily (if it doesn't bother you, of course), and the puffers seem to like that. But, since getting the snails is the first part, I'd just avoid MTS snails and pick up other types. Personally, I think the Ramshorns and Apple snails look the coolest, and they can even get decently large, which makes them good candidates for puffers that get a little larger (like GSPs).